SWAM VARIFLUTE

The SWAM VariFlute introduces Audio Modeling’s new Discovery line of affordable physically modeled instruments. Powered by the same sound engine as flagship SWAM instruments, 

VariFlute lets you design custom flutes and pipes with precise control over tube type, material, pipe length, diameter, aperture, breath noise, and ambient room settings. Explore recorders, pan flutes, bansuris, shakuhachis, and imaginative hybrids in one versatile plugin.

Key Features of SWAM VariFlute

• Advanced Physical Modeling: Built with the same powerful engine used in Audio Modeling’s flagship SWAM instruments—no sampling involved.
• Endless Customization: Control over tube type, material, size, aperture, and breath noise allows users to morph the instrument’s personality to their needs.
• Ambiente Integration: Comes with the embedded Ambiente Room Simulator, allowing full spatial positioning and mix cohesion across multiple instances.
• Multiple Plugin Formats: Available as VST, VST3, AU, AAX (macOS, Windows), AUv3, and IAA (iOS), as well as a standalone app.
• Full Accessibility: Optimized for screen readers and keyboard navigation.
• Controller-Friendly: Compatible with MIDI keyboards, wind controllers, breath controllers, and MPE devices.
• Cross-Platform

The Affordable Entrée into the World of Advanced Physical Modeling

Designed to lower the entry barrier into the world of expressive physical modeling, VariFlute is a deeply versatile aerophone plugin that allows users to explore, customize, and create flutes and pipe instruments like never before.

• Real-time expressive control without static limitations
• Infinite customization of sound and instrument design
• Compact performance without the need for large sample libraries

With VariFlute, musicians, sound designers, and curious creators can morph the instrument into a wide variety of acoustic and imagined flutes—from recorders and bansuris to pan flutes, shakuhachis, and hybrid fantasy instruments. All of this is made possible through Audio Modeling’s state-of-the-art physical modeling engine—no samples required.

The Discovery Line

The SWAM VariFlute launches a brand-new product category for Audio Modeling: SWAM Discovery. These virtual instruments feature the same sound engine as flagship SWAM instruments but are designed for discovery, learning, and artistic experimentation. 

Ambiente Room Modeling Technology

You have the power to choose the room’s size and absorption materials, letting you move effortlessly from the intimacy of a dry studio space to the resonance of a grand cathedral. Shape your sound further by adjusting microphone proximity—draw it in for breathy detail or pull it back for spacious, enveloping reverb. With SWAM’s Room Simulator, every nuance of your flute performance is placed in an acoustic environment with precision, from the first breath at the embouchure to the final note ringing through the hall.

You can control the Room Simulator directly within SWAM VariFlute. Whether fine-tuning room size, absorption, or mic placement, everything is at your fingertips inside the plugin, giving you expressive, customizable spaces for any performance or experiment.

Free With Swam Flutes

SWAM VariFlute is free for all SWAM Flutes owners — current and new. If you already own SWAM Flutes, simply visit www.audiomodeling.com and log in to your User Portal: VariFlute will be available for you to download at no additional cost.

Signature Presets

VariFlute is designed to enable deep customization and the creation of unique user and artist presets. Its advanced modeling engine allows for expressive, character-rich instruments to be crafted with ease.

Interested in designing presets? These parameters have the most profound effect on modeling the resulting sound and "personality" of your SWAM VariFlute:

Tube Type

Choose how sound is generated:

• Holes - Open Pipe: Notes are achieved by covering holes on the pipe’s body and triggering different harmonic modes. The pipe model is open at both ends and has a rich sound. All kinds of flutes and single-column aerophones fall in this category.
• Slide - Closed Pipe: Notes are achieved by changing the length of the resonant
  section in a sliding manner, like a coulisse would. The pipe model is closed at one
  end, enhancing odd harmonics, and has a hollow sound. Slide flutes fall in this
  category.
• Multi Pipe - Closed Pipe: notes are achieved by exciting a different pipe for each
  note. Again, this is the closed pipe model, but imagined in a set, where the energy is
  isolated for each tube, and there is little to no interaction between consecutive notes. Pan flutes fall into this category.

Material

Controlled by the Resonance parameter: it changes the internal resonance of the pipe, emulating different pipe construction materials and densities. Wood, Bamboo, Metal, Plastic, etc. – affects sustain and presence of the sound.

Pipe Length

Determines the instrument’s base pitch and playable range by modifying its overall length. Useful to morph the instrument from piccolo, to concert flute, to bass flute and beyond, changing how it responds to the same note. The range features an additional lower octave extension marked with a green hue on the virtual keyboard on screen.

Pipe Diameter

Imagined as the pipe’s internal size, it helps to convey the instrument’s “bigness”: it impacts the modal characteristics, brightness and static resonances of the pipe, from a small tin whistle to a large organ cane.

Aperture

Controls the spectral characteristics of the pipe, balancing between odd and even harmonics. Perfect for subtle timbre adjustments or radical instrument morph.

Breath Noise

Add airiness from the pipe embouchure to enhance the notes’ attack and roughness of the instrument, or remove it for a rounder, cleaner sound.

Discover more!

Explore the different menus to dial in the perfect combination of parameters such as: influence of dynamics on pitch and overtone triggering, simple and effective timbre variations, finer high frequencies control, etc.

Videos

System Requirements

MacOS:

• macOS 10.13 (High Sierra) – 14 (Sonoma)
• Standalone, Audio Units, VST, VST3, AAX 64bit
• NKS (Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol)
• Apple Silicon architecture supported natively (AAX Silicon supported natively starting from v3.7.0)

Windows:

• Windows 10, Windows 11
• Standalone, VST, VST3, AAX 64bit
• NKS (Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol)

Small footprint!

• Required space after installation: 16 MB per single plugin format + 15 MB for shared resources and assets, 240 MB for the complete Solo Strings bundle (all plugin formats).
• RAM occupancy: about 15 MB per instrument instance.

CPU load

• The realism and expressiveness of SWAM instruments require a computer with at least a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU for running a single plugin instance. Less powerful systems may also prove satisfactory, but may require larger buffer sizes, involving higher latencies.