#sinevibes

[dhla]

Very digital glitches on the train home . . #digital #glitch #renoise #sinevibes #unfilteredaudio #spectral

[producertechme]

Friday free stuff: Sinevibes Atom and Zap

A little while ago, I took a look at Sinevibes’ latest plugin: Fraction.

Sinevibes produce some incredible sound design tools and to give you a taster of what they’re about, they give away two plugins for free. Atom is a modulating filter and Zap is an audio controlled synthesiser. Both Atom and Zap are quirky and fun.

The only bit of bad news is that Sinevibes only develop their plugins as Mac AUs so PC users will have to sit this week out. Those with Apples, enjoy!

Atom

Atom is a filter with focus on dynamic, tempo-synchronised modulation. It features five different resonant filter types each with three slope settings – up to super-steep -48 dB/octave. But what makes it special is its two modulators which feature multiple waveforms and run at rates from 1/128 note to 16 bars. Thanks to the chaos function which randomises the amplitude of each modulator cycle, as well as lag switch that smoothens the waveform curves, Atom allows you to easily create lively, elaborate filter effects that work perfectly for pretty much any kind of input source.

Specifications

Multi-mode filter with five types and –12/24/48 dB/octave slope steepness.

Dual modulators with eight waveforms, per-cycle chaos function and shape lag on/off switch.

Advanced transport sync algorithm with support for tempo and time signature automation.

Head over to sinevib.es/atom for download.

Zap

Zap is a unique mini-synthesiser controlled by incoming audio. It starts with an envelope follower that tracks the peak energy of the sound and then applies it onto the frequency of a monophonic oscillator. With three different oscillator waveform modes and features like envelope stepping, Zap can turn any sound source into dynamic synth sweeps, sub-basses, blips, chirps or glitches.

Specifications

Signal envelope follower with variable lag time and curve, plus level stepping feature.

Three oscillator modes: pure sine, ring-modulated sines & phase-modulated sines.

Realtime output waveform display.

sinevib.es/zap is where you’ll find the download link.

More free stuff next week

Friday free stuff: Sinevibes Atom and Zap was originally published on producertech.me

[producertechme]

Sinevibes Fraction review

Select, slice, repeat, effect. That’s the basic process behind the ever popular repeat effect. It’s an effect that’s used in fills, in vocals, in leads, almost everywhere. It’s become popular across a huge range of genres as well, everything from jungle to pop, hip-hop to house. Repeats can be used subtly or they can be in your face.

Although it sounds simple, getting repeat effects to sound really great can be time consuming and requires quite a bit of thought. Where in the audio should I make my slice? What should the length of each repetition be? How many repetitions should there be? What effects should I use? Should I automate the effects?

There are other plugins available aimed at simplifying the process at simplifying the process so do we really need another one? Well, some are performance oriented and so require some kind of MIDI input to trigger the effect and some only go part way – they’ll repeat the audio but they won’t process it afterwards. While these approaches aren’t bad, they can sometimes lack the simplicity that users are often hoping to find.

Fraction is a complex repeat plugin that’s simple to use. Just grab an instance, drop it on your track and off you go.

Fraction allows for up to eight repeated sections over either a two, four or eight bar period.

As the audio comes into the plugin, a realtime waveform display populates. Attached to the display are eight nodes. These represent where in the audio the repeats will start and can be moved around an invisible tempo synced grid. This grid can either work in quadruplet or triplet modes. When in quadruplet mode, the grid is thirty two steps long and in triplet mode, the grid is twenty four steps long. So if I have the loop set to two bars and the grid set to quadruplet mode, each step is a sixteenth of a bar. If I keep the grid mode set the same but increase the loop length to four bars, each step then becomes an eighth of a bar.

The combination of the waveform display and the repeat nodes snapping to grid makes finding suitable repeat sections incredibly quick and intuitive. Move the node to where you think it will sound good and double click it to activate it. If you don’t like it, move it somewhere else or double click it again to deactivate it. A useful touch is that nodes can be slid over each other so if you create a repeat that you like the sound of but don’t feel it’s in the right place, you don’t need to copy the settings to another node. Just grab it and move it to wherever you want on the waveform, sliding it over any other nodes that may be in it’s way.

A repeat can from a sixteenth of a beat up to a whole beat and can be repeated up to sixteen times. For variation, the length and number of repeats can be randomised and the trigger probability can be altered. A global Swing control can also add life to your patterns.

The output section of the effect lets you choose between ducking the original signal or mixing it. Pan, gate time and level can also be set. Pan can also be animated, that is, an LFO can modulate it with full control over the depth.

