Instruments / Crystal Synth
Shards
Lay the stones. Play the altar.
Thirty-eight raw crystals on an altar of gems. Every key you press rings the whole altar, each stone at its own tone. Set two stones close and they wake each other up.
63 €VAT included
Hear three altars: two held notes, a struck stone and the Altar drone.
Key features
- 38 raw crystals in 3D, each with its inside visible: phantoms, veils, lamellae, fibres, bubbles
- Every key plays the whole altar: each stone at its own tone, or all on the note you play
- Where a stone stands is the sound: near stones shimmer, glow and vibrate each other
- 13 sacred-geometry grids with snap points, from the Seed of Life to the Tree of Life
- 29 ready-made grids: Third Eye Opening, Deep Healing, Violet Flame, Star Gate
- Altar drone, octave shimmer, halo reverb and resonators tuned to your stones
What is Shards?
Shards is a crystal synth plug-in for macOS (VST3, AU and Standalone) made by Sacred Audio. Thirty-eight raw crystals on an altar of gems. Every key you press rings the whole altar, each stone at its own tone. Set two stones close and they wake each other up. It costs 63 € including VAT and runs free for 14 days.
Amethyst broken from a lava geode. Selenite carrying light along its fibres. Moldavite, green glass that fell from the sky. Lay them on the altar side by side and they start to glow.
Shards plays that altar. Each stone rings at its own tone, with overtones from its crystal system and a ring time set by its hardness. Press a key and every stone sounds. Move one closer and the chord, the shimmer and the halo move with it.
The stones are the voice
Every MIDI note rings all the stones on the altar. Altar chord plays each stone at its own tone above the key. Unison stacks them on the note you play. Ring time follows hardness: selenite fades fast, quartz sings on.
Placement is the sound
Each stone gives shimmer, glow and vibration to its neighbours. Clear Quartz and Moldavite amplify them. Black Tourmaline and Shungite ground them. Drag one stone closer and hear the field change.
Thirty-eight raw stones
Earth stones, angelic and aura stones, pink and violet stones, and stones that fell from the stars: Moldavite, Tektite, Libyan Desert Glass, the Pallasite and Gibeon meteorites. Each one raw, as it comes from the ground, with its inner structure on show.
Sacred geometry grids
Seed and Flower of Life, Metatron's Cube, the Tree of Life with its 22 paths, Vesica Piscis, the Star of David, a Celestial Wheel of twelve and six more. Stones snap to the points. Light runs along the lines.
Shimmer, glow, vibration
Shimmer adds a partial two octaves up on every stone and feeds an octave-up shimmer delay. Glow warms the tone and opens the halo reverb. Vibration pulses each stone at its own rate. All three follow the altar.
Drone and resonance
Altar drone holds the whole layout as one sustained chord at the root you set, and follows every stone you move. Resonance tunes filters to the stones' tones, so everything you play rings with them.
In the studio
Put Shards on a pad track with Sustain up and the Altar drone on: a bed that shifts every time you move a stone. For plucks and leads keep Sustain at 0 and Ring near 1, and each note is a struck cluster of bowls. Unison turns the altar into one crystalline voice for the breakdown. The mod wheel adds vibration, and every control automates, so the altar can wake up through the rise.
In the healing room
Lay a grid for the session, Crown Opening, Dream Temple or Chakra Alignment, then hold one key or switch on the Altar drone and let it ring by itself. Click any stone to hear it alone before you place it. Tones follow the chakra notes, root to crown, on the suite's reference pitch: A=440 or A=432. The altar you build is saved with your session and in your presets.
How it's built
The modelling, the research and the choices behind Shards.
Where do the tones come from?
Each stone sounds the note of the chakra it is linked with in crystal practice, from root on C up to crown on B, on the suite's reference pitch. Its overtones come from its crystal system: quartz-family stones use 1 : 2.76 : 5.40 : 8.93, close to the partials of a struck bowl; cubic stones such as pyrite and fluorite sit near the harmonic series, 1 : 2 : 3 : 4.16; glass and carbon (obsidian, moldavite, tektite, shungite) are inharmonic, 1 : 1.73 : 3.1 : 5.2, with a short strike of noise.
