some notes I made on several plugins...

[foosnark]

I spent a couple of weeks going through my effects plugin collection. I was motivated mainly by wanting to cut back on buying anything new -- getting a closer look and better understanding of some of them, and better appreciation of nearly all of them as well as some sound design inspiration in general.

I took some notes, and wrote them up here if anyone's interested. For plugins where I felt like I needed to figure out what was going on, it's more explanation-ish, and for others it's more "here are some cool tricks" or things I want to come back to in the future. I do have particular tastes in effects to fit my music, but maybe there's something useful here for others as well.

[jamcat]

I see you wrote up Audiority Electric Matter:

Mostly a straightforward effect. But in “Filter Matrix” mode, it’s worth trying modulating the Range with an envelope follower from your host. Modulating it at audio rate can get things really dirty.

Do you find altering the RANGE in FILTER MATRIX mode gets choppy (zipper effect) at faster rates?

[foosnark]

Do you find altering the RANGE in FILTER MATRIX mode gets choppy at faster rates?

Hmm, I don't think I'd call it choppy. It is probably not designed for audio rate modulation but it kind of works.

There's kind of a pitch shift thing going on with it when you use a strong enough LFO, which I think is kind of expected from the phase shifting. That sounds oddly steppy, where you get three distinct pitches from it when the LFO is a sine wave. It's weird but I'm not sure it's "wrong".

[jamcat]

I don't think it happens with the analogue EH Electric Mistress pedal. It seems like a digital artefact that could be smoothed out in code. You do have to move the knob pretty fast for it to happen, though. It seems to get more intense the higher the the COLOR setting is. So maybe the delay circuit isn't analogue modeled?

[legendCNCD]

Thanks for some tips on Valhalla tools, will try them

[enCiphered]

You put a lot of time and effort into creating this comprehensive reviews. It's clear that you are passionate about sound design. Thank you for sharing your insights!

[manymanyhaha]

Thank you for this generosity. Some plugins on the list I own but haven't explored enough to comment and others I now want to try.

[zerocrossing]

Even though I don’t own a lot of the plugins you mentioned, I absolutely love reading this. It makes me feel like I’m reading my own notes which I’ve made in the past. I’m going to check out your music next, as I bet we have a lot in common, or if we don’t I’ll find it really interesting anyway.

[zerocrossing]

Even though I don’t own a lot of the plugins you mentioned, I absolutely love reading this. It makes me feel like I’m reading my own notes which I’ve made in the past. I’m going to check out your music next, as I bet we have a lot in common, or if we don’t I’ll find it really interesting anyway.

Confirmed: we have a lot in common. The first track I’m listening to (Closing your eyes…) instantly makes me think I bought a new album on the Axiom or Instinct label.

[Audiority]

Hey guys, can you send over some examples of the issues with Electric Matter? Either here or to support<at>audiority.com

Thanks!
Luca

[foosnark]

I'm not sure if there really are issues.

Turning the Range knob manually in the GUI sounds noticeably steppy -- I assume this is is just because there's no smoothing on the parameter -- so this isn't really unexpected IMHO. (Too much slew on parameter changes can be a bad thing IMHO). This is in Bitwig, 440 Hz squarewave from the Test Done device, using the Init patch in Electric Matter but then setting Filter Matrix on.

http://starthief.net/mp3/elec_matter/matter1.mp3

However, it's smooth if I use an LFO modulator in Bitwig to change the parameter.

The "3 pitches" thing was user error. With Range at 50%, trying to use a bipolar LFO in Bitwig to modulate it by 100% in each direction, meant I was clipping the top and bottom of my sine LFO (trying to go from -50% to 150%, instead of 0 to 100%). Therefore instead of a smooth change in frequency, I got a distinct "normal - sharp - normal - flat" pattern. In this example I'm using a 1Hz bipolar LFO at 50%, but then I crank up the amount to 100% and you'll hear what confused me this morning

http://starthief.net/mp3/elec_matter/matter2.mp3

And where it comes to audio-rate modulation... Electric Mistress doesn't have a CV input in the first place, so I have no expectations for how the hardware would behave compared to the plugin

[jamcat]

Hey guys, can you send over some examples of the issues with Electric Matter? Either here or to support<at>audiority.com

Email sent with video attached.

[imrae]

Thanks for sharing some of your valuable experiments

Note to the drive-by YouTube crowd: a text document like this is so much easier to skim for relevant parts, and to refer to while working in a DAW!

[martinjuenke]

Note to the drive-by YouTube crowd: a text document like this is so much easier to skim for relevant parts, and to refer to while working in a DAW!

But it's far more difficult to include adverts, spam and shameless self-promotion.

[foosnark]

Note to the drive-by YouTube crowd: a text document like this is so much easier to skim for relevant parts, and to refer to while working in a DAW!

Yeah, this is one of those areas where I'm gonna stubbornly say "the old ways were better." It always irritates me when I have a question with a simple once-sentence answer, but it comes in the form of a 5-minute video.

(Also albums over singles, actually owning things instead of subscribing to them, games that don't send you notifications to nag you to play them, paper menus instead of scanning a QR code...)