Excite Audio is the brand behind a rapidly expanding stable of plugins that includes Lifeline Console and Lifeline Expanse, along with the more recent Motion series, a trio of processors designed to add movement to audio.
The company's latest release is Motion: Fractal, a granular multi-effects plugin that Excite Audio says will enhance static sounds, sculpt hypnotic rhythms and twist, stretch and scatter any signal, offering tons of potential for creative sound design.
Fractal is equipped with five individual effects modules that can be reordered in the plugin's routing section: there's a dual-layer granular engine, a trance gate effect, a beat repeat module and a hall reverb.
Fractal's granular engine captures audio and slices it into tiny grains to create evolving textures; grains can be filtered, panned, reversed and pitch-shifted, and there are three unique playhead modes onboard that adjust the position in an incoming signal that the grains are sliced from.
Fractal's Repeat and Gate modules introduce a rhythmic effect to a signal: Gate drops out audio during chosen steps in its tempo-synced, 32-step sequence, while Repeat produces a glitchy stutter effect by repeating slices of the incoming signal. These are joined by Space, a basic reverb with length and mix controls.
These can be manipulated via Fractal's hexagonal controller, a kind of XY pad that can be used to assign up to six macros and morph between them using your cursor. You're also able to draw and record custom paths for the cursor to follow which can then be replayed as modulation.
Drag-and-dropping a parameter to the hexagon will hook it up to Fractal's envelope follower, which modulates the parameter in response to the amplitude of the incoming audio.
Granular effects plugins are admittedly ten-a-penny these days but Fractal looks like a versatile option with a couple more tricks up its sleeve than your average grain-slicer. We like the look of that hexagonal interface, too - looks like the album art for a forgotten Autechre EP.
Motion: Fractal is currently available at a discounted price of $52.49/£39/€46.26 over at Plugin Boutique, and there's a Lite version on offer with a reduced feature set for only $33.65/£25.00/€29.65. The plugin runs on macOS and Windows and is available in VST/VST3/AU/AAX formats, or a standalone app.
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