4Pockets have announced this weekend’s round of price cuts which end January 29th. The deals include:
- Surface Builder – $12.99 to $8.99
- WaveCloud Granular Synth – $14.99 to $9.99
- DigiStix 2 – $12.99 to $8.99
- Shimmer FX – $7.99 to $4.99
Surface Builder
Surface Builder is a tool for creating control surfaces that send MIDI data to one or more audio components in order to simplify remote control tasks. You start by creating a surface of a given size, adding buttons, knobs, faders, etc. to the surface and configuring them to generate the required MIDI output. Surface Builder allows you to send note on/off, controller change and program change values as well as being able to emulate modulation wheel and pitch bend data. Buttons can also be configured to send bulk MIDI data using a single key press. You can build surfaces that span multiple scenes and link between them for large complex interfaces.
Incoming MIDI data can also be used to control or trigger elements of the interface, giving a bi-directional stream of MIDI data. Surface Builder can be added as a pure MIDI plugin which allows processing of MIDI only, or as an instrument plugin, allowing you to process audio passing through it. You can even load it as an intrument and configure a surface to start and stop audio clips either manually or remotely.
Surface Builder was designed to be used as an AUv3 plugin within your favourite DAW, but it can also be used in standalone to send MIDI directly to MIDI hardware using direct access to their MIDI ports.
Many different object types are supported including buttons, switches, lights, rotary knobs, faders, sliders, XY-Pad, keyboards, as well as text, image and box objects. Each object has many different styles and colours, so no two surfaces look the same.
Drag and drop an audio file onto a button and that button becomes a clip player. Attach rotary knobs to control the clips volume and pan. Throw on top of that a LP/HP filter knob and you are cooking on gas. Drop PNG transparent image icons on buttons to customise the look and feel.
A button can record and playback bulk MIDI commands, on both button press and release. So pressing a button could send the notes of a chord when pressed, and appropriate note offs on release.
A surface can consist of up to 6 scenes for really complex designs. Buttons and switches can be used to switch scenes and also to show and hide other objects to make better use of screen space. Once your surface is complete switch to presentation mode to hide all the toolbars. Each surface can be saved with compressed audio and images all in a single surface file.
WaveCloud
WaveCloud is an innovative granular synthesizer that offers powerful tools for manipulating and playing sounds. Granular synthesis divides an audio sample into tiny fragments, called grains, each typically a few milliseconds in length. These grains are then manipulated independently in terms of pitch, duration, position in time, and amplitude. Unlike traditional synthesis, the capability to manipulate tiny grains of audio offers enormous precision of sound control, transformation, and compositional possibilities.
WaveCloud offers a wide range of tools for experimentation – oscillator, LFOs, filters, envelopes, routing matrix, innovative WaveGlide and Orbit modules for grain movement, effects, MPE support, extensive waveform editing, customizable themes, MIDI CC control, aftertouch, audio pool manager, and 200+ presets to get you started.
Granular synthesis is extremely versatile and can produce a vast range of sounds and textures, from subtle, atmospheric sounds to complex, dynamic ones. WaveCloud offers dozens of parameters, enabling you to sculpt the sound grains in any way you wish – textural pads and atmospheres, time-stretched effects, glitchy and stutter effects, vocal and instrumental manipulations, granular synthesis percussive sounds, experimental effects, as well as microtonal and harmonic soundscapes.
WaveCloud features a drag and drop system for importing and exporting of audio files and presets. It has its own built-in Preset and Audio Managers to help keep everything in order. WaveCloud even features a fully-fledged zoomable audio editor along with a suite of tools to crop, fade, cut, copy, paste, and normalise your samples.
4Pockets include a morphing 3-state Oscillator to support the granular engine. The granular engine allows up to 50 grains per second per note, with grain lengths up to a second in length. Grains can be sculpted with our morphing envelope generator, manipulated with our LFOs, FEGs and VCFs, and passed through lots of randomisation to keep things continually evolving.
WaveCloud also features two unique features for adding movement to audio grains. Orbit mode allows you to play sweeping patterns tied to the physical host tempo of your DAW, and WaveGlide is a sequencer with glides and fades from one location to another.
To top it all off, we include 7 built-in effects, delay, reverb, chorus, overdrive, phaser, resonator, and 8-band EQ. The resonator controls per-note feedback and dispersion for amazing MPE effects.
Digistix 2
This new version of DigiStix brings some distinct advantages over its predecessor, most notably the ability to host up to 64 samples per drumkit with 5 layers per pad. The interface has been drastically redesigned for iPad to make better use of full screen mode, allowing a popular MPC style 4×4 pad layout with 4 banks of samples. Digistix 2 also allows greater control over the multi-sample layers, with the ability to individually control the volume levels and pitch of layers as well as global pitch and tune settings all from the new sample window.
Previously, each pad had effect sends for the internal reverb and delay effects, but this can now be routed to external busses 9 and 10 for processing using external effects.
The controller editing is now build into the main display and can be edited in place without the need to scroll the interface. It also now supports extra effect controllers. A new context aware control window allows you to quickly change pad settings without the need for popup windows.
DigiStix 2 now supports GM and original DS drum kit layouts, and includes a sophisticated multi-layer Auto Sampler, capable of recording new GM compatible drumkits automatically from your hardware. It is 100% backward compatible with the original app, and can be used as a drop-in replacement.
Drag and drop support now allows you to directly drop samples on specific layers, as well as preview and edit them directly. You can create new kits by simply combining banks from existing kits into one mega kit, or use our non destructive referencing to include sounds from other kits.
The randomize feature has been enhanced so you can randomize individual instruments or within specific banks. The new continuous MIDI learn mode makes custom mapping a breeze.
Patterns can also be exported as MIDI stems for use in other packages including a direct import to Helium clips. You can also export patterns as audio in the latest version.
The auto sample feature allows automated recording of GM compatible kits directly from hardware drum machines. The slice editor can also be used for MPC style slicing of audio clips.
Shimmer FX
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.
For more information these and other 4Pockets apps, click here:
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