Cognate Polymath

Polymath is a four-voice pitch-shifting Swiss army knife, with latency low enough that it feels great to play.

Four voices work in parallel: a fat, punchy Sub octave that fills the room, crystal-clear Oct and Oct 2 octave-up voices for bite and shimmer, and a freely transposable Shift voice that travels anywhere from one octave down to two octaves up, set by the Interval parameter. As a bonus, intervals 0, 12 and 24 add a lush, chorus-like detune when blended with the other voices.

Blend them under your dry signal for a classic octaver thump, stack them for Royal Blood-style guitar-and-bass power chords, or drop the whole bass a fifth for alternate tunings on the fly. Sculpt smooth lead lines, or detune the Shift voice for lush, chorus-like widening that never muddies your low end.

A single Tone control tilts the shifted voices from warm and dark to bright and glassy.

The Attack control — unique to Polymath — sweeps from slow, swelling fade-ins through soft pick-style attacks and sidechain-gated pulses all the way to tight, percussive transients that cut harder than the dry signal itself.

Choose the Quality you need to balance CPU usage with clarity and smoothness. Running into a distortion or amp block? Eco is best. Playing chords and solos? High quality is for you.

The Timbre control (new in version 1.2.0) lets you tame the high end by applying your instrument’s tonal range to the pitch shifted voices, giving you a more natural sound.

Cognate Polymath - one block. Four voices. Every octave your songs need, and a few you didn't know you wanted.

Features

• Four pitch-shifted voices blended under your dry signal — up to five pitches sounding at once
• Polyphonic throughout — even the Sub voice, and with none of the OC-2-style glitching
• Tune down to low B, A, or a full sub octave — punchy and fast, never flabby
• Equally at home on bass and guitar, 4-, 5- and 6-string
• Shift voice freely transposable from one octave down to two up — set it to 0, 12 or 24 for detuned-chorus widening, or 16 or 19 to harmonise
• Very low latency — under 10 ms, so it feels great to play

Uses

• Sub octaver, soloed or mixed in for weight
• Guitar power chords stacked on top of your low end, same octave or above
• 8-string bass and 12-string guitar emulation through octaves and detuning
• Guitar- and sax-like lead voices
• Harmonising your lines in 3rds or 10ths
• Ambient washes of pitch-shifted chords
• Adding punchy attack to an octave

Category

Modulation & Pitch

Channels

Mono in / mono out

CPU

Eco: 6.3%

Medium: 8.3%

High: 11%

Version

1.2.0 · 01/10/2026

What's new

New Timbre control keeps your instrument's natural tone on the shifted voices.
Uses around half the CPU, with cleaner Sub and Shift voices and a refreshed look.

Manual

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