Trigger envelopes and synced patterns of shapes and gates on macOS, Windows, and Linux – for free. GATE-12 by tiagolr has some features you’ve probably seen before, but combined in clever ways and elegantly integrated, plus the price is right.
I have other things in my plug-in folder that do this, but I can never get enough of some envelope generation; it just gives you the chance to animate some of your material and create grooves by sculpting patterns from sound. That also can save some projects you’d otherwise toss. So bring it on. The developer credits inspiration from the likes of GrossBeat and ShaperBox, but this melds them together so you get everything in one, now rewritten in JUCE 2. And not much else has this kind of OS support: VST3 and LV2 for Windows, Linux and macOS plus AU for macOS (plus it’s open source, so you could build for others if you’re handy).
New:
- Cross-platform available on Windows, macOS and Linux
- Presets included
- Audio trigger uses audio transients to trigger the envelope
- Pattern sync changes to beat position
- Multi-point selection dragging, scaling and skewing
- Paint-mode revamped with user patterns painted on view
- Rotate patterns no longer constrained by start and end points
- Undo & Redo supported
- Sequencer built-in to quickly build and randomize patterns
- Other improvements and fixes
- Multi-segment editor
- 12 patterns triggered by midi notes
- Paint mode with user defined shapes
- Point type – hold, curve, s-curve, stairs ..
- Tempo sync or lfo rate (Hz)
- Attack and release smooth
- Pre and post waveform display
- MIDI trigger mode
- Audio trigger mode
- Sequencer and randomizer
Gate me, baby!
https://github.com/tiagolr/gate12
Okay, just went looking for a video because – sorry, I can’t be bothered. (We got through Superbooth. Time to drink tea and watch Andor.) And funny enough, of course, people are saying this is a trance gate. I’m going to just let you play with it, because it should be obvious you can do a lot more with it.
Embrace the mystery of not knowing what this sounds like in action. (I mean, it sounds like volume envelopes applied to your source material.)
There’s also a really nice physical modeling instrument, under the same free GPLv3 license, called RipplerX. It’s a little vanilla compared to commercial tools (or even some SuperCollider coding, etc.), but I used it in teaching as it makes a great starting point, plus not all the other options have Linux-native choices available:
That in turn was inspired by AAS Chromaphone and Sai’ke Partials and was originally available for Reaper. I still prefer Chromaphone of those, but it’s worth a look and doesn’t sound quite the same, meaning there is some use for it in your physical modeling arsenal.
Good stuff. With those GPL licenses, maybe someone will also pick up the source code and learn and experiment, then release more – would be fascinating to see some of this in Surge or VCV land, too.