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Expert Sleepers - Crossfade Loop Synth

7 members are watching Crossfade Loop Synth for news
Details
Software: Crossfade Loop Synth
Developer: Expert Sleepers
Primary Type: Sample Looper
Price (MSRP): $49
Instrument(s): VSTAudio Unit
Effect(s): VSTAudio Unit
 VersionDownloadAvail?
Windows 3.0.5 beta DownloadReleased
Mac OS XMac OS X Universal Binary 3.0.4 DownloadReleased

Copy Protection: None
Supported Sample Formats include: AIFF, SDII, WAV
Average User Rating: Average rating - 9.750

Compatibility Unknown
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Crossfade Loop Synth
Crossfade Loop Synth

Crossfade Loop Synth is actually two plug-ins: Crossfade Loop Synth and Crossfade Loop Synth Effect. The effect version takes the power of Crossfade Loop Synth and turns it into a live sampler, a looper and a very unusual and powerful delay effect.

Crossfade Loop Synth
Crossfade Loop Synth is, at heart, a simple sample playback synth plug-in. It plays samples in the classic sampler manner - by simply altering the playback speed according to the desired note. No fancy timestretching or pitchshifting is applied.

You can control how the sample is looped as it is played. An adjustable amount of crossfade can be applied to the loop endpoints to smooth the transitions. This makes it extremely easy to produce glitch-free pad sounds. The loops can also be played backwards and alternately forwards and backwards (pendulum-style).

Further sound processing can be applied in the form of overdrive/saturation, filtering, envelopes (for amplitude and filter), pulse-width modulation, oscillator sync and LFOs (one each for filter, pitch, PWM and sync).

The synth is 32 note polyphonic, and all parameters can be controlled by MIDI controllers.

Crossfade Loop Synth Effect
Crossfade Loop Synth Effect is the same as Crossfade Loop Synth except you can record live audio to use as the sample, rather than just loading it from disk.

You can record continuously, even while playing back. This allows you to use the plugin as an extremely unusual and creative delay effect. For example you can have the delays played back at double the pitch/speed you played them. Or at double the pitch and backwards. Or as a chord. Or repeat the first beat of every bar... the possibilities are legion.

You can save the recorded sample to disk as an AIFF file for later use.

User Reviews for Crossfade Loop Synth

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By Bonteburg
On 22nd February 2006
Version: 2.1.5

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Bonteburg


4 of 4 people found
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Time for a complete rewrite...

If you're on a Mac upwards of 10.3 go get this.

Crossfade looper is a clever little vsti/AU that will let you load a single wav or aiff into its interface so you can play it like a pitched instrument.

While this doesn't sound like much but given it's the ONLY Mac synth I know of that handles samples in such a straightforward/simple manner makes it a gem if bloated, library playing juggernauts of samplers are not your thing.

Moreover it's equipped with a nifty loop point/sample start system with a customizable amount of crossfade (hence the name).
This works well for those "never-ending" pad or string sounds, but the fact that you can automate all parameters means that you can get all kinds of loop gimmicks out of it depending on how much effort you put into it. You can basically do everything from "chopping" drum loops to creating the most glitchy and scary effects by using extreme settings and automation.

it comes with a multimode filter, various envelope parametres and an overdrive function

8 out of ten stability points for the slightly sloppy timing. You can work around that by setting your buffer size to a low value though.


I love the GUI, it's elegant and smooth and you can change its size. How cool is that? (and it saves you some screen real estate). Every parametre you hover over pops up its name so no space is wasted, another screen real estate plus ;)


Very low cpu consumption on my puny 2000 build Mac G4.



Marco :)
 
Last edited by Bonteburg on 6th January 2007    Report
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