Excite Audio has created a plugin with some of the most beautiful visuals you’ve seen since the iTunes Visualizer.
Motion: Fractal looks, works and does things I never dreamed of — no still image or even video can do it justice. It feels less like a sound plugin than a kind of breathing instrument docked in your DAW.
Motion: Fractal is a multi-effects granular synthesis plugin. On the most basic level, Motion: Fractal can add the illusion of motion — depth — to sounds. For demonstration purposes, it can turn a simple synth chord into one of those grand Jean-Michel Jarre waves, from the first drip to the crushing impact of an approaching tsunami. There are a lot of apps and plugins that can do something like that, but it’s really only the first part of the Fractal experience. The second part is centered around a suite of effects that act as a kind of musical workshop for transforming interesting elements into hypnotic rhythms and building blocks for new music.
The first part happens via dual granular engines that seem to turn up the vibrance filter on some of the most plain and two dimensional sounds. The level of manipulation is impressive — with the interface based around a hexagon X/Y-style pad, it really feels like you’re stretching, pulling apart and twisting sounds like green goo. You can capture rhythms via customizable stutter repeats and a trance gate. There are 250 presets and they barely scratch the surface.
All this is happening while a 3D visualizer is mapping the shifts and modulations, like a monitor on the console of the USCSS Nostromo. I’ve never used a plugin that was so hypnotic to use but especially to watch. You could leave this running on a screen all day and anyone snooping will assume you’re doing recombinant DNA experiments rather than making sick fucking beats.
Motion: Fractal is available as a VST, VST3, AU, AAX and standalone app for 64 bit macOS and Windows with a regular price of $79.
⚪️ more music making apps and plugins /
⚙ AudioThing RES-09 emulates the warm strings of the Roland RS-09
⚙ Hands-on looping with Audio Damage’s Circa
⚙ Download ReCycle and sample like it’s 1994 again
⚙ Lo-Fi & downtempo by design: adventures with Orange Dreams
⚙ Adding space, texture and ambiance to your music with Airspace
⚙ Funding Yourself To Death: The Strange Story of Aodyo
There’s more inside 5 Mag’s member’s section — get first access to each issue for a few bucks a month.
