Italian developer Sonus Dept. has announced the release of Abstructs, a collection of twelve Max for Live devices aimed at experimental sound designers and electronic music producers.
According to Sonus Dept., the devices are "able to create sounds or perform sonic transformations that are typical to certain abstract electronic music and sound art". The bundle contains a variety of tools, including AbstractSynth, a polysynth geared towards atmospheric sounds, BrokenDelays, a generative delay effect, and Disturbances, a stutter and noise generator.
Also included are MadHatter, a polyphonic hi-hat synthesizer, OneToMany, a sampler with generative functions, and Essential, an effect that "analyzes the spectrum of the incoming sound and returns only its most prominent features". We've copied the full list below.
Abstructs will set you back €15 - not bad for 12 M4L devices. You'll need Ableton Live Suite version 10.1.30+, or Ableton Live Standard with the Max for Live add-on, to use the devices. Both Windows and Mac are supported.
Find out more on Sonus Dept.'s website.
- AbstractSynth: an atmospheric polyphonic synthesizer that creates the sound from a dense and ever evolving spectrum.
- BiShift: an effect that allows to shift the magnitude and the phase of the spectrum separately, so that it can act as a complex and strange pitchshifter.
- BrokenDelays: a delay that features up to 16 delay lines, and that abruptly changes their lengths (and their actual chances to be played) rhythmically. Apply to a boring drum loop or to a plain voice and listen how it becomes a never repeating bizarre pattern.
- Disturbances: a generator of stutters and noise interference to the incoming audio.
- Essential: an effect that analyzes the spectrum of the incoming sound and returns only its most prominent features. With the included reverb-like effects, you can turn any sound into an abstract spiral of wandering waves.
- FromOuterSpace: like in all our other M4L bundles, here it is a trippy drone generator!
- InfiniteTrain: a pulse-train generator with a twist. It can create abstract punctiform sound patterns often found in glitch and minimal music.
- MadHatter: theoretically it is a polyphonic hi-hat synthesizer, but try to mess with the parameters, and discover that it can do a lot more and work like a complete unusual synthesizer.
- OneToMany: a 32-voice sample player that changes its parameters every time it is triggered, so that from a single sample a whole range of barely predictable sounds can be obtained.
- SineBursts: an instrument to create high pitched sounds and noises. Glitches are included if you like, and in the amount you need.
- SpectroGlitch: an effect that randomly suppress or invert the magnitude or the phase of the spectrum of the incoming sound.
- SpectroSynth: a compact polyphonic synthesizer to create sounds with a wide and complex timbre, ideal for rich atmospheres.
