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Necrodrone


[Opening paragraph: what NECRODRONE is, in your voice. Why a phone? Why drone? What were you trying to make it sound like?]

A drone synth, not a drone and a synth. The keys complement the drone; the drone engine is what you shape and edit.

Why I built it

[The itch: what you were playing / recording, what existing apps got wrong, the moment you decided to write your own.]

What it sounds like

[Describe the sound. Walls of detuned saws, cold filters, broken fuzz, tape delay, endless reverb — but say it how you’d say it.]

[Embed a recording here — e.g. an audio file in public/audio/ or a Bandcamp/SoundCloud link.]

Some of the 25 drone presets:

PresetCharacter
FUNERAL FOGLow, slow saws through a ladder filter that breathes open and shut
TRITONE RITERoot, tritone, octave and a minor 2nd grinding through fuzz and warped tape echoes
NECROPOLIS WINDMostly noise: wind howling through a wandering resonant band-pass
GUITAR SHROUDNo synth at all — your guitar or voice into endless delay and reverb

[Pick your favorites, or cut the table.]

Playing it

[How it feels to use: the PLAY tab, the two performance sliders, pads locked to the drone’s key, the keys layer on top. Every control is a horizontal slider — drag from anywhere, double-tap to reset, long-press to MIDI-learn.]

[Screenshot: drop it in public/images/ and reference it as ![PLAY tab](/images/necrodrone-play.png).]

Recording to tape

[The demo-tape angle: phone → USB-C adapter → 4-track or cassette deck. MONO, LOW CUT, STEADY, and the 1 kHz test tone for setting levels. What have you recorded with it?]

Under the hood

[How deep to go is up to you. The short version:]

  • Native C++ audio engine on Oboe, Jetpack Compose UI
  • 6 drone voices + an 8-voice keys layer
  • Ladder, state-variable and vowel formant filters
  • FX chain: distortion › bitcrush › chorus › tape delay › FDN reverb (up to ~60 s) with shimmer
  • Looper with fade, wear, half speed, reverse; granular freeze
  • USB/Bluetooth MIDI with learn on any control

[What was hard? What surprised you? Anything you’d do differently?]

Get it

[Android 8.0+. Grab the latest APK from the releases page, or build it yourself.]

[Sign-off.]