By Cybernetika
On 26th July 2008
Version: 1.304
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Cybernetika
7 of 8 people found
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I decided to write my first review on a product that truly stands out, something I use all the time yet it is offered completely free of charge. If any product deserves a review, its dblue glitch.
dblue.glitch is a machine that was probably designed to do insane beat chopping FX with just a few mouse clicks. If you listened to Venetian Snares, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and stuff like that, you'll be interested in glitch for its abilities to turn anything you feed into it into sliced and mangled, organized chaos. Maybe this is not your thing, but I'm pretty sure you encountered the situation where you want to make a nice fill, or add just a little unpredictability to your music. Thats the point where you will be loving glitch too. All producers I worked with have used this baby in at least one of their tracks, some in an obvious way, some for more subtle effects.
Glitch has 9 completely different sounding effects built in that are triggered on and off in a programmed sequence. Among these effects you can find ringmodulator, timestretcher, reverser and bitcrusher, and each of them has their own parameters.
Sounds like a really complicated and sophisticated machine doesn't it? But actually, it is without doubt the most intuitive glitchmachine I ever encountered. Right when you start it up, it starts mangling your sound in a random, yet rythmic way. How is that possible? Well, in the upper middle of the plugin window you can find the heart: the sequence in which your effects are enabled, up to a length of 4 bars. You can choose to trigger just one effect, or you can tell the program to enable a randomly picked effect. To top it off you can even randomize the pattern. No sequence will ever sound the same, and if things get too weird, you can always use one of the presets which will bring a certain rythm to the pattern. So I guess it is fair to say that glitch has completely changed the workflow for creating rythmic sequences of effects. Programming them is no longer a pain in the rear, and thanks to the randomizer buttons, being lazy can lead to quick success as well.
Then you can tweak your FX one by one. Glitch is 9 FX in one and each of them sounds great, yet completely different from the others. I often find myself using just one of the FX in solo mode. When you tweak the settings, each of these FX can produce whole new results. For example the shuffler set to length 4 with maximum "repeat" brings my drums an instant techno-like 1/4 bar loop character, or if I turn the reverser interval to its minimum, I get basically a granular tone. Alone these 2 FX, my favourites along with the ringmodulator, would be worth spending money on. And each of the FX has a few important parameters that can be randomized again. Dblue concentrated on parameters that drastically change the character of an FX here, and that was a great decision, it keeps the GUI (which is a masterpiece in usability I might add) focused on the most important things.
Finally, you can look at the top of the plugin window, where you can control the overall random amount of glitch. This parameter is great for those who want to add a bit of subtle randomness to their track. You have a knob for removing unwanted artifacts, a master envelope, distortion and filter, again proving that almost everything about this machine is extremely well thought out.
Last words: The greatest advantage of glitch is the organization of chaos. There are quite a few "glitch" plugins that bring utter chaos to your sound, but it does not sound rythmic at all. Glitch is the first one to organize that chaos for you. This baby is recommended to any producer, especially the more experimental ones, but also those who want to add a little spice to their tracks with subtle randomness. I mean, how can you ever regret a 500kb download? The user interface is one of the best I've ever encountered, the documentation is good, the stability is awesome, CPU usage is low, and the sound of it is original and quality. Awesome plugin! |
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Last edited by Cybernetika on 26th July 2008
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By Cyberwave
On 14th October 2007
Version: 1.3.04
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3 of 3 people found
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Glitch, by Dblue is a free effect plugin that is one of my favorites. Before glitch, if I wanted to glitch/mix loops I'd have to slice em, and do it all manually. But this is a gift from the Glitch gods. Amazingly easy to use, and very nice souding. Definately worth downloading.
GUI
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Really clear, easy to figure out GUI. Colors,
plenty of things to play around with each adding to your glitched up mix.
Sound
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Sounds great- depending on what ever loop/sample you have. The plugin has plenty of filters and effects. Delay, reverb, modulation, etc. Each effect is unique, and can easily be changed. Of course things will sound a bit random, but it's glitch!
Fearues
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Definately offers more than you would expect. It would take forever to edit/program loops, samples and other things to get them to sound a certain way- but with this, you can do it all and more in just seconds.
Docs
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The website has 2 documentations for v1.2 and v1.3 and each has plenty of answers to your questions and explains everything perfectly.
Presents
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Technically doesn't contatin actuall presents, but the effects, and feautures might fit into this. Both great.
VFM
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Free
Stability
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No problems what-so-ever. The cpu usage isn't too great, but not that bad either.
