Client
Stratum Audio
YEAR
Stratum started as a question: why does modulation still feel like plumbing? Every major DAW gives you the tools but connecting them means drawing wires, hunting through menus and losing the thread of what you were actually trying to build. The brief was to design a modulation instrument that felt like an instrument something a producer could pick up and play without a manual, but that rewarded depth the more time they spent with it.
The core constraint was clarity under creative pressure. Mid-session, a producer can't afford to think about signal flow. Every decision in Stratum had to reduce that friction to zero.
The Glass Rack. Audio flows down the centre column. Modulation sources drop in on the left. Macro controls live on the right. This isn't just a layout — it's a mental model. Once you understand the three-column structure, you understand the whole instrument. Nothing is hidden, nothing requires explanation.
Touch to map. Conventional modulation routing requires menus, dropdowns, or patch cables. In Stratum you select a source, then touch a knob. The mapping ring glows the colour of the source. The relationship is visible at a glance. This was the interaction that defined everything else.
Six dials as a performance surface. The Shell Dials sit above the rack and control whatever you assign them to. They're not channel faders or transport controls — they're a custom front panel you build yourself. In Perform mode, they fill the screen. The instrument you designed becomes the instrument you play.
Recipes, not patches. Presets in most tools are static snapshots. Stratum's recipes are named, coloured, switchable signal chains each with its own steps, modulators, and macro assignments. Switching recipe is switching instrument.
Web-first with no compromises. Building on the Web Audio API meant real signal processing in the browser — no install, no DAW dependency. The constraint became the feature. Anyone with a link can play Stratum.
Stratum will be launching as a beta web instrument built in a single sprint, it ships with a full modulation rack, per-recipe state, file audio input, and a performance mode. The landing page went live the same day.
The response was immediate. Visitors from twelve countries within hours an average session of nearly five minutes and a growing waitlist of producers, engineers and developers who want to shape what it becomes next.
DAW plugin version is in the roadmap. The design is already the spec.
LET'S WORK
Building a plugin, a platform, or something that doesn't fit a category yet, if the people using it can't afford a broken workflow, we should talk.
