KVR Audio

noiseprovesnothing · Post by **noiseprovesnothing** » Sun Feb 02, 2014 3:18 am

I played with the demo for a few days and took the plunge - $210 for Breaktweaker Expanded was too good to pass up.

Initial impression - a little CPU heavy but fantastic in Live with multi-out although it'll run in just about anything - tested in aforementioned Live as well as Logic and Renoise. Stable, though no surprise there.

TONS of great content and the sequencer with microedit is great. It takes some time to get used to what microedit does, but after that, you can do a LOT. Melodic stuff in addition to glitchy buzzes. Sample mangling facilities are nice too.

I don't know that I would have spent $300 on it, but $210 for what you get is about right.

kiezum · Post by **kiezum** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 3:02 pm

This tread is great. Breaktweaker is essentially another boring drummachine plugin for EDM. I like Simon's comparison of Beethoven's I-V-I-etc endings and the glitch and stutter effect in recent music (it's everywhere, even in most commercials here in the Netherlands).

Personally, I like bouncy repeats once in a while, but SonicCoutures provided me with excellent kontakt-scripts to do that.

But probably some producer will come along to do something new and interesting with BreakTweaker.

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 4:12 pm

Well, like I said in an earlier post, I think BT is much more than a "drum machine". I would call it a "percussive interest generator"... but P.I.G. is not a very marketable acronym.

Seriously, if you step away from the way it's being marketed and look at what it can actually do, you'll find a treasure trove of interesting rhythmic ideas. Just use non-percussive samples, enrich them with some of those wicked waveforms, and see what I mean.

I've got two real gripes so far... one is the CPU usage, which goes way up in a hurry when you apply distortion, and two is the sequencer, which is much too short (per scene). I don't mind scrolling in this case, but there's nothing to scroll TO!

Other than that, it's a very welcome addition to my palette.

SLiC · Post by **SLiC** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 4:25 pm

Just tried the demo- Its OK, but I I much prefer tremor (and that was half the cost) and have Spark 2 to look forward to as a free update, so I will be passing on this one. To be honest, you could do all of this if you are a live user natively....

C-note · Post by **C-note** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 5:12 pm

SLiC wrote:Just tried the demo- Its OK, but I I much prefer tremor (and that was half the cost) and have Spark 2 to look forward to as a free update, so I will be passing on this one. To be honest, you could do all of this if you are a live user natively....

The point to me of Breaktweaker is that while yes, you can do "All this" with other plugs or like many including BT himself, slice stuff up manually, BreakTweaker does this easily and naturally like an instrument. I have Tremor and will also get the free Spark 2 update and have Geist, Maschine Studio, Push and bla bla bla but...none of those pieces does what BreakTweaker does with so much ease and FUN.

kiezum · Post by **kiezum** » Sat Feb 15, 2014 8:29 pm

I tried the demo. BreakTweaker has some interesting features. The filters sound good (tokyo and NY). And the oscillators can do really strange sounds. The microedit functions is interesting. But the sequencer is a little bit limited. It isn't as easy and intuitive as Maschine. But I could use it in maschine, but then it would be a regular drummachine. Hmmm. I wish I could export the microedits to midi! I've got a lot of izotope products, but BreakTweaker one is not for me.

ariston · Post by **ariston** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 10:34 am

C-note wrote:
SLiC wrote:...none of those pieces does what BreakTweaker does with so much ease and FUN.

Yep.

Also, comparing it with Tremor is a bit off. Tremor is a drum synth, and as such goes a whole lot deeper than Breaktweaker.

If FXPansion had done the right thing, they would have merged Tremor and Geist and made the absolute Über Drum Machine... but it didn't happen.

One thing about the stut tut tuttter er er ... yes, the effect gets old pretty quickly, but so does the white noise resonant LP rise or the acid bass line, not to mention the fttf bass drum. The challenge lies in using a tool to make good music. And the stuttering in BT is very versatile, you can align the stutters to pitch, or sync them rhythmically, you can influence the tail end of the gate, which really enhances the rhythmic possibilities. There are so many ways to mess with your samples, a lot of which don't have to result in those berserk zipper noises.

