The incredibly powerful plugin we called "one of the greatest effects plugins ever made" is half price for Cyber Monday
Output Portal is 50% off at Plugin Boutique along with two more of the company's most popular effects, Thermal and Movement
You may know Output as the brand behind Arcade, a cloud-connected plugin, relied upon by everyone from James Blake to Billie Eilish, that gives you access to a varied and regularly updated collection of loops, samples and instruments. While Arcade is a lot of fun, we're even bigger fans of the company's catalogue of creatively inspiring effects, which offer new and exciting ways to mangle your audio and reimagine your sounds.
Three of Output's most powerful plugins are 50% off this Cyber Monday over at Plugin Boutique: Portal, Thermal and Movement. Thermal is a red-hot distortion tool equipped with 19 unique distortion algorithms, and Movement is a rhythmic multi-effects processor that can inject energy and dynamism into any synth patch or sample with aplomb. Last but not least, though, we have Portal, a work of granular genius that we described as "one of the greatest effects plugins ever made" in our 2019 review.
Portal is a powerhouse of creative audio manipulation. This inspiring multi-effect excels at crafting glitchy, futuristic textures through its deep and complex granular engine, which breaks audio down into tiny grains, pitch-shifting, time-stretching and ultimately reassembling them to create new sounds. Portal's onboard sequencer and LFOs can be used to add movement to its patterns, while a formidable arsenal of effects that includes chorus, distortion, bit reduction, filter, phaser and delay provide near-limitless potential for further experimentation.
With the release of Thermal, Output offered up a unique take on a distortion plugin that swiftly became one of our most relied-upon effects processors. Capable of everything from gentle, toasty saturation to all-out aural destruction, Thermal utilizes a multi-stage, multi-band distortion engine equipped with numerous distortion modes and shaping tools, pairing this with an array of additional effects and a flexible modulation system. It's a scorcher.
An oldie but a goodie, Movement was Output's debut VST plugin. Outfitted with delay, distortion, filters, EQ, compression and reverb, Movement orients this ample catalogue of effects towards a singular purpose: introducing rhythm, motion and life to any signal. Its two parallel effects engines, each equipped with four effects slots, are kitted out with two modulators that can manipulate parameters via LFO, step sequencer or sidechain. Gifted at animating static and lifeless sounds, Movement works wonders on almost anything: vocals, synths, guitars - you name it.
In our 2019 review of the "utterly essential" Portal, we praised its "well-tuned granular synthesis engine, superb effects and glorious modulation system", describing it as an "incredibly powerful plugin" that delivers an "almost indescribably broad range of rhythmic, tonal, harmonic, spatial, distorted, pitching and glitching treatments that work brilliantly on any source material."
This Cyber Weekend, don't miss a chance to snag one of the most inspiring effects plugins we've ever reviewed for 50% off, or take advantage of discounts across Output's entire range of software.
For more Black Friday plugin deals, check out our official hub page.
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I'm MusicRadar's Tech Editor, working across everything from product news and gear-focused features to artist interviews and tech tutorials. I love electronic music and I'm perpetually fascinated by the tools we use to make it. When I'm not behind my laptop keyboard, you'll probably find me behind a MIDI keyboard, carefully crafting the beginnings of another project that I'll ultimately abandon to the creative graveyard that is my overstuffed hard drive.