Modular Add-On: Mutable Instruments Braids

This product is an expansion for Softube Modular. If you do not currently own Modular, you can purchase it HERE.

Astonishingly Sophisticated Sound-Generation

Braids, by French Eurorack pioneers Mutable Instruments, is not an oscillator.

It sort of looks like one, with fine and coarse pitch/frequency controls, a v/oct input, and voltage-controllable tone/timbre controls.

It even sort of sounds like one, in as far as it outputs audio.

Mutable Instruments call it a macro oscillator, but even that is an understatement. It’s a hugely sophisticated digital synthesis engine, able to produce and manipulate complex sounds – classic waves from vintage synths, bells, resonant filters, plucked and bowed strings, vocals and vowel/formant sounds, wind instruments, percussion, noise, granular clouds and more – by means of 45 or so fully-realized algorithms, featuring multiple oscillators, wavetables, filters, VCAs, ring modulators, and so on under the hood.

Each mode is a different algorithm and produces a different variety of sounds as you turn the two tone controls, Timbre and Colour. These controls are pre-programmed to do different things per algorithm, often adjusting multiple parameters in the set-up at once to tour the sweet spots. And of course, they can be CV controlled.

Using the trigger input and built-in AD envelope, each algorithm can even become a self-contained synth voice. No other modules required. But bring other modules in and you can make pretty much any instrument you could imagine.

In a sense, Braids can be looked at as both an encyclopedia of classic synthesis techniques and a tool to bring them into the present-day, with tremendous sound-quality and ease-of-use to match.

It is also shockingly, spectacularly rich, varied, and complicated, with each mode being an instrument unto itself.

Features

• Macro oscillator featuring 40+ fully-realized digital synthesis algorithms
• Produce millions of different sounds easily – classic waves and telecoms babble, bells and whistles, percussion and ambience
• Just two controls morph through the sweet spots of each algorithm
• Great for triggered percussion
• Awesome for crazy complex waveform synthesis
• Phenomenal for glitchy out-of-control modulated sounds
• Incredibly deep, but easy to use
• It’s like a library of the greatest synth sounds of all time
• Requires Modular

System Requirements

• Mac OS X 10.13 up to OS 12 (older OS versions will not work) (64-bit only).
• Windows 10 (older Windows versions may work but are not tested) (Windows 11 Pending) (64-bit only).
• Mac: Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 / Xeon - Full Apple silicon support (M1 or higher).
• Windows: Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 / Xeon / AMD Quad-Core or newer.
• Screen resolution 1280x800 or larger.
• Supported sample rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 kHz, in both mono and stereo.
• 8 GB RAM or more is recommended, as well as at least 8 GB hard disk space for installation (individual plug-ins take less space, while sample libraries may require additional disk space).
• A Softube account is required to register and install the software.
• An iLok account is required for authorisation of the software.
• Internet access for downloading installer and managing licenses.
• iLok generation 2 and up, if you intend to use a physical iLok dongle for authorizing your plug-ins (note that an iLok dongle is not a requirement).
• In theory, any 64-bit VST, VST3, AU, or AAX (11.0.2 or higher) compatible host application should work.
• The most recent maintenance release of the DAW application is recommended.

However, due to plug-in host differences between DAWs - and Softube's own rigorous testing standards - Softube only officially test their plug-ins and instruments in the most recent versions of Pro Tools, Logic Pro, Cubase, Live, Studio One, Digital Performer, Reaper and Sonar. Softube plugins are not tested in the non-listed systems, but they most likely work as long as the system requirements are met.

Important note: make sure that you always use the latest iLok License Manager. It is not included in the Softube installer but can be downloaded from www.ilok.com​