I'm tired of explaining it, so explore! Have fun! Make noise! Inspect the stock presets to see what does what. Don't put the sound up too high while doing so. Seismic can smash eardrums and peel paint.
1: Those are Waves. What you see is what you get. Double-click it to get a pick screen to choose the Wave or Node you want. If you choose a Node, it will use the results of the Mixer from that Node. It is possible to use a Node in itself or create loops. If the Wave and its label are changing constantly, shift-click on it to see who's in control. If you are using a Sample Mixer, double-clicking the first Wave will bring up the Sample pick screen.
2: This is the Node in question. Click to get a small menu to Mute, Clear, Copy or Paste a Node. This should work between different instances of Seismic.
3: Here is the Mixer. It does things to/with the Waves to combine them
into something glorious. The Wave that shows is the results of its operation
on the two Waves. Double-click it to choose a different Mixer. Sometimes
Wave 2 is mixed in, sometimes it acts as an LFO shape. Sometimes, it is just
ignored. Poor Wave 2.
4: These are the settings Knobs for the Mixer. Their labels and purpose are different for each Mixer. If the value is constantly changing, shift- click the knob to see who's in control. Double-click a knob to set it's value at the half-way point. Click and drag to change the value, shift-click and drag for finer control. Click on the values below the knobs to manually edit them.
5: Those are the Zots! They used to be decorative, but now they have a purpose in life: To display a small FFT window. Groovy.
6: This is the name of the game. Click here to get the Settings window and where to open this useless Help.
7: This is the Copyright. It will also light up with bright cyan Tool Tips as you move the mouse around.
8: This green bit is the name of the Patch. Click on it to change it. You must Save the Patch afterwards or the change will be lost. A new name will create a new Patch, a used name will unceremoniously overwrite the old Patch.
9: This is the Cutoff knob for the Master Filter. This is applied at the very end of things. It is essentially paraphonic.
10: These are the labels for the Master Cutoff and Master Q knobs. Click on either to get a small popup to select a Master Filter or to turn on or off the 16X Anti-Alias filter that's applied after the Master Filter. Okay, so I lied—the Master Filter is not the last thing the signal goes through.
11: This is the Master Q knob. If the Cutoff is set all the way up AND the Q is set all the way down, the Master Filter will be bypassed. The tone may jump when the filter kicks in.
12: Click here to select a new Patch to load. It will present a pick screen. Click on a Patch to load it, shift-click a Patch to unceremoniously delete it. It will never be seen again.
13: Click here to Save your Patch. See 8.
14: Panic! Click here to disable the signal and to clear out any notes. Click again to restart.
15: Click here to select a Scala alternate Scale.
Seismic can hold up to 128 Patches, Samples, or Scales, each with its own folder. On the Mac, right- (or control-) click the plug-in file and select “Show Package Contents” to access the Resource folder where these folders are located. On Windows, you can't miss them.
Select this Wave to turn Seismic into an effect. Doing so will turn off Pitch Tracking. As an effect, Seismic is always monitoring the audio in, so Waves other than Nodes cannot be mixed in without the Wave being played constantly. Any of the Mixers may be applied. Still experimental, very, very dirty. Don't touch. It's very, very, very dirty.
The Sampler has four modes, depending on what is selected for Wave 2.
Perfect Sample Playback: This gives pretty much Sample-perfect playback, pitched according to the Root note specified by Knob 2. Choose Sample for Wave 2.
Plain Sample Playback: After selecting your Sample, set Wave 2 to Silence to enable this mode. Use Knob 2 to tune your Sample to get the best sound.
Audio In Playback: This mode is mostly experimental for now as the audio is very dirty. No need to choose a Sample, just set Wave 2 to Audio In.
Modulated Sample Playback: This mode is best for Sample mangulation and exploration. Choose any Wave other than Sample, Silence or Audio In for Wave 2 to be the modulator. Single-Cycle Waveforms with fewer than 1024 Samples are now automatically expanded to be used as plain Waves. Set both knobs to 0 to use this feature.
Do what you want with it. Free software provided for free. Just don't come crying to me if your Nuclear Reactor melts down. Seismic is only for making the Sweet, Sweet, Beautiful Noise!