Doppelmangler

There has seemed to be a flurry of additive / resynthesis vst's in the past 6 months. The top dog has seemed to be the CA5K, did not like it. They ALL seem very tame in comparison to this.



User Interface - For what this thing does i could nto ask for a better GUI. As an added bounus its skinable! it comes with 3 or 4. i have not taken off the one with the zombie faces. :)

Sound - I use this for mainly manglin voices. There is room for improvements with the sound as far as how many partials allowed and whatnot but i think computers have to step up alittle. This is why i gave it a 10 for sound. I have a friend online that i have been trading synth gear with for years. He got around to getting a Hartmann Neuron (if you dont know what this is use yor favorite search engine). we got into an arguement about the whole vst vs. harware thing. so using the same samples we went head to head. when all the dust cleared the end sounds were very similar. yea the neuron was alittle smoother ( becuase it has wavlets which i think are packets of partials) but my friend was actually angry that i could prduce such similar sounds witha vst.

Features - Very nice fx and mod envolope section. What I did not expect was the abilty to loop sections of the sample underneathe the main slope screen.

Documentation - Not the best i have read. i think for this sytnh there sound have been some sort of turtorial online. but after playing with it for a few months i have leard it pretty well.

Presets - I was amazed that it came with 7 banks all pretty much useful.

Customer support - Dave is always there.

Value for the Money - yup. i met dave at a local bar and he gave me the cd. i deffiantly would have paid the 150 for this its well werth it.

stability - not very good in the area. i know it has been stated before on the forums that if you turn down the partials use no fx blah blah... but thats no fun. when i use the DM i normally boot it up in an emprty song file load the samples i want to mangle and import them back into the orginal song i was werking on.

Well, looks like I have the honor of being the first person to review White Noise's Doppelmangler.

Some thoughts:

Doppelmangler steps into the fray with other big name synths like Cube, Cameleon (and other's I'm sure I've missed).

So, how does it compare? I am pleased to say very favorably.

The first thing that impressed me is the GUI. It is VERY intuitive, and for me personally, far easier to use than some of its competitors. I was able to roll my own almost immediately - not something I can say about many other synths.

In terms of sound it also stand out. It has an unusually warm sound that seems to have more, I don't know, "soul." The bulk of my arrangements rely heavily on traditional instruments (bass, drums, guitars & piano), and I am very impressed with how rich Doppelmangler sounds in the mix without eating up all of the frequency headroom. Interesting trick, that, and something that very much works to its credit.

The CPU, while not "light," is still very reasonable for the complex crunching that is going on. It runs smoothly and efficiently on my P4 2.2 laptop.

The full version of Doppelmangler comes bundled with a bunch of presets - more than enough to cover bases and get your started.

Lastly, it's been very stable on my machine and even better - the cost is very reasonable.

I strongly encourage you to dwonaload the demo. I know there is alot of shouting about lots of synths, but this one has some real potential. Check it out.

The disclaimer:I was a beta tester for Doppelmangler.

Doppelmangler's the latest entry in the fast growing field of resynthesis.Based in part on the same engine as White Noise Additive,it's dead easy to use;load one(or two)sample(s)and start experimenting.
The spectrum can be up to 256 partials per source.with the choice of different sized FFT windows and detection options.You can optimize Doppelmangler for time detection(great for mangling beats)or pitch detection(instruments and voices).You can import .bmps as spectra.PLUS you can reexport spectra as /bmps and edit them in your graphics editor.Nice touch:)

The filters are very flexible,with vocal formants as well as traditional high/low pass options.You have a multi-breakpoint way of setting cutoff and resonance,as well as a bias and morph control for morphing between the filters(there's two of them).

There's five envelopes;a time envelope that controls playpack position(the top of the envelope's window is the end of the sample;the bottom's the beginning.Set up stutters to your heart's content;-)),two multi envelopes(the time and multi envelopes can also be LFOs),a volume envelope and a mod envelope.Envelopes can control anything via the mod matrix.

The mangle effects work on whatever spectrum's loaded into the first source(with a couple exceptions).These process the sound at the partial level,and they do a lot of interesting things to the sound.There's also a normal effects section with distortion,chorus,phaser and a delay.

The selectable GUIs are icing on the cake(MarsLander's my choice).

I've been using Doppelmangler in my tracks for a while,and it brings some very unique textures to the table.Try the demo-I think you'll like it!