Ring time is the Mohs hardness times 0.9 seconds, so selenite (2) fades in under two seconds and quartz (7) rings for more than six. These are our design rules for each stone, not measurements of a physical crystal.
How does placement change the sound?
Every stone adds up what its neighbours give: shimmer, glow and vibration, weighted by distance and falling to nothing at about the radius of the altar. Amplifying stones multiply what a stone receives; grounding stones calm its vibration.
The result sets each stone's level, its two-octave shimmer partial, its tremolo rate and depth, and how much of it goes to the shimmer delay and the halo reverb. The altar you see and the sound you hear use the same rule.
How light is it?
Every build renders all 29 ready-made grids with two held notes, a struck stone and the drone, and checks the level and the CPU. The busiest grid uses about 7 % of one core at 48 kHz on the build Mac. Levels sit around -19 LUFS, so it does not come in loud.
29 ready-made grids
Opening and balance
- Deep Healing
- Third Eye Opening
- Awakening
- Crown Opening
- Chakra Alignment
- Heart Opening
- Emotional Release
- Clear Voice
- Calm Mind
Shield and ground
- Grounding Shield
- Shadow Work
- Purification
- Metatron's Shield
Fire and form
- Abundance
- Creative Fire
- Solar Will
- Manifestation
- New Beginnings
Moon and love
- Moon Rite
- Dream Temple
- Sacred Union
- Divine Love
- Infinity Flow
Stars and spirit
- Starseed Contact
- Tree of Life Ascent
- Celestial Wheel
- Angelic Contact
- Violet Flame
- Star Gate
Details
| Category | Instruments: Crystal Synth |
|---|---|
| Formats | VST3, AU, Standalone |
| Type | Instrument (crystal resonance synth) |
| Output | Stereo |
| Polyphony | 16 voices, up to 13 stones each |
| Stones | 38 raw crystals in four groups |
| Grids | 13 sacred-geometry templates, 29 ready-made grids |
| CPU | About 7 % of one core with a full altar, two notes and the drone (48 kHz) |
| macOS | macOS 11 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel |
| Windows | Coming soon |
| Version | 1.0.0 |
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Questions about Shards
What is Shards?
Shards is a crystal synth plug-in for macOS (VST3, AU and Standalone) made by Sacred Audio. Thirty-eight raw crystals on an altar of gems. Every key you press rings the whole altar, each stone at its own tone. Set two stones close and they wake each other up. It costs 63 € including VAT and runs free for 14 days.
Does Shards work in Ableton Live, Logic Pro and FL Studio?
Yes. Shards is a VST3 and Audio Unit plug-in, so it works in Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Bitwig Studio, Cubase, Reaper, Studio One and other macOS hosts that load VST3 or AU. It also runs as a standalone app without a DAW.
Is there a free trial of Shards?
Yes. Shards runs fully for 14 days from the first time you open it. Create a free account to download it. After the trial it keeps working, but the sound dips to silence for a few seconds every minute until you enter a licence key.
How much does Shards cost?
63 € including VAT, a one-time purchase with no subscription.
Is Shards an instrument or an effect?
An instrument. Put it on a MIDI track: every note rings all the stones on the altar. With the Altar drone on it also sounds by itself, with no MIDI at all.
Can I make my own crystal grids?
Yes. Choose a sacred-geometry template in Grids (or none), drag stones onto the altar, and press Save as preset. The preset keeps every stone, where it stands and the grid.
Do the stones change each other's sound?
Yes. Each stone gives shimmer, glow and vibration to the stones near it, so moving one stone changes the whole altar. Clear Quartz and Moldavite amplify their neighbours; Black Tourmaline and Shungite ground them.
Does Shards run on Windows?
Not yet. The plug-ins run on macOS 11 or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Windows versions are coming.