How to Use Time Terrarium: Habitats, the Orb, Migrate and Seal

Time Terrarium looks different from most delays, but it follows a simple order: the habitats decide what kind of echo you get, the orb decides where new sound lands, and the Echo and Space panels shape all of it at once. This guide goes through the window in that order, then covers Seal, Roll and the presets.

Key takeaways

• The four corners of the glass are habitats. Each holds one species of echo with one Character control.
• The orb places new sound. In a corner you get one habitat; between corners you get a blend.
• Migrate moves repeats from habitat to habitat. Pattern gives each one its own echo time.
• Seal holds what is inside at a steady level and lets nothing new in.
• Low Cut and High Cut work on the echoes and the bloom only. The dry signal is never touched.

1. The habitats

The four corners of the glass are habitats, and each is planted with a species:

Species	What it is	Character control
Moss	tape	Age: wow, flutter, saturation, darker repeats
Water	ping-pong	Current: how strongly the repeats swirl and smear
Crystal	shimmer	Interval: +Octave, +Fifth, +Twelfth or −Octave
Ash	reverse	Grain: shorter reversed fragments, up to stuttering sparks
Frost	melting	Melt: how much each repeat blurs on its way round
Dust	grains	Scatter: how far the grains spread in time and stereo
Pebble	bouncing	Bounce: from an even roll to a stone skipping to rest
Wind	gusts	Gust: how far and how fast the filter sweeps

The four Character knobs sit in the Habitats panel, one under each habitat’s name, in the same order as the corners.

• Plant a different species: click a habitat’s name, in the glass or in the panel, and pick one. Replanting clears that habitat’s echoes.
• Swap two habitats: drag a name in the glass onto another corner.

2. The orb

The orb decides which habitats new sound goes into.

• In a corner, everything you play feeds that one habitat. This is the easiest way to hear what each species does: play a phrase and drag the orb from corner to corner.
• Between corners, the input is shared between the habitats around it.
• Double-click the glass to put the orb back in the centre, where all four get an equal share.

Orbits

The Orbit panel moves the orb for you. Still leaves it where you put it; Circle, Figure 8, Pendulum and Drift move it around the point where you placed it. Rate is how long one cycle takes, from 1/2 bar to 16 bars. Depth is how far the orb travels from its centre.

While an orbit runs, dragging the orb moves the centre of the orbit. With Sync on and the host playing, the orbit follows the host’s bar position, so it lines up with the song. With the host stopped it runs freely at the host tempo.

3. Echo

• Time: with Sync on, a note value of the host tempo from 1/32 to one bar, including dotted and triplet values. With Sync off, up to four seconds.
• Feedback: how long each echo keeps repeating.
• Tone: darkens or brightens the repeats as they feed back, and colours the bloom.
• Pattern: gives each habitat its own multiple of the echo time.

Pattern	What happens
Unison	all four habitats at the same time
Dotted	×1, ×0.75, ×1.5 and ×2 — dotted cross-rhythms
Triplet	×1, ×⅔, ×1⅓ and ×2 — triplet cross-rhythms
Cascade	×1, ×0.5, ×2 and ×4 — a falling staircase
Golden	spaced by the golden ratio, so the four never quite line up

When a pattern is on, each habitat shows its multiple next to its name.

4. Migrate

Migrate sends each repeat on to the neighbouring habitat as it comes round. Turned right it goes clockwise, from top left to top right, bottom right and bottom left; turned left it goes the other way. At the centre, every habitat keeps its own echoes.

With the default planting this is the fastest way to hear the whole plug-in: one note, then tape, ping-pong, shimmer and reverse in turn.

5. The lanes

Under the glass, one lane per habitat shows the repeats a single note would produce with the current settings, with the loudest as the biggest dots. Use it to check a pattern or a feedback setting before you play into it.

Dotted Canopy: each lane shows its habitat on a different multiple of the echo time.

6. Space

• Bloom: sends the echoes, and a little of the dry signal, into a reverb. Higher is larger and longer.
• Duck: lowers the echoes while you play and lets them swell back in the gaps. On a vocal, this keeps the words clear.
• Width: from 0% (mono) to 200% (extra wide), for the echoes and the bloom.
• Low Cut and High Cut: take low end and top end out of the echoes and the bloom only.
• Mix and Output: the dry/wet balance, and the final level.

7. Seal

Seal, at the top of the window, closes the lid. Nothing new gets in, and the echoes already inside keep circulating and migrating at a steady level until you open it again. While it is closed, Feedback and the orb have no effect, and the habitats’ tone filters open a little so the held echoes stay bright.

Two ways to use it:

• Hold a texture. Play a phrase, seal, and play over what is inside.
• Automate it. Seal on the last beat of a section and open it where the next one starts, so the tail carries the transition.

Sealed Jar is a preset made for this.

8. Roll and the presets

Roll throws a new random starting point: orb, orbit, synced time, feedback, tone, pattern, migration, species and characters, bloom, duck and width. It opens the lid and clears the cut filters, and leaves Mix and Output where they were.

The “…” menu next to the preset name saves your own presets, deletes the loaded one, opens the preset folder, or clears the echoes.

If you want	Start with
A plain tape echo	Terrarium, Morning Moss, Tape Slap
Ping-pong	Tidepool, Pendulum Pong
A dub-style delay	Dub Garden
Rhythmic cross-patterns	Dotted Canopy, Triplet Rain, Cascade Steps
Shimmer and big space	Glass Cathedral, Frost Bloom, Twelfth Night
Something under a vocal	Vocal Halo
Reverse	Ember Rewind, Ember Stutter
Echoes that move	Four Seasons, Migration, Wandering Tide, Firefly Drift
A held texture	Sealed Jar
The other four species	Winter Garden, Skipping Stones, Sandglass, Gale, Thaw, Stone Circle

The release post covers what the plug-in is for. The dry/wet comparisons are on the product page.