We’re getting news and refugees out of Ukraine, but it’s also worth saying, today we got a press release and a download. I’m sorry, that’s worth noting. Also, Skew is brilliant – hard to describe, but ingenious once you really get it.
And yeah, this means we better keep our jobs going, if even Artemiy and Sinevibes can do it from inside the very real war zone. So on to that –
First glance is that Skew is another tape stop simulator / backscratch gimmick. But it’s really more than that – it’s a very elegant interface for anyone who wanted to warp time and repitch on a curve. In the developer’s description, it’s a “non-linear audio reverser.” But think of a tool that’s able to warp playback on a curve with some intuitive, hardware/DJ-style controls and a clear visualization.
It bends pitch, warps time, and can reverse. Yeah, you can make tape rewind effects, but also various sliding repitch effects, glitches, reverses, and scratch-style stuff.
What you get:
- Tempo-synced, so you can get “rhythmically-precise” effects – and it’s easy to align to the host tempo, so more useful on percussive lines, etc.
- Adjust size according to bpm with a nice clock-divider view (1/16 – 16 bars)
- A variety of preset curves to choose from
- Intensity and overlap controls
- A DJ-style crossfade control (instead of just wet/dry or something)
- Dedicated output level parameter
- Mono, mono > stereo, and stereo > stereo configurations
There are nicely done demos – watch through all of them, as I guarantee at least one of these sounds will picque your interest.
There’s a lot of intangible work that goes into making this happen. Sinevibes touts its “fine calibration.” In practical terms, that means there are lag filters on all continuous parameters so it doesn’t click when you make adjustments, and there are tuned smooth envelopes that make your audio nice and liquid-y. That’s where the overlap control comes in, too, in that you can dial back all the smoothing if you want to hear the glitches, too.
Those intangibles matter, too. I’m delayed in writing up the wonderful Hollow reverb, but I talked to Artemiy about how intuitive that process of development was. Effects creation really is art as well as science. It’s personal and musical.
I wouldn’t mind having this on hardware, actually. But it’s fantastically useful in a host.
I’d been looking for something like this and was regularly frustrated that the tape-stop effects were mostly unusable in actual music contexts. I’m not one to do big breakdowns or EDM things or whatever, though those are possible with Skew – but I’m totally curious to see what I can get out of it.
It has the usual Sinevibes goodness – color-coded, scalable, solid preset management (cough Roland – sorry, something stuck in my throat), and consistent parameter mapping.
And it’s compatible, of course. Once Mac only, Sinevibes is now Windows friendly, too.
64-bit macOS and Windows
AU, AAX, VST3
Yes Apple Silicon, yes Intel
US$29 + VAT where applicable.
https://www.sinevibes.com/skew/
Keep sending direct aid to Ukraine if you can. And keep making music and staying human – all of you. We need you.