Beatsurfing CHEat Code Multi-FX

[kraster]

CHEat Code is Beatsurfing's new Multi FX plugin. It's in a kind of early access so I decided to jump in. Official release is tomorrow.

I like their other plugins Random, Random Metal and 7 Deadly Snares.
They are definitely outside the conventional so I was interested in what they'd come up with.

The plugin was developed with Che Pope. Hence the weird capitalisation in the name of the plugin.

The plugin itself can have 4 concurrent effects out of a total of 16.

There are 5 delays (a multitap, 2 granular, a fractal delay and a manual Tap delay), a multiband distortion, a kind of strange combo of a transient shaper and pitch shifter, a rhythmic pitch shifter/reverser, a reverb, a sample rate reducer, a chorus, flanger, a multiband buffer shuffler, a sample rate reducer, a wobbly pitch thing, a slicing pitch shifting thing and an autopanner.

One nice feature is that the four active effects can be setup to be either serial or parallel with a dial sending to the next effect or to the output. There's also a pretty cool macro system.

This is a very weird plugin. The effects are kind of all over the place with weird parameters and some very strange design decisions.

For example, some effects are three part multiband and have a slider with two controls on either end that allow you to set up the crossover points. Some of the effects have the slider on top, some effects have the slider in the middle, some don't have a slider at all.

There's just a bunch of this kind of randomness to it but I have to sayt, it all kind of works when you dig into it. Its chaotic nature is a double edge sword. On the one hand it's all a bit baffling and on the other hand you end up with some really weird transformed sounds.

One thing I have to say is that personally I think the marketing is pretty abysmal. I know Che Pope contributed to the design but his contribution to the marketing has been a Youtube short that mainly consists of him pointing out that the first three letters of his name are the same three letters in the plugin's name.

The examples on the website and the videos don't really do it justice at all. It's far more capable than what's presented there. Documentation is pretty sparse but Beatsurfing said they were working on more tutorials etc.

As I said, it's a very weird plugin but a strangely compelling one.

https://beatsurfing.com/audio-plugins/c ... io-plugin/

[pekbro]

I bought it at pre-release, at first it didn't seem like all that, but it grows on you, it truly sounds great and has some very unique and interesting effects that are difficult match with other plugins. One thing about Beatsurfing is that they are pretty DJ-centric, so parameterization and whatnot for
this has been kept to a minimum.

Anyway, great fan of Beatsurfing here, not everything they make is up my alley, but the stuff that is, is pretty awesome imho.

[kraster]

I bought it at pre-release, at first it didn't seem like all that, but it grows on you, it truly sounds great and has some very unique and interesting effects that are difficult match with other plugins. One thing about Beatsurfing is that they are pretty DJ-centric, so parameterization and whatnot for
this has been kept to a minimum.

Anyway, great fan of Beatsurfing here, not everything they make is up my alley, but the stuff that is, is pretty awesome imho.

Yeah. Not everything is my cup of tea but it's never conventional. They're trying something different. At least it's not another 1176 clone!

I was like you at first, didn't really click with it but the more I dug into it the more I liked it.

I do think Cheat Code, while still very weird, is a bit more in the DAW world. They seem to be very active with it. There have been three updates in the last few days and they've been good improvements.

[pekbro]

Yeah. Not everything is my cup of tea but it's never conventional. They're trying something different. At least it's not another 1176 clone!

I was like you at first, didn't really click with it but the more I dug into it the more I liked it.

I do think Cheat Code, while still very weird, is a bit more in the DAW world. They seem to be very active with it. There have been three updates in the last few days and they've been good improvements.

I just figured it was DJ-centric because of the slider macros mostly, seems aimed at faders on
DJ mixers, like their other stuff.

But yeah, I like it a lot and find it fits well among all my other multi-effect systems without
the typical amount of overlap, great stuff!

*I updated it once I think, didn't catch that there were more updates, too much stuff to play
with lately. Using this in conjunction with all the K-Devices and Aqeel Aadam's stuff lately.
great fun! Great time to be into unusual effects these days!

[exmatproton]

weird plugin, bought it in the 'beta' phase. Mis modulation to parameters (built-in), but the units have a distinct, original sound to them. Growing on me

[pekbro]

tbh, I'm surprised that even this many people around here bought it or even knew about it. BEATSURFING has never been a topic before that I can recall, though most of their products are listed in the product DB I guess.

[morelia]

tbh, I'm surprised that even this many people around here bought it or even knew about it. BEATSURFING has never been a topic before that I can recall, though most of their products are listed in the product DB I guess.

The Beatsurfing iOS app has had over a year of solid attention so maybe their focus has not been on desktop.

[kraster]

tbh, I'm surprised that even this many people around here bought it or even knew about it. BEATSURFING has never been a topic before that I can recall, though most of their products are listed in the product DB I guess.

I think they’re more well known outside of here

Andrew Huang (if you don’t know him he’s a YouTuber with a huge amount of followers) had Random as one of his top ten plugins a few years ago and Random is pretty well known in general in the hip hop and Edm world.

[gaf_thit]

tbh, I'm surprised that even this many people around here bought it or even knew about it. BEATSURFING has never been a topic before that I can recall, though most of their products are listed in the product DB I guess.

The Beatsurfing iOS app has had over a year of solid attention so maybe their focus has not been on desktop.

It's also nosuchtim's favourite ipad app, he says in this thread New Types of Instruments
Their newsletter's welcoming discount code makes their all bundle very tempting IMO.

[Rickskii]

Anyone having a problem with what you save sounding great and then when you reopen/reload the track it sounds quite different. Very disappointing when you get something you really like.

[kraster]

Anyone having a problem with what you save sounding great and then when you reopen/reload the track it sounds quite different. Very disappointing when you get something you really like.

I think it has issues with certain effects.

One thing that I encountered is that the shufflers don't resync to Daw start.

They are free running which means that every time you press play they are in a different phase which can drastically change the sound.

The Beat slicer works fine. ie. It restarts every time you press play.

I think other effects might have a few issues like that.

I've written to them with a few observations like this.

[Rickskii]

I suppose there is always freeze/flatten, bounce.

[pekbro]

They seem pretty committed to ironing out any kinks with this via the beta development and whatnot.

[pekbro]

Nice update on this, keeps getting better and better. Stability, usability, appearance (imo), efficiency all way up.

The current look since the press stuff is not updated:

Screenshot 2025-07-07 155724.jpg

[billinder33]

I was interested, but I have a love/hate relationship with these types of plugins in that I'm not into 'glitchy' sounds all that much and most of the video content I've seen on it is very glitchy. I wanted to demo it but they don't offer that as an option, so I decided to pass.

Kind of interested in the random plugins. I think there's a deal on them at Plugin Boutique, so may take a dive on those.