COMPUTER PLUGINS for LOOP PROCESSING

["Rick Walker \(loop.pool\)" <GLOBAL@cruzio.com>]

Here goes:

SmartEFX
PC and MAC Freeware      http://www.smartelectronix.com/~destroyfx/
a very creative VST plugin EFX page featuring:

'skidder'

skidder turns your sound on & off. While that may not sound very rewarding,
you have a great deal of control over the rate, pulsewidth, on/off slope,
panning width, etc. You can also relinquish some control to randomization.
Skidder can also sync with your song tempo & can be triggered by MIDI 
notes.

'rezsynth'

Rez Synth allows you to "play" bandpass resonant filter banks that process
your sound. In the right hosts, MIDI notes can trigger individual filters 
or
banks of filters (up to 30 per note) with controllable frequency 
separation.

'transverb'

transverb is like a delay plugin, but it can play back the delay buffer at
different speeds. Think of it like a tape loop with two 
independently-moving
read heads. There are lots of parameters to control and a parameter
randomizer for the impatient. Tom's first "released" plugin. Fun!

'buffer overide'

Buffer Override can overcome your VST host's audio processing buffer size &
then (unsuccessfully) override that new buffer size to be a smaller buffer
size. It makes a lot more sense if you just try it out & hear what it does.
It can sound like a stuttery vocoder or a stuck beat shuffler or many other
delightful things. In certain hosts, you can also "play" Buffer Override 
via
MIDI notes & even sync it to song tempo.

'vst midi app'

is a little program that let's you explore the wonders of MIDI-controlled
effects. Unfortunately, most VST softwares do not support sending MIDI 
notes
& such to effects plugins, so this is an easy way for you to use our fancy,
MIDI-hungry effects if your software can't handle that kind of thing. With
VST MIDI, you can play a sound file, load a VST effect, control the effect
with a MIDI instrument or the on-screen keyboard, & save the results to a
sound file.


Next up are two killer programs from Rasmus Ekman (a very nice guy from his
e-mails to me)

GRANULAB
PC FREEWARE
http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Granny.htm
   is a wonderful Granular Synthesis program (treating audio data
as 'grains' of information, allowing for the change of density, pitch,
resonance.  I've probably got it all wrong, theoretically, but this program
has the potential for doing seriously wierd and wonderful things to your
.wav or .aiff files.  I love it!!!   For those familiar with the
CT-Collective CD, "Philter PHrenzy" , I used the hell out of this program 
as
well as the next program to create my 'groove' on my contribution "TROIS
VOIX".  I recieved several e-mails from composers asking "How the hell did
you create that loop"  which is my idea of a really good time ;-).

P.S. I'd be happy to divulge that to anyone who is interested, but as an
offtopic post.

COAGULA
PC FREEWARE
http://hem.passagen.se/rasmuse/Coagula.htm
  is a program that allows you to either use a simple paint program to 
paint
a picture that is then interpreted into sound waves.  It also allows you to
import a .jpeg which it will then convert to sound.  Seriously
bent.  Another program that has a very intuitive approach to randomness.


next up:

TEXT ALOUD
PC SHAREWARE ($19.95)
http://www.applian.com/pc/TextAloud/
This app speaks text for you. You can use an evaluation copy of it but I
highly recommend buying it (it's really cheap, guys and gals, come on ;-).
You can dowload speakers from both sexes from Italy, Spain, U.S., England,
Holland,France, Brazil and Germany.........remember, each of these 
different
languages pronounces their vowels and consonants differently and the vowels
are all merely comb filterings of pitch through the shape of our mouths.
I just finished a piece a few weeks ago, where I typed in random vowel
combinations and had the program 'play' them with some really beautiful and
unusual melodic effects.   A lot of fun as you can radically alter the 
pitch
and speed of the voice:   for the next time when you want the radically
pitched and slowed down German male voice to tell someone you know,
"Luke, I am your father"

and finally, because we all must sleep after all, my last for the night:


SOFTSTEP
PC FREEWARE
http://algoart.com/web/download.htm
This is a really intersting random midi generator that uses several
different algorhythms to generate a string of constant notes.   Sort of
a twisted melodic sample and hold.    I love listening to a long sequence 
of
fractally generated notes and then go in and grap 16 of them, throw them
into ACID as a single loop and then go in and 'grid' them as 16th notes and
randomly cut out individual notes to create syconpated rhythms.  As you
might have gathered, I'm on this 'random' kick lately (when I'm not 
shedding
my acoustic middleeastern chops).

That's it for me,  yours, Rick Walker (loop.pool)

http://algoart.com/web/download.htm