Ewan Bristow, the indie underground developer of free and inexpensive effects, has done it again. LOCD uses phase locking for brain-splitting distortions and spectral sound design. And you can’t put a price on that — so Ewan didn’t.
LOCD has a lot more range than you might guess from its simple interface, because it’s all about tuning in some particularly ear-warping settings, particular to your source. Ewan made a perfect demo of this:
Can this glitch? Yes, it can. It can also make some gnarly basslines, and it’s equally great on leads and drums — again, all about dialing it in. But you can even bend it into some ambient and spectral domains, too.
There’s not really a manual or even knob labels, but you’ll figure it out. And exposing automation reveals the parameters:
- Tracking wavetype (saw or square), the switch at the center bottom
- Blocksize, menu top left — this one’s interesting, because as you’ll hear in my little video, it gives you dramatically different results by changing the dimensions of the processing buffer
- Lock-Amount, the big knob: dials in the scale of the effect. For instance, set a large block size and a fairly modest Lock-Amount, and you get an almost granular-ish sweeping delay. With smaller buffers, turn this up for maximum distortion.
- Pitch-Offset, bottom right, tunes the effect. With basslines or to preserve low-end drums, dial this down. Crank it up for leads and higher percussion.
- Side-Track, bottom left, passes through some of the source signal.
Be a little careful with this on rhythmic sources, as the processing will throw the timing out of sync with other parts. Or — let that happen, as you desire.
Ewan suggests this, via X:
It’s best used on bass-heavy stuff – Growls that need more crunch… Or even sub-driven drums that just need something that, just pushing into distortion can’t get!
Feel free to experiment with those knobs, you mad scientist, you. But here are some examples with a drum loop and a certain aforementioned software drum synth:
And yes, that’s Iftah’s Sting 2 again. Did I mention that what you can do is not only route that as a drum source, but also modulate the type for endless generative (IDM style) patterns?
And since LOCD doesn’t have a built-in LFO (hey, it’s free), you can modulate a parameter like Pitch-Offset or Lock-Amount in the same way. I’m using Live here, but of course, there are great modulation sources in Bitwig Studio, Reason, and now Cubase, to name three. So power up your DAW or tracker of choice with LOCD.
In fact, I wondered how it would work with an envelope follower, and the answer is — very nicely:
This is a free download for macOS, Windows, and Linux — the first from Ewan to use Pure Data (Pd) under the hood but to be exported in plug-in formats. VST3 and CLAP for all platforms, plus AU on the Mac:
https://crql.works/downloads/locd
There’s a ton more stuff from Ewan, including free and cheap goodies. Go support and buy a thing or two to encourage more like this. It’s been too much goodness to write about.
https://ewanbristow.gumroad.com
PS, yes, this is where the Live themes are coming from (though I promise I’ll start messing with some interesting visualizers to make this less vanilla):