Databroth Chooses Five Plugins for Creative Glitch Effects

“This is DATABROTH, and I make glitchy, industrial IDM and dark ambient music. I love the sound of malfunctioning computers, metallic percussion, liquid textures and morphing ambience. Plugins allow me to explore a wide variety of these sounds with far more freedom than most any hardware, being able to layer instances and recall presets makes it easy to compound processing and get experimental. Here are a few of my favorite plugins for exploring glitchy textures and chaotic experiments.”

“I’m using ‘glitch’ as a stand-in for sound design. Sound design can range from subtle tone shifts to extreme transformations of audio, it can also range from tedious methodical calibration to the happy accidents of a mad scientist. While you may have an idea in your head about what ‘glitch’ may sound like, I encourage you to think of ‘glitch’ as the more extreme end of sound design, wild transformations and happy accidents with unintended results rather than a particular type of sound.”

“Some of the most powerful ways to transform audio are with spectral processing, granular effects, pitch and frequency shifting, as well as modulated filters and looped buffers. I've picked out five effects that explore these methods of sound design in unique ways.”

 

1. Aberrant DSP Digitalis

For the perfect plugin for injecting retro computer grit, data decay, and unpredictable glitch movement into your sounds, find Aberrant DSP Digitalis at Plugin Boutique

“Digitalis is the simplest of the bunch, a fun ‘lo-fi’ effect with some surprising twists. There’s no tape emulation here, but there is a collection of various old school computer based artifacts. A corruption module emulates various bit errors and lower digital resolution processing. The time module is great for those accidental repeating buffers such as CD skipping. And the DATA module is great for replicating the MP3 style digital compression of early digital telecommunications. Add to this an ms paint style drawable spectral filter and you have room for plenty of exploration.”

“I use Digitalis for more textural glitching, when I need random jumps and stutters that sound chaotic rather than purely rhythmic. I like using the telecom and corruption sections for noisy textures, when I want something to sound like it has been copied and reposted thousands of times for that ‘deep fried’ effect. The drawable filter is also great for spectral chaos, you can load images in and create all sorts of strange motion you’d never achieve with a standard LPF.”

“Digitalis also allows you to rearrange the three main sections to get unique signal flows, for example, it can be nice to add digital crushing and looped chaos before the telecom filtering.”

 

2. Plugin Alliance Specops

To transform sounds into glitchy, fluid, or completely unrecognizable new textures, pick up this uniquely creative spectral effects processor at Plugin Boutique

“As I mentioned, I like typical computerized glitching effects, but also watery liquid sounds and spectral effects are perfect for both, which is why SpecOps is another one of my favorite tools in my arsenal. SpecOps gives you three effects slots where you can load any of the dozens of spectral processors. Each effect can target specific frequency regions and all of this can be modulated by various LFOs, followers and random motion.”

“I use SpecOps to completely transform sounds into unrecognizable results. The Mp3-ify, Contrast, and Noise filter are useful for creating watery tones from noise or any complex audio source, I also enjoy using these to create wavetables. The glitch fire and bubbler effects create chaotic cacophonies of tones that dance around madly. The freezers can be used in conjunction with frequency isolation to create unique buffering glitches that hold tones in unexpected ways.”

“Be sure to play around with the FFT size and window style as these can drastically change the texture of your sound. Smaller FFT sizes result in crunchier but faster results while large sizes create smeared sounds with higher frequency fidelity.”

“I also enjoy using the geometry settings to shift and stretch frequencies all over the place.”

 

3. MeldaProduction MTransformer

Find MeldaProduction MTransformer at Plugin Boutique – perfect for reshaping audio like clay using powerful transfer-curve sound manipulation.

“MTransformer is a powerful spectral processor capable of remapping both frequency and amplitude with complete freedom. This one is all about the transfer curve editors that let you take input values, and transform them to any desired output value. If that sounds too complex, just draw shapes in the various windows and listen for how you can mold audio like clay. MTransformer is almost like some sort of scientific lab equipment, and the experiments this lab is capable of are out of this world.”

