Here are this weekend’s bunch of price drops from 4Pockets. The offer ends April 8th.
- TalkWorks – $9.99 to $4.99
- Euclidean Sequencer – $14.99 to $7.99
- EvolverFX – $14.99 to $7.99
- Shredder – $7.99 to $4.99
- FontStack – $14.99 to $8.99
- Kaleidoscope Echo – $12.99 to $6.99
- RingsFX – $14.99 to $8.99
TalkWorks
TalkWorks is an AUv3 plugin designed to give any sound a human vocal like quality by simulating vowel sounds found in human speech. In reality when you change your mouth shape you are filtering the sound to make those familiar vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u). TalkWorks uses a special digital filtering technique to simulate this.
You can fully customize up to 10 vowels sounds to your liking, then use one of 5 play modes to add dynamics and movement to your sound. You can randomly switch between vowels in one of several ways, either abruptly or using smooth fades, and control the speed of the movement.
You can even program your own custom sequences of vowel steps. Each sequencer step controling the type of transition, duration and modulation type. Sequences can be looped or one shot, re-triggered by incoming MIDI notes.
For none sequencer modes you can enable random modulation, which randomly fades in a sweeping vibrato which changes speeds, then locks to tempo for dramatic effect.
Various random operations allow generation of custom vowels or vowel sequences. Each vowel consists of 3 formants which have seperate frequencies and level controls. You can even attach custom names to your vowels.
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 separate patterns per song patch.
Since each band can specify its own note sequence and output MIDI channel, you can create some quite sophisticated rhythms patterns, driving 4 separate 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.
Euclidean Sequencer now supports 4 different modes, traditional Euclidean, PolyRhythm, PolyMeter and PolyTempo. We have many great ways to automatically generate complex rhythms making it an invaluable tool for experimental music creation.
EvolverFX
Evolver is a performance tool for creating multi-layered evolving sequences of sound. At its most basic think of evolver as a 4 lane sequencer which creates automatic accompaniment from notes and chords as you play on your MIDI keyboard, but it can also be used to create elastic evolving soundscapes where audio samples seamlessly merge into one another to create highly complex and original sounds.
At the heart of evolver is a sophisticated wave synthesizer and sequencing engine which can create dramatic hard hitting transitions of sounds or merge sounds to create seamless transitions that evolve in time to the beat. It has 4 sequencer lanes which can run independently and mixed together using the real-time controls or over MIDI. When you play a chord on your MIDI keyboard for instance, each of the 4 sequencer lanes will take those MIDI notes and translate them into a musical sequence of sounds which are combined together and synced to create a form of automatic accompaniment.
Evolver can load its own multi-layer patches or import them directly from Chameleon. These patches can be layered using the 4 sequencer lanes or split over a virtual keyboard. You can assign key zones, transpose them, assigned MIDI channels and velocity levels, set latch options etc. You can also load in your own one shot samples and lay them end on end to create evolving atmospheres or backing soundscapes. These samples can be looped or be free running with definable start/end and loop points using our non destructive editor.
We also included a third sound source which lets you build sounds on the fly by overlaying harmonics to create anything from traditional sine, square, triangle, saw waves to complex detuned oscilators. These can be used in conjunction with multi-samples or one-shot-samples within the same sequencer lane. You can even randomize a complete sequence of harmonic sounds which when pieced together create some very unique and dynamic voices.
Each sequencer lane can be up to 64 steps in length, each step has independent timing, pitch, volume, gate, probability, sample source etc. so the scope of what is achievable is vast. Each sequencer lane has its own ADSR, VCF and LFO which operates on all sounds within its lane, as well as being able to change the underlying settings for each sound source.
Evolver also includes an ARP function which can be run in one of the default modes or you can define your own fingering patterns to be used to enhance your playing style.
Create your own sequences, lay down your MIDI notes in your DAW and have Evolver automatically play along to your chord sequences, automatically locking to the host tempo. Sequencer events can be fixed or transposed allowing you to create percussive and drum backing using a single lane.
Shredder
This audio shredder does just what is says, it shreds incoming audio (usually strings or lengthy sustained chords) into bite size pieces, adds an envelope and passes through a filter of choice. The result is a gated staccato effect which you can shape into patterns or runs of quarter notes. These kinds of patterns can be heard in Trance / Dubstep / Hip Hop or other modern electronic music genres. You can control both left and right stereo channels independently, with control over pulse width, attack and release.
There are 4 difference filter types (Low Pass, High Pass, Band Pass and Notch) which can be enabled, with independent control over cutoff frequency and resonance. You can even randomise new settings each step for some incredibly complex and pleasing textures.
Each quarter note can be independently triggered or you can join them together to create longer runs.
This plugin allows complete parameter automation and auto sync to master tempo.
FontStack
FontStack is a ‘fontastic’ AUv3 plugin for iOS which can be loaded into your favourite DAW allowing you to utilise all those wonderful and nostalgic SF2 SoundFonts you’ve collected over the years.
The SoundFont standard was created back in the early 90s and made famous by the SoundBlaster series of sound cards. With the introduction of the Amiga, it spawned a host of musical creation tools called Trackers, which allowed the Amiga to load these SoundFonts and create sophisticated musical scores of 4 or 8 tracks. These days we don’t use this standard so much, but there is a wealth of free SF2 files available on the internet just waiting to be loaded into FontStack.
A SoundFont comprises a file with an .sf2 file extension. This file contains a set of samples, instruments, and presets. FontStack enables you to load one or more SoundFonts into its 4 layers, and use them in lots of creative ways.
You can stack layers to create a rich combination of multiple tones, or assign each layer its own key range on the keyboard to create virtual splits, or a mixture of the two. Each layer can also be assigned its own MIDI channel for true OMNI mode.
One great feature of FontStack is its ability to cache all your SoundFonts and the instruments they contain. This allows quick searching for specific instrument types without the need to physically search SoundFonts to find them.
Another great feature is the ability to optionally link to a remote folder containing a global set of SoundFonts, so that they can be shared between apps. Both internal and external SoundFonts and their instruments will be cached, and searching is just as easy as it is using internal SoundFonts.
Kaleidoscope Echo
Kaleidoscope is an AUv3 MIDI processor designed specifically to simulate audio delay lines, but instead of processing audio data, it generates a series of delayed MIDI messages to achieve the same thing sonically, but with some added advantages.
You can have Kaleidoscope emulate multi-tap delays and gating effects, as well as being able to manipulate the pitch and velocity of each repeat, something that is not normally done using a typical audio echo or delay effect. By default, all repeated notes are processed using the chromatic scale mode, but you are free to impose any key and scale to ensure any pitched notes are incremented or decremented in accordance with the chosen scale.
Any MIDI notes that are presented to the Input MIDI port are processed by Kaleidoscope, and the modified output is then passed on to other instrument plugins. You can chain multiple instances of Kaleidoscope to create even more complex harmonies. For example, the first instance could turn one note into a simple 3-note chord, and the second instance could add octave offsets to create a lush, multi-octave outputs – all from a single note!
It is also possible to perform simple, real-time harmonies using Kaleidoscope by setting the number of repeats to zero. In this mode, you can customize the pitch and velocity settings and add up to 17 additional harmonies.
You can also switch to user definable mode to specify per step velocity and pitch settings to create complex sequences, complete with ties, note skip and loop mode.
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.
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