Overall, this has to be one of the best plugins- if not the best, for making glitch/idm/breakbeat or just adding some spice to your loops. Download this! It is amazing! |
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By MoreDread
On 30th March 2007
Version: 1.3.04
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MoreDread
3 of 3 people found
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(sorry for bad english)
This is the ultimate tool to spice up your drums a bit, or to totally fuck them up. Nine highly tweakable effect modules, which can be triggered with the build in sequencer (adjustable steplength).
The user interface is gorgeous, and everything is neatly arranged, perfectly read- and accessible.
This is everything but a one-trick-pony. You can use it slightly on your drums, to bring a little variation and some interesting aspects in your drumloop, or you can turn them into a sonic mayhem, by simply hitting all the randomize buttons you can find (but, be careful with randomizing the modulator, you can get some painful high sounds by doing it).
If you are feeling more experimental, you could also try to use glitch on your vocals, pads, leads.. to get again some interesting aspects or turning them to something totally wicked.
There are even parameters that will affect the behaviour of glitch's randomizing option, so it will never get boring simply hitting the randomize buttons, although this effect is unbelievable cooler if you invest a little time (very little, actually. I figured out everything pretty fast) in learing how the modules work, so you can manually tweak them, and get far more satisfiying and interesting results.
Midilearn is also available for most of the controls, so you can add even more variety to it when playing live..
I never really looked into the documentation (it was not necessary), but yes, there is one, and it looks pretty good.
As for the presets, there are non, but you dont really need any. How can anybody know what effects you will need on which step?
But, there are some templates for the step sizes, which is pretty helpful, and, you can randomize them, if you are too lazy to come up with something yourself, and edit them till you are satisfied.
I never had to use customer support, but there is e-mail support offered at the website.
Value for Money: I want to give Glitch at least a 12 for it's VAL, as it is something completely ingenious and unique, and, best of all, free.
Stability: It never crashed my machine.
My advice would be you simply grab Glitch and try it out yourself, since it is free it won't hurt you, and i believe there is a great possibillity you will like it. |
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Last edited by MoreDread on 30th March 2007
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By Steven West
On 5th January 2007
Version: 1.3.04
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Steven West
1 of 1 people found
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I highly advise this effect for experimental to high end production work. From any one to all of it's supplied effects are intuitive and easy to set and sequence. Plus the sound and handling of them each and all are simply superb. Flange's to delays - tape stops to buffer repeats, and more!
The latest version (1.3.04) works great in Orion Platinum 7 as well.
The only downside is the sequencing blocks and durations are a bit tricky to lay in if using off beat placements or durations.
But aside from that small gripe, everything else is well laid out, and offers infinate possibilities for anything from drums and synths to guitars and vocal tracks. Plus, re-mixers could no doubt use this to no end on full mixes. A fantastic effect for any genre or taste.
As for manuals and customer support - I feel quilty to give DB low-ish ratings below. But in all honesty, I haven't had to look at the manual, nor contact DB yet. So I don't want to give high or low ratings in this regard, but hopefully a fair and impartial 'don't know' rating.
Same for 'presets', as I think this is primarily up to the user to fashion for their own music. It could be possible to have a wealth of presets to choose from grouped into 2, 4, 8 measures and so on. But I for one would probably wish to modify one or two things for my own music if so offered. And again, the implementation and fine detailing for user preferences is easy and quick enough - whether one knows what they're doing or not.
Glitch will ALWAYS offer excitement and inspiration. |
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Last edited by Steven West on 5th January 2007
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By AaronGNP
On 4th January 2007
Version: 1.3
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AaronGNP
2 of 2 people found
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Great plug in for automating glitch and IDM type sounds. The default effects are all pretty useful and extremely tweakable. The user interface is clean and extremely easy to navigate. There are a few elements that could be improved upon (restart loop/pattern upon midi note (pattern) change, as an example), but overall is very easy to use and makes glitching out a song very easy. Low CPU load is a plus and allows the end user to run multiple instances very easily. The addition of some presets on knob positions would be nice, but seeing as how easy it is to change the settings, it's not a deal breaker.
I've been using this since the 1.2 Betas, and the jump to 1.3 is pretty large, but it's unfortunate that if you wrote any songs using the 1.2.x versions, they would not be compatible with the 1.3.x versions, and would require that you have two versions of the VST for backwards compatibility.
Layering several instances of Glitch in an effect channel can produce some bizarre and mindblowing effects.
This is a must have for anyone making glitch/IDM/noise. |
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