“I really just mess around a bit mindlessly with MTransformer, over time you begin to discover how different shapes trend towards various sounds.”

“The level remapping can be used to lift nearly silent artifacts out from your source, while at the same time allowing you to drop the normally loud aspects down to complete silence.”

“I tend to play around in the advanced editor tab, but MTransformer also has some template presets that use intuitive macros and custom GUI to get you messing with various styles of transformation. This is almost like an additional set of modules or effects pedals worth exploring, with the added benefit of being able to open them up and see to see how they work.”

 

4. Devious Machines Infiltrator

Pick up Infiltrator on Plugin Boutique – a playground for glitchy, morphing, and atmospheric sound design.

“Infiltrator is a Swiss-army knife of sound design, it comes with over 30 different effects that can be layered in a serial chain and sequenced via a built in step sequencer. Imagine a pedal board with a professional dancer switching each effect on and off in rhythm with your music. Each effect has configurable modulation as well, allowing you to add expression and motion while they are active. Version 2 of Infiltrator added a collection of spectral effects which by now you know I’m a huge fan of. These spectral effects pair nicely with the variety of filters, distortions and playback effects.”

“There are many ways to use Infiltrator, as mentioned, sequencing between various typical effects can create interesting rhythmic motion. This can be a great way to make a single instrument sound like a syncopated ensemble. As for glitch sounds, I particularly enjoy the Lofi and Corrupt spectral effects which remove spectral data and create watery digital textures. If you want more liquid, the Cascade effect smears frequencies, creating sweeping tones out of any source. The playback effects are also a great source of glitching, applying modulation to the looper and delay can turn Infiltrator into a pretty heavy industrial beat repeater.”

 

5. Output Portal

Available now on Plugin Boutique, Portal turns audio into evolving, textured granular landscapes with feedback loops, modulation, and playful motion

“I’ve placed a fairly heavy emphasis on spectral processing for most of this list, but I can’t forget to emphasize how powerful granular effects are as well. Portal is a powerful granular effects processor with modulation, additional effects, and a fun XY pad for playing with presets. The grain engine contains two sub modules, one closer to a time stretching effect, and the other being a feedback loop. This feedback loop gives it some powerful resonating capabilities and, when combined with the modulation, can lead to some wild motion.”

“I tend to use Portal for the presets. While designing patches is fun, I’ve made a collection of my own and have even purchased expansions. Having X and Y macros mapped out to the lovely graphical expression control makes presets kinda fun. Each preset is like its own unique effect and playground of sounds. At least all the factory presets, my own expansion, and the expansion available from Output all utilize XY macros for every preset.”

“Portal also provides ways to add nice organic motion. This can be done with the ‘humanize’ control on each LFO.”

“Additionally each of the main granular controls in Portal also has a little diamond which you can use to apply per-grain randomization.”

 

The Bottom Line

“Creating glitch sounds can be a great way to add excitement to your tracks, they are also a fun element for sound design in general. These plugins are not only good for glitch but for sound design and creative mixing in general. They can be used in much more subtle ways than I suggested, but are also very fun when completely destroying and morphing your sounds into something new. Each one is as powerful as an entire synth engine and can be explored for years without covering everything they can do. I highly suggest taking the time to really dig in and experiment, and record your process or at least sample many results as you go.”

“Each of these plugins can be used in a variety of ways, but I tend to use Digitalis for more ‘lo-fi’ data-loss type sounds, Spec-Ops for serious spectral destruction, MTransformer for more surgical and advanced transformation, Infiltrator for rhythmic effects motion, and Portal for granular textures and chaos.”

“I have reviews, live streams and presets for each of these plugins that you can find on my channel and my website. Dig around my site for tutorials, my thoughts on sound design, and many many more reviews.”