Random wander

Bumblebee

Random phantom motion within the speaker ring

Bumblebee takes your mono sound and renders it as a phantom image that wanders, swarm-like, within the 8-speaker ring. The sound never settles - it drifts and jitters unpredictably around the circle, like a pair of bees orbiting your head. Turn the speed up and the buzzing gets more frantic and far-ranging; turn it down for a slow, gentle restlessness. Width fattens the image from a pinpoint into a spread-out cloud, and Pause freezes the motion wherever it happens to be.

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How to use it

Start here: Starting Angle 0, Angular Velocity 45 deg/s, Width 0, Output Level -20 dBFS. You'll hear two pinpoint sources gently wandering from front and back.
Tame or unleash the buzz: Angular Velocity is the size of each random step. Low values (10-30 deg/s) give a slow, almost ambient drift; high values (200-720 deg/s) make the sources skitter wildly all the way around - great for chaotic, agitated textures, sound design swarms, and insectoid motion.
Fatten the swarm: raise Width to smear each of the two movers into a cloud of virtual sources instead of a point. Small amounts (10-30 deg) thicken the image; the slider tops out at 89 deg for a wide, enveloping pair of blobs. Loudness is auto-compensated so it doesn't jump as you widen.
Set where it begins: Starting Angle places where the motion starts. Because the motion is random it quickly forgets where it began, so think of this as the seed pose rather than a fixed location.
Freeze the moment: flip Pause to \"on\" to lock both copies exactly where they are - handy for finding a static two-point placement, or for stop/start gating effects. Flip it back to resume wandering.
Reproducible takes: set Random Mode to \"Repeatable\" so the same wander replays identically every time you play from the same spot on the timeline (good for committing a part). Leave it on \"Always\" for a fresh, different swarm on every pass.
Reset Position snaps both movers back to the Starting Angle (and its opposite) on the spot - use it to re-center a wander that has drifted somewhere you don't want.
Avoid: expecting a smooth, predictable circular sweep - that's Twirl's job. Bumblebee is deliberately jittery and non-repeating (unless in Repeatable mode). Also, very high speeds plus wide Width can become a busy wash; pull Width back if the two sources start to smear into one blur.
Feed it mono: like all these tools it's a mono-in spatial renderer; route a single source in and let it populate the ring.

Controls

Output Level (dBFS): Overall output loudness. Higher is louder; this is the master trim for the whole effect.
Starting Angle (deg): Where the motion begins on the ring (0 = front, 90 = left, 180 = back, 270 = right, counter-clockwise). Because the motion is random the sound soon wanders away from this seed angle.
Angular Velocity: How big a step each mover takes - i.e. how fast and far the sources jitter around the ring. Low = a slow, gentle drift; high = a frantic, wide-ranging buzz. (Used as the step magnitude for the random walk.)
Width (deg): Spreads each mover from a single point into a cloud of virtual sources. 0 = two pinpoints; higher = two wider, more enveloping blobs. Perceived loudness is auto-compensated as the image widens.
pause: off = the movers random-walk freely; on = both copies freeze exactly where they are. Use it to lock a static two-point placement or to stop/start the motion.
random mode: Always = a fresh, different random wander each run. Repeatable = deterministic, tied to the host timeline so playing from the same position reproduces the exact same wander (for repeatable takes).
position reset: A one-shot button: pressing it snaps the motion back to the Starting Angle, re-centering a wander that has drifted.