Well, that's enough touting about Breaktweaker. Haters gonna hate, lovers gonna love. And the indifferent will, er, indifferentiate.

Monkberry · Post by **Monkberry** » Sun Feb 16, 2014 1:41 pm

I really like the design of BreakTweaker aside from the minor issue of having to scroll as many have mentioned. Once you figure out where and what everything is, it is easy to get good results. I'm more interested in using it percussively as opposed to glitch/stutter genre but it does that very-nicely if I need it. It's quick, it's easy, so me likey!

woodsdenis · Post by **woodsdenis** » Mon Feb 17, 2014 1:47 am

Monkberry wrote:I really like the design of BreakTweaker aside from the minor issue of having to scroll as many have mentioned. Once you figure out where and what everything is, it is easy to get good results. I'm more interested in using it percussively as opposed to glitch/stutter genre but it does that very-nicely if I need it. It's quick, it's easy, so me likey!

I am using it loads and NOT for stutter or Dubstep (nothing wrong with that either btw)
Obviously for electronic based beats and fx, sorry to spoil the negative party I really like it.

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:07 pm

This thing is badass. how do you drag and drop midi patterns from it into your daw though? Like iDrum?

woodsdenis · Post by **woodsdenis** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:16 pm

memyselfandus wrote:This thing is badass. how do you drag and drop midi patterns from it into your daw though? Like iDrum?

You can't.

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:49 pm

cron wrote:
... featuring BT's patented micro edit technology based on pioneering rhythmic sound design research...
http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/Brian_Transeau_1.html

With particular reference to: http://patent.ipexl.com/U2S/20090281793ZZDASHZZA1.html

Isn't anybody else concerned by this? We often have discussions around here about how glitch edits are better when done manually. It looks like you'd have no other choice if BT/Izotope get their way.

We all know that Stutter Edit is a marketing term, but attempting to patent the process so competitor's software can't do it? I'm pretty sure that DBlue Glitch and Livecut offered exactly the functionality described prior to 2007, and composers have been doing the rhythmic/pitch crossover effect all the way back to 1957 when Stockhausen published How Time Passes.

Do I just not understand how patents work?

good question

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:50 pm

woodsdenis wrote:
memyselfandus wrote:This thing is badass. how do you drag and drop midi patterns from it into your daw though? Like iDrum?
You can't.

Damn

thanks

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:52 pm

djanthonyw wrote:Ok, tried the demo. Can't believe there's no swing option, or even an option drag midi patterns to track to apply swing from the host... iDrum would be a better option as far as I'm concerned.

My thoughts as well. They say on their website that this is a replacement for idrum.

memyselfandus · Post by **memyselfandus** » Sun Feb 21, 2016 3:57 pm

deastman wrote:
cron wrote:
... featuring BT's patented micro edit technology based on pioneering rhythmic sound design research...
http://patent.ipexl.com/inventor/Brian_Transeau_1.html

With particular reference to: http://patent.ipexl.com/U2S/20090281793ZZDASHZZA1.html

Isn't anybody else concerned by this? We often have discussions around here about how glitch edits are better when done manually. It looks like you'd have no other choice if BT/Izotope get their way.

We all know that Stutter Edit is a marketing term, but attempting to patent the process so competitor's software can't do it? I'm pretty sure that DBlue Glitch and Livecut offered exactly the functionality described prior to 2007, and composers have been doing the rhythmic/pitch crossover effect all the way back to 1957 when Stockhausen published How Time Passes.

Do I just not understand how patents work?

This is very troubling. A search of the US Patent Office actually reveals three patent applications. One is a means of live triggering of alternate audio recordings, in a way which appears to describe Ableton's clip launcher.

Personally, I'm going to make my feelings about this known to Izotope. I don't need their products, and refuse to do business with someone like BT who claims ownership of broad areas of music technology with decades of prior art!

Boycott Izotope!

Patent clip launch features? Wtf..

[BreakTweaker] New Izotope @ NAMM