The Animation control is a very handy LFO with Ramp, Up/Down and Random shapes. The How you set the Animation slider control will determine whether the LFO Ramp shape moves up or down and makes it possible to invert the Up/Down shape to Down/Up.

Animation control can also be found in Fraction’s effects section. Up to three effects can be used on each repeat with a choice of fifteen effects available per slot. Filters, distortion and modulation effects can be found and when combined with the Animation LFO, can create some amazing repeats. It’s even possible to play through the section without repeating the audio.

All the settings in each repeat are distinct from all other repeats but it is possible to copy and paste settings from one to another. If you’re feeling stuck for inspiration, a global Random control is available and if you feel you’ve gone too far, the whole device can also be reset to zero.

The one addition I would like to see is a button to bypass the incoming audio altogether so that only the repeats are captured. This is mostly so that I could stack up a bunch of Fractions in parallel for some total madness.

The nice thing about fraction is that it doesn’t go overboard and it’s very easy to get to grips with. Even on first load, I found it easy to start pulling nodes and sliders around and pushing buttons. Within a few minutes I pretty much knew my way around and had some useable audio. I was able to create so rather sweet and interesting guitar and piano parts pretty quickly. This isn’t the wildest repeat plugin available but it doesn’t need to be and most users will want something musical rather than going full on Aphex.

That being said, I also had a proper jungle workout while reviewing this and it’s distortions are certainly nasty enough to satisfy most drum and bass heads.

Fraction is available as an AU plugin for a very reasonable $69. For more information on Fraction, Sinevibes’ other plugins and direct purchase, visit sinevib.es

Sinevibes Fraction review was originally published on producertech.me

[producertechme]

Sinevibes release Fraction audio slicer plugin

[Press release]

Fraction is an effect plugin for deep real-time manipulation and re-engineering of sound. It features 8 slicers which record and repeat small portions of the input audio at defined points in time, slightly or radically changing the rhythmical arrangement. Each slice has three dedicated effect processors with a wide range of algorithms, and their parameters can be animated in perfect sync with the slice repeater. Rolls, stutters, fills, breaks and transitions can be done with unprecedented ease – but Fraction has enough power to create whole musical pieces out of almost anything.

Like every Sinevibes product, Fraction has a clean, carefully crafted user interface with animated and color-coded controls. Its live audio waveform display lets you visually place slice markers on particular sounds, and custom graphics for each effect type respond to effect parameters. So despite this many features, Fraction is a doddle to learn and enjoyable to use on daily basis.

Specifications

Real-time audio waveform preview for visual slice marker placement. Eight audio slicers with individual size, repeat count, forward/reverse playback, duck and gate settings. Variable slice trigger probability, realtime randomization for slice size and repeat count. Eight slice sets each holding slice positions and on/off switches. Thee separate effect units per slice with 15 algorithm types each: low-pass, high-pass, band-pass and band-reject filters, phaser, barber-pole phaser, positive and negative flangers, chorus, bit depth and sample rate reducers, analog drive, circuit-bent filter, frequency shifter and pitch shifter. Four parameter animation generators per slice, hardwired to slice repeat rate. Advanced transport sync algorithm with support for tempo and time signature automation.

Compatibility

Fraction works with Logic, GarageBand, Live, MainStage, ReNoise, Reaper, Studio One, Digital Performer, Tracktion and other software that supports Audio Unit effect plugins. It comes in 32/64 bit format for Intel Macs running OS X 10.6 or later, and supports Retina screen resolution.

Fraction is priced at $69 and is available for download from sinevibes.com

Sinevibes release Fraction audio slicer plugin was originally published on producertech.me

[alg-nyc]

Sinevibes Zap video demo

[dhla]

Sinevibes - Minimal Design for Maximal Distortion

My friend Artemiy, the creative mind behind Sinevibes, has been updating his Audio Units plug-ins with some slick new GUIs. Maintaining the minimal sequencer style of the Sinevibes plugs, these new look are a bit smoother and easier on the eyes. Here's the latest for Diffusion, a rather inspiring sequenced synthesizer with advanced waveshaping and filtering sections:

Specializing in waveshaping distortion, extreme filtering, and making synth parts out of amelodic material, Sinevibes is a textbook case for small niche developers in the music software world. I love having tools like these from developers with obsessions that likely could never dictate a larger company, but become a unique aesthetic signature for smaller shops.

The complete bundle of Sinevibes AU plug-ins is on sale for $99 (half off buying separately) at the moment - if you're into adventurous sound mangling or you just like to grease up your sounds, I'd recommend taking a look at a few of these.