Glitch is a genre of electronic music derived from a fascination with the sound of technology failing in interesting ways. While the music originated with musicians exploring things like CDs skipping, the sound of glitch has been absorbed into all types of electronic music, with musicians using glitch noises and effects within a rhythmic framework.
Here are seven ways you can get your glitch on for free:
Illformed’s Glitch is a free Windows VST plug-in effect for Windows-based systems running a VST 2.3 compatible host. Glitch chops up your audio in real-time and applies a variety of effects which can either be chosen at random, manually sequenced, or a mixture of both. The sounds it generates range from quite subtle to extremely bizarre, depending on how much you tweak the controls.
Supatrigga is a free AU plugin from Smartelectronix. When synchronised to tempo, this plugin will take the incoming audio and re-arrange it in a musically sensible way. Think of it as a realtime ReCyCle with fun options.
Destroy FX is a collection of free VST & Audio Unit plugins designed to destroy your music in creative ways. Plugins include Buffer Overide (below), Scrubby & Geometer.
Atypical Audio offers a free collection of Glitch Apple Loops as a teaser for its package Glitch Gumbo.
The emphasis of this download pack is on experimental breaks and beats, while retaining a good dose of funk and groove.
MDSP’s LiveCut is a monster of a plugin, giving you control over all sorts of parameters for glitching up your audio:
GleetchPlug is a peculiar collection of instruments that you can patch togheter with a modular matrix. The suite features four stereo loopable wave readers/writers with different random loop point algorithms, one wavetable oscillator, a sonic reducer, 3/4/5 bands parametric EQ, an amazing sonic disgregator, a granular re-synthesis engine, a ring modulator, a 5 stereo tracks mixer, and more.
If you’d rather just enjoy some glitchy music, check out the Life Futuristic Glitch Music Podcast. You can subscribe to it by adding this RSS feed URL to your podcast client:
http://blog.myspace.com/blog/rss.cfm?friendID=147554352
Dont forget Effectrix from Sugar-Bytes:
http://www.wiretotheear.com/2008/03/02/a-video-of-the-effectrix-plug-in-from-sugar-bytes/
Oliver
The post is focused on free options for getting into glitch music. Effectrix is $129.
If you’ve used Effectrix, let me know what you think and if you think it’s worth the money.
I’ve been playing around with Reaktor 5 recently and think some of these plugins would be a lot of fun to try with it to glitch things up a bit. I’m looking forward to trying asap.
Thanks and all the best
Guy
Oh I didn’t see the free part… sorry. I did buy Effectrix and its tons of fun. There are some videos of it in action on my site and on Sugar-Bytes.de Also there is a 30 day demo but to try is to buy so beware! I’ve used Suppatrigger and MDSP’s LiveCut… both great too!
Oliver – thanks for the feedback.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on what makes Effectrix worth the money vs the free options, too.
I read Effectrix is a virus…