I have a DT2. Getting ready for OB… What are your favourite creative FX plugins for audio mangling, delay, looping and granular?
I want to be able to do things like these, but in the box with DT2 over OB (when it’s out):
I’d rather keep it simple and in the box if possible with just DT2 and laptop.
I actually bought a Norns and Grid recently, which would give me a lot of these sounds, but it’s just to complicated for me, I just want to make music/sounds not program and code, so I think I’m going to sell them an stick to the DT2, field recorder and OB (when it’s out).
Also interested in apps and other standalone programs. They don’t necessarily have to be a plug-in.
I really like Slate & Ash Cycles. It’s a bit expensive and a bit CPU hungry, but I’ve gotten great results with it. Probably my favorite interface for granular stuff.
Also love Tapes.01 from ThePhonoloop. Super underrated plugin.
I can never have too many of these types of plug-ins though, would love to hear others I don’t know about.
how much can you really change things up with this one, comes across my feed on ig often and I’ve always wondered about how good it really is for throwing your own stuff in there?
It’s awesome for dragging samples, I do it all the time. There’s tons of parameters to modulate and randomize audio, and internal sequencers, lfos, filters, etc. Plus you can have 2 separate layers doing different things, so it’s pretty deep. Highly recommended.
Shaperbox3 , its just so practical, i use it often instead of automations, because its so easy to select 8 bars, and draw a curve, or hit random, just to see how the sequence makes sense then.
Also its perfect for LFO Tool Kick /Bass glue. Also good for monitoring if the phase is correct.
It also has a reverb plugin, but didnt bought that (had others already, but still the comfort is really great, maybe i get it too, as i use it all the time.)
I am open for any granular fx recommendations , that have rhytmical timing i.e. to use it on drums. (max 40-50 euro).
I mean there’s so damn many here you could (speaking for a friend) end up with too many.
For looping and general messing with audio, the 2 big ones at the moment are Shaperbox 3 and Infiltrator 2. Shaperbox is good for general movement and its unique feature is that it does multiband. The presets are quite subtle. Infiltrator is good for both looping and general movement. It doesn’t have multiband but it does LFOs and a sequencers. Its presets are fairly aggressive. Either can do either though. Over time I slightly prefer the interface of infiltrator but ymmv. If you enjoy drawing LFOs Shaperbox is great.
Notable mentions in this category, Tantra 2, EFX motions (both cheap alternatives to the above with less features) and the Sugar Bytes stuff. Looperator and Effectrix are interesting in their own way, Looperator does what it says on the tin and Effectrix is like the opposite of Shaperbox in that it’s just a sequencer for effects.
I quite like them all but I’ve focussed in on Infiltrator as it has the most effects including some spectral stuff, and it doesn’t have to be aggressive if you make your own patches.
For granular the OG is Portal, and as a trilogy the output effects are pretty good imo. I really like Movement as it’s like a focussed version of shaperbox for filtering. It has loads of amazing presets which is useful because the interface isn’t super useful for patch from scratch. Thermal is the distortion one. They are expensive though and they are NFR unless you’re in the EU, which I wish I knew before. You can get movement pretty cheaply but the other two tend to cost a bit.
There is a hell of a lot of competition for Portal, way too many to mention. The most obvious one here is EFX Fragments which in fairness, might be the move for granular today. It’s not too expensive and it does something quite similar. Others that spring to mind here are Silo by Unfiltered Audio, Graindad by Sugar Bytes and Love by Dawesome that has a granular mode. There are absolutely loads more besides, so I’d have a good look around and see if something takes your fancy. For me it’s between Portal and EFX these days.
Some good points on the instrument side. Outside of Kontakt, one to consider might be Novum by Dawesome. They have a novel way of designing instruments and Novum is a very interesting granular/spectral thing that’s good for pads, but may be going away from what you’re looking for.
It’s probably worth noting that you need do neither with Norns if you don’t want or need to. I certainly don’t and have a blast with two of them,particularly with scripts like oooooo and some of the other creative samplers and loopers. But each to their own and Norns can definitely have a learning curve per script, each of which is like its own instrument.
As for plugins, I still like some (really) old ones like Flitchsplifter and SFX Machine pro which are both abandonware and thus effectively free.
Otherwise some of the Unfiltered Audio plugins such as Sandman Pro or SpecOps can take sound to all manner of interesting places, particularly as they have their own internal modular patching system.
