DERIVA Audio Plugin Manual

DERIVA is built around Fragments, Remnants, and the Archive. A Fragment is generated, shaped by the Engines, and then Offered. If it is Preserved, it becomes a Remnant. If it is Lost, the search continues.

Core flow

Fracture creates a new hidden Engine state and visible tags.
Active Fragment processes incoming audio through the generated state.
Offer submits the Fragment to The Keeper.
Preserved saves a Remnant to the Archive; Lost discards it.

The current unsaved Fragment is stored in the DAW project for that specific DERIVA instance. It is not part of the persistent Archive until it is Preserved.

The Keeper

The Keeper starts from a 50/50 Preserved/Lost chance. Repeated Lost results make a future Preserved result more likely, and repeated Preserved results make a future Lost result more likely. The bias is subtle and capped, so the process never becomes fully predictable.

Engines

Erosion: Saturation, tone damage, drive and destructive colour.
Scatter: Granular clouds, octave fragments, texture and suspended motion.
Veil: Creative filtering, resonant movement and spectral colour.
Mirror: Ambient shimmer, reverse bloom and wide reverb. In supported hosts, Mirror can use sidechain input to duck the wet tail while ambience keeps feeding.

Controls

Left-click an Engine to mute or unmute it.
Right-click an Engine to solo it. Multiple Engines can be soloed at once.
Drag Engine blocks to change processing order.
ORDER LOCK keeps the current Engine order during Fracture.
MUTE LOCK keeps muted Engines muted after Fracture.
Mix controls global dry/wet amount. Some Remnant states can limit maximum Mix.
DELTA mode removes the dry track and plays only DERIVA's effect contribution.

Archive and Vessels

Preserved Fragments become Remnants. Remnants can be selected, renamed, favourited, deleted and recalled. Search filters by name; tags filter by Engine level; Vessels filter by user category without changing the sound.

The Archive includes All, Fav, Field, Stars, Compass and Line views. Field maps density and intensity, Stars groups similar Remnants, Compass organises by dominant Engine character, and Line shows Morph-related memory connections.

Morph

Morph appears after selecting a Remnant. When enabled, Fracture creates a 50/50 hybrid between the selected Remnant and a new generated Fragment. This active hybrid state is called Flowing. Offering a Flowing result can create a Morphed Remnant.

Merged, Morphed, Scarred and Extinct states describe how a Remnant was created or affected by risk over time.

Statistics and milestones

The Archive includes local statistics for creative orientation: Archive size, favourites, average Mix, active Remnant, most common Vessel, dominant Engine, Fractures, Offers, Preserved results, Lost results and milestones. These statistics are local to the user's DERIVA data.

License, storage and offline use

DERIVA is locked until a license key is activated.
The customer portal is used for license access and management.
DERIVA uses internet access for activation, validation, update checks and external links.
After validation, offline use can continue during the plugin's offline grace period.
Remnants are stored locally and with DAW sessions.
Removing and re-adding the plugin should not erase the persistent Archive.

Updates

DERIVA compares the installed version with the current public version published by Brama Audio. The current public version is 1.0.0. Public installers live at DERIVA Downloads when signed release packages are uploaded.

Installation notes

Close the DAW before installing or updating.
macOS installs AU and VST3.
Windows installs VST3 and requires WebView2 Runtime.
After updating, rescan plugins in the DAW if needed.