4Pockets are offering 4 deals this weekend including a 50% off star buy. The offers end October 7th.
- RingsFX – $12.99 to $6.99 (50% off Star)
- Surface Builder – $14.99 to $9.99
- WaveCloud – $14.99 to $9.99
- Euclidean Sequencer – $12.99 to $8.99
RingsFX
RingsFX is an AUv3 plugin based on the famous Mutable Instruments Rings, one of the most dedicated and fully-featured Physical Modelling Eurorack modules ever created. At its core is a resonator that needs to be ‘excited’ or ‘strummed’ by MIDI input, noise, or external audio excitation.
RingsFX emulates vibrations of structures simulated by 3 different synthesis techniques that can be plucked or process external signals: Modal Synthesis, Sympathetic Strings, and Inharmonic Strings. Traditionally, Rings was only monophonic but used a unique approach to polyphony that allowed the previous note to ‘ring’ out and decay while a new note was played. Rings FX provides these same modes (Mono, Duo, and Quad), but expands it with a true Polyphonic mode. RingsFX also expands the capabilities of the original engine by adding support for velocity sensitivity and MIDI MPE mode.
The new polyphonic mode allows RingsFX to play up to 12 notes of true polyphony, depending on the settings. Doing so requires RingsFX to use multiple Rings resonators, but the more polyphony you use, the more processing power it requires.
RingsFX has 7 modes in total, by combining the 3 basic modes with additional properties such as western chords and specially tuned reverbs. The original hardware also featured a secret ‘Easter Egg’ mode, which in RingsFX is simply calling ‘Synthesizer’ mode, rumoured to be based on one of the early Korg synthesis methods. This mode supported several mutable effects which now work on in all resonator modes.
RingsFX also has a Mod-Matrix which allows you to combine the built-in LFOs and FEGs to great effect by manipulating parameters and mutable effects in real-time. Star of the show is a unique pulse sequencer which can be used to generate dramatic rhythms and modulation of controls.
Finally, RingsFX can be loaded as an AUv3 effect plugin. Set the Exciter Source to ‘INPUT’, and you can pass any audio through RingsFX and use this audio as an external exciter. For example, it can be used to great affect on a drum beat to create some crazy rhythms. Use the Output Mix to combine the original audio with the synthesised resonator output to create some stunning effects.
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.
We 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.
WaveCloud is not only a deep and powerful granular synth but also a fun way to create many incredible sounds.
Euclidean Sequencer
Euclidean Sequencer is an alternative incarnation of the classic step sequencer that has become very popular in the modular realm. It is based on Euclidean rhythms developed by computer scientist Godfried Toussaint in 2004. Euclidean rhythms have their roots in Greek mathematician Euclid’s algorithm, which involves using the greatest common divisor of two numbers to place hits in a sequence as evenly as possible across a set timing divisions.
In practice this is actually simpler than you might think, and Euclidean Sequencer is a great way to auto generate complex musical sequences with no prior knowledge of how it actually works.
Euclidean Sequencer is an AUv3 plugin that can be loaded inside any popular host application that has flexible MIDI routing.
You can define up to 4 Euclidean rhythm parts, each part is referred to as a band. The bands are labelled A-D and colour coded RED, ORANGE, GREEN and CYAN. Together these 4 bands create a pattern, and you can create up to 16 seperate patterns per song patch.
Since each band can specify its own note sequence and output MIDI channel, you can create some quite sophisticated rythms patterns, driving 4 seperate instruments at once. Even better you can seamlessly switch patterns to create even longer evolving sequences. Patterns follow a specified key, scale, or defined chord.
You can even use MIDI input to automatically make note sequences conform to the currently playing chords.
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