Phy & Kilosort, natively
Reads spike_times, spike_clusters, params.py, templates, PC features, amplitudes, similar_templates, channel_positions, and quality-metric sidecars exactly as phy does.
Native spike-sorting curation
Sorrel
A high-performance GUI for manual curation of spike-sorted electrophysiology data — phy / Kilosort, SpikeInterface, NWB, and KS4 rez out of the box, with a monomorphised Rust core, wgpu compute, and a durable SQLite journal.
Built For Curation Work
Multiple backends
phy / Kilosort, SpikeInterface SortingAnalyzer (binary folder), Kilosort 4 rez.mat, and NWB. SpikeGLX, Open Ephys, and MDA work as raw trace sources.
Static-dispatch core
Session, UI, render, and compute paths are generic over the DataProvider trait — every hot path is monomorphised per backend, no Box<dyn Trait>.
GPU trace pipeline
Optional wgpu kernels for common-median referencing, high-pass filtering, and mean-snippet extraction — sharing the renderer's device and queue, with a transparent CPU fallback.
Durable curation journal
Every relabel, merge, split, and undo/redo lands in SQLite before the in-memory session moves. Replay on open is idempotent; resealed at save.
Built-in views
Trace, raster, ISI, CCG, waveform, template, feature, drift, probe, similarity, quality, and merge/split suggestions, all in one window.
Headless QC export
sorrel --export-qc DIR runs every metric on the loaded session and writes cluster_qc.tsv + cluster_qc.json without spawning a window.
Python bridge
sorrel.open(recording, sorting) opens a SpikeInterface analyzer in the native GUI via the sorrel-py bridge.
Reads What You Already Have
phy / Kilosort
Directory of spike_times.npy, spike_clusters.npy, params.py, plus optional templates, PC features, amplitudes, channel positions, similarity, and quality-metric sidecars.
SpikeInterface
SortingAnalyzer saved as binary_folder — recording.json, the flat sorting under sorting/, optional probe.json, and quality_metrics extension.
NWB & KS4 rez
*.nwb via /units/spike_times and the electrodes table; rez.mat via rez/st3 and rez/ops. Both gated behind --features hdf5.
Recording sources
SpikeGLX .bin+.meta, Open Ephys continuous.dat+structure.oebin, and Mountainsort MDA plug in via --dat, --spikeglx-meta, --oebin.
Build & Run
Compile the release binary, then point it at a sorting directory — Sorrel auto-detects the backend.
cargo build --release -p sorrel
sorrel my_run/phy