4Pockets are back with another round of weekend deals which end on March 6th. This weekends deals include:
- Copperhead – from $11.99 to $8.99
- Progressions – from $8.99 to $5.99
- Shimmer – from $6.99 to $4.99
- Time Machine – from $6.99 to $4.99
- Visual Multi-Band Compressor – from $7.99 to $4.99
Copperhead
Copperhead is an AUv3 digital subtractive synthesizer plugin which draws its influence from the vintage synthesizers of the early 80’s. Only now we have full polyphony, a build in arpeggiator, an a host of integrated effects. It features such as the ability to design custom waveforms, oscillator sync and various cross modulation modes. Cross modulation is a type of FM synthesis which can be used to morph simplistic waveforms into something far more aggressive and interesting.
At the heart of Copperhead are its two oscillators, which support all your traditional waveforms (SINE,SQR,SAW,TRI), as well as SuperSaw, Trapezium, and a user definable type. The app features pulse wave modulation for multiple sources, and the ability to sync oscillators.
The Voltage Controller Filter supports the usual LP, HP, BP and Notch filters, as well as a couple of unusual ones like Formant which allows you to sweep your cutoff to create interesting vowel sounds.
Copperhead also features twin LFO’s with random and one shot functionality. It also supports Cross, Ring and FM modulators, in addition to low and high shelf filters.
One of the great features is the integrated audio gate, which allows you to generate stuttering audio right out of the box. Combined with effects such as Chorus, Overdrive, Delay, Reverb and Auto Pan / Tremelo, and the ability to specify effect order, you have a lot of control over your sound.
If that wasn’t enough, we also include a 32 step sequencer, with various mono and poly modes with direct control control of various synth elements.
We have a built in Preset Manager which groups presets into banks and groups, which supports drag and drop for easy import/export of presets. You can also access your favourites from a special popup menu, or via the built in quick search facility.
Progressions
Progressions is an AUv3 MIDI plugin for your favourite DAW. It can be used to generate a unique set of chords that are unrelated to traditional scales, which become predictable and repetative over time. Instead, Progressions uses a unique way of mathermaically generating a series of related chords using only a root note and mode (major or minor). Chord sequences are limited by the selected complexity and freedom levels, which mimic the way traditional composers of old would wander away from tonality and back again.
The complexity level start off at Basic, which uses only the most common chords (I, IV, V and relative minor ii, iii, and vi triads). As you progress through the levels, you can add parallel majors and minors, sus and dom chords etc. At level 3 we start to introduce 6th and 7th chords, and then 9ths chords, all the way to 11ths, 13ths, Quartals and all their variations.
The freedom level allows us to specify how far to drift away from tonality (the root), even allowing you to create never ending randomized soundscapes.
Progressions allows you to quickly randomize a toolbox of chords, that can be played in a variety of modes (block chords, arpeggiated, or strummed). These can be synced to a host application, triggered remotely or pieced together into a song.
Song mode allow you to change play modes on the fly as well as being able to control many features of the app in real time.
Progressions supports open and closed chords with selectable voicings. It has an intelligent algorithm that attempts to align top notes of chords, add additional bass, and open chord padding to give equal weight to chords with only 3 notes. You can even play with rootless voicings.
The Humanize section allows you to control chord and note timings, as well as set velocity variations to ensure things don’t get too robitic.
Progressions also features an integrated arpeggiator and strummming pattern editor. You can load up to 6 arp and 6 strum patterns at the same time and seemlessly switch between them manually, remotely, or using song mode.
If you run multiple instances, Progressions allows you to sync your chord pads, song chain, arpeggiator / strum patterns between instances.
Progressions can be loaded as a MIDI plugin or as an Instrument for those programs that don’t support MIDI plugins (such as GB). Additionally when loaded as an instrument, you can use either internal sounds (soundfonts) or send MIDI directly to other MIDI instruments.
Shimmer
This is an AUv3 compatible effect which must be used as plugin with your favourite DAW such as Cubasis, Meteor, Auria or GarageBand. It supports a modern graphical interface and presets with stereo meters for monitoring signal levels.
This shimmer effect is a combination of effects that creates an etherial wall of sound. The effect combines a digital delay and pitch shifter to create multiple harmonies before entering a rich long reverb with controllable filtering. The resulting effect is a monsterously huge sound adding a spacious atmospheric quality to any lead instrument or vocal.
The effect also features many beat synced modulation options with various modes of operation such as your basic pans and vibrato effects but including sweeps and morphing harmonies.
Finally to give the effect some real ‘shimmer’ we’ve added a harmonic exciter and a sustain section which samples and holds on to the sound to pull out and emphesise the harmonics.
The effect presents all the most frequently used controls to the user in a single screen, but each effect has it’s own distinct set of controls and a total of 7 pre-configured touch pads allowing easy recording of controller data.
This plugin allows complete parameter automation and auto synced modulation to master tempo.
Time Machine
Time Machine is a plugin that allows you to go back to the days of vinyl and tube amplification.
If you still long for those nostalgic days of warped records, worn needles, static laden, crackle ridden vinyl then this plugin is what you’ve been waiting for. It simulates the sound of early gramophones, radiograms, record players, through to late 80’s turntables. You can either select an ‘Age’ or tweak individual settings to add warp, dust, scratches and good old fashion hiss to your recordings.
The tube emulation mimics the old valve driven amplification which can be overdriven to add a nice warm
tonal quality to your sound. It even allows you to add additional harmonics using the saturation knob to mimic the effect of tube amplification. It’s a subtle but effective way of adding character and punch to thin sounds without changing pushing them in to the realms of distortion.
When you turn on the Vinyl emulation you can choose to emulate the needle hitting the record, while the power button smoothly fades the effect in and out.
We’ve all heard those great intros that sound like a blast from the past before diving into an aural onslaught. Well this might just be the tool to help lull your audience into that false sense of security!
Visual Multi-Band Compressor
Visual Compressor is a 4 band compressor/expander which has the ability to analyse audio in real time giving an accurate and reliable spectrum representation of your signal as well as visual feedback of compression or expansion levels. It’s uses range from final mastering of songs to dynamic manipulation and EQing of drum tracks.
What makes this different from a normal compressor is the ability to compress or expand frequency ranges rather than the whole mix, with up to 4 bands available. This allows you to say tighten up a wayward snare drum while adding that extra punch to the bass drum while leaving the rest of the track intact.
Each of the 4 configurable frequency bands can be modified using drag and drop operations directly on the graph making it easy to understand and quick to configure. Turn on the labelling option for colour coded details. Each band can function as an EQ allowing raising and lowering the bands gain by +/-24dB. You can assign either a compressor or expander to each of the bands.
The compressor allows you to compress excessively loud sounds that exceed a specified threshold. Each band has configurable attack, release and ratio settings.
The expander can be used to expand sound exceeding the threshold while compressing anything below it. This makes it useful for adding dynamics or even for noise reduction of a specific band.
Each band has mute and solo buttons so you can audition what is coming through a certain band, great for use during band frequency setup. There is also a bypass option which removes a band from use and reduces CPU load.
You can load and save custom presets as well as copy and paste settngs between instances. This is great if you need to setup multiple instances with the same settings.
One of the cool features is the ability to save up to 3 mixes and switch between them for comparision. These mixes are actually saved as part of custom presets and as the saved state in your DAW.
This is the third of three products which will make up part of the ‘visual’ range of effects.
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