Turnado

Turnado has been in my collection for a long time, and I thought I would say a few words about it.

This was, for years, my go to effects rack/live effects rig for a variety of projects and its still in most of my stuff. The interface is extremely easy to use, packs 8 effects into 8 modules, everything is documented well and just immediately useful and playable, and it sounds good.

This beast is a beauty for sure. Effects galore.

Its awesome for creating loops, remixing, adding color or flair, getting inspiration, turning sounds into something totally different etc..

Its not heavy on the cpu, it never crashes, it sounds great, AND its really, really fun to use. Easy to automate.

Its the sort of plugin you want to keep a secret... but turnados are pretty hard to hide..

Definitely one of my favorite plugs.

This is my first review so please forgive me any errors i might make.
I want to write about Turnado because this tool really upgraded my way of making music.
Turnado is a multi effect but concepted in a way that it's very easy to use. And what's more important it's very musical and very natural to use.
Basically you can have up to 8 effects.
These effects are individually activated and modulated by a knob.
This may not sound bombastic but in fact it is. You can consider these knobs as an instrument because by turning the knob you are defining what happens.
By connecting a midi controller (NI Maschine is perfect btw), you get a really musical way of working with this tool. If you play with it you will not only have endless fun but you will start getting a feeling for the effects (maybe like a dj scratching).

Before looking at the effects i just want to mention that every effect can be tweaked really extensive. Every effect parameter can be modulated by a LFO/stepsequencer or env follower. And of course you can make an assignment how the main knob will influence the parameter.

Let's have a look at some effects. In general i found all effects of high quality. But what's more important that you get really unique effects never seen before. There are 24 effects so i think it's too much to write about every effect. I will just present some of the most impressive effects.

Tonalizer:
I don't know how they made it but it sounds like a short delay with very high feedback but still very nice. This is an effect i didn't know before and it makes very obscure and interesting sound. It has a freeze funtion.

Freezeverb:
A reverb with the possibilty to freeze the reverb signal. Very atmospheric and inspiring. A must have for film composers i think.

Vocodizer:
This one is really crazy. It's kind of a Syntheshizer plus a vocoder with a very cool way to use it. You can define a pitch a chord and how many notes the chord can have. Then you can decide whether to play the chord or let an auto arpeggiator play the notes of the chord. The interesting fact is that you get totally new sounds but rythmical related to your input.

Looper/Pitch Looper/Pan Looper:
The loopers are all of high quality and very inspiring to play with it. I think they are the most comprehensive loopers you can get.

Slicearranger:
The slicearranger works like a slicetool but in realtime. You feed a beat into it and outputs a different one. So you can get endless variations of your loops. Additionally you have parameters to further influence the result of the arranging in realtime. If you want wicked drum loops this is the ultimative tool.

Granulizer:
A realtime stretch effect with independent settings for speed and pitch.
The quality is not comparably to melodyne, but for realtime it's absolutly acceptable and inspiring to play with.

Vinylizer:
Simulates all kind of scratching effects, tape stop/start and so on.

Filter Pattern:
This gives you predefined filter sweeps. I made some really nice loops with it. The predefined sweeps can be influenced in realtime.

Well these were the most impressive effects for me. Of course Turnado also offers all kind of classical effects like filter, flanger, chorus and so on. But every effect is really unique and very comprehensive. First i thought the price is a bit high but after realizing how much you get the price is ridiculous.

I used it with Live and Logic. In Logic you have to use it as midi controlled effect in order to control it with your midi hardware.

There is another feature to mention and that is the dictator mode. In this mode you have a kind of master knob which controls the 8 effect knobs. With this knob you can then totally mashup your sound.

For me this is one of the best effects made the last years.