They started as terrific modules – now they’re available in plug-in form. Noise Engineering is on a roll. The free plug-ins are essential, and eventually, you may want everything, hardware and software.
There’s just so much goodness here – all literally glowing and pulsing with a selectable color palette. (I mean, did I wind up dialing in the color my plug-in to match this RGB Philips light that my studio mate put in here? Yes. Yes, I did. Now there is my idea of a good evening.) I keep using the free tools and finding new sounds and approaches.
There’s the Freequel plug-in bundle, plus free Rack Extensions for Reason. Downloaded and – also downloaded. As seen previously:
That’s the best place to begin, because you can also check these plug-ins work nicely on your system. But NE have been busy lately, too:
Basimilus Iteritas is a nice parameterized drum synth, with a 6-oscillator additive synth engine as its core.
Cursus Vereor combines a dynamically-generated oscillator with ADSR, lowpass gate/VCA, and chorus, with some unique frequency models (oooh, wavelets). And yes, there’s wavefolding.
Desmodus is a shimmer-y and distorted reverb – which sounds like some other (cough, Eventide) stuff on paper but has the usual way left-field Noise Engineering touch, algorithmically, so it sounds totally different to the ear. It also morphs in some ways those other tools don’t and there are some experimental feedback and ducking behaviors. It’s not like anything I’ve heard.
Going to get my hands on these, because all this stuff is just right up my alley.
All those live in the new Plugin Bundle 1 for AAX + AU + VST3. (I would love, love for these to come to Linux, so there’s my wish. It just seems a natural fit personality-wise.)
https://noiseengineering.us/products/plugin-pack-1
Let’s get back to what these sound like.
Here’s a nice short demo by GABOJUICE:
Matt Lange does a breakdown across plug-ins:
And from the fall, All You Need Is Live did a great walkthrough of how these sound and how you might press them into techno service – plus you can download some presets. (They use in Racks in Live, especially the extended Live 11 Racks, makes loads of sense, too.)
Honestly, it’s clear why a strategy across hardware and software is working – you really love having your favorite tools in both forms. I want the modules pretty badly after spending time with the plug-ins myself. So here’s our friend Trovarsi doing an excellent walkthrough of making music with the modules:
The ultra-nice people on the team did a QA in February, too:
Non-interactive now, of course, but worth a browse.
I can’t wait to see what these folks get up to next. Is it… bad if I put their distortion on each track individually? I think it’s good. Like too much chocolate sauce. Surely.