software: glitch vst

while to some it may seem a bit sacreligous to use a plugin aimed at automating the process of creating glitch and idm (and to others it may seem second nature), this beta vst plugin by dblue could come in quite handy to music makers in these genres if for no other reason than that it rolls all of the commonly used glitch effects together in one nicely done vst plugin.

glitch features 8 individual effects triggered randomly or via built-in sequencer. the effects are modulator, retrigger, shuffler, reverser, crusher, gater, flanger, and stretcher. each effect comes with it's own resonant filter [lp/hp/bp/bs].

yes, it could be abused (heavily) but i think that the possibilities here are pretty interesting. glitch and idm producers have been doing this type of thing for a long time, but this approach doesn't require that you get neck-deep in high-level application programming. purists might now be gearing up for flame wars, much like they did with the inclusion of the so-called glitch kits in reason 3.0, but i for one am in full support of having our niche needs met by plugin developers.

my only gripes are that the interface could be a little more intuitive and the knob action feels a little weird. oh and that sadly, while there is a demo download of the beta version, it silences 5 seconds out of every 2 minutes of processing unless you pay 20 euros to its creator. while i wouldn't mind paying for this software, i'm not sure that paying for a beta is exactly my kind of thing. still, it's enough of a plugin to give you plenty of loops to throw into ableton and is fun to play with no matter what.