The Mangle

I've never really used grain stuff, from now on I certainly will.

Good:

• Easy to use with a great minimalistic yet intuitive interface.
• Light on CPU and seemed stable so far (v1.1.1).
• Versatile options to set up a sound / preset / programm; what I also mean with this is that there are intuitive and many ways to modulate certain values inside a preset / programm (e.g. with random generators, LFOs, envelops, etc.).
• The price almost is ridiculous. I tried other grain synths, which were five times as expensive as this one. This one is so affordable yet at least equally powerful.
• Used sounds can be saved inside the preset or (as I personally prefer it) not in the preset, but with the path to a file (this saves storage space, in case you'll use the same sound again and again).

Could maybe better (ideas which could make some aspects maybe better in this plugin - so basically some kind of feature wishes):

• The amount of modulation is sometimes a bit hard to set up. On the one site it would be cool to have also some kind of numeric value to at least see when setting up the modulation amount, on the other site it would be great to be able to enter values. The detailed-tweaking you can get while holding Ctrl is rather weird, since it can jump quite quickly suddenly. IIRC other plugins did behave similar; so this might be some typical behaviour when it comes to detailed knob tweaking? Or framework dependend? What I want to say here: it's hard to set up minimal tweaks in knobs sometimes.
• Some values like the "position speed" cannot really be linked to an internal mod, AFAIK. It can be automated in the host, though.
• Not that important, but still would be MAYBE nice to have in some very rare situations: curve control for the envelopes.
• Nitpicky here: the default preset has the 8 slots spread through the whole keyboard, while I often times just want one slot for the whole keyboard. I made some own default preset having only the first slot spread through the whole keyboard (you can set it up luckily!!), which gets loaded in Reaper when I open this plugin. It's a really tiny and maybe stupid feedback here, but I just wanted to say it, since it felt weird that the first slot is set to one very low octave by default. (-;

Overall a big thanks to the dev! I am not sure if the development of this plugin is still going on. Writing this in 2022, while I can only see year numbers like 2015 or 2016 on the devs page, unfortunately. I wrote the dev and asked if the development is still going on; I'll see about that. But for now this plugin already works great. (=.

Also: some review here wrote that they bought it and never got a licence: I cannot second that. I bought it and immediately got my plugin. The price is so low anyway, omg ... seriously! (-;

I'd give it 5 stars but since the dev takes the money and does not provide a licensed product or updates or respond to emails, I would award 0 stars if possible.

I can only say I am reviewing the DEMO version as, having paid the £20, that is all I have.

I compared it to some other granular VSTs on the market, and this one is the most versatile. The ability to scrub the cursor around the sample for example, is often not mentioned, but allows the creation of some wonderful complex soundscapes. The modulation options are great. Most entertaining virtual instrument I own, would love to see it being upgraded.

Total newbie to software instruments but, had wonderful results with the Mangle over the last 2 days. That's how long I have owned it. I watched all the video's and had a moderate understanding of it before I even had it. It has already done wonders for a project I started some weeks ago. That involved rendering 3-5 second clips of some pads I constructed in Reaper with Ebow, and went about the ways of mangling as I had seen in the video's. Despite the whole thing of the dev "disappearning" the price of admission still seemed worth it and it was. Blending the soundscapes I produced in Mangle with the original material that the sources came from just opened up the sound into another place. I really like this thing and look forward to progressing in the things that can be done with it. I'm using Reaper and Windows 7 and have had no issues at all. Love the fricken thing.

Phil.

I have just PURCHASED the software. It is a reasonable price and it is a great product. I can create my own drone sounds and can stop buying new drone software. Lots of fun doing it too.