Tracktion Software is serving up Chop Suey, a new kick drum designer plugin from the creative minds of mathematician and AI specialist Peter V (Aka Dawesome) and German techno artist Björn Torwellen.
Whereas many kick instruments enable you to layer sounds, Chop Suey eschews this approach and lets you sequence them instead. The theory is that this will eliminate any potential phasing issues and ‘muddiness’.
In fact, we’re assured that you’ll be able to create combined kicks that “maintain the crisp transient, the punch of the body and the characteristic tail”.
You can shape your kick on the visual interface by creating and editing curves. This is done individually for the transient, punch and tail, so any edits made to one element won’t affect the others.
Chop Suey’s filter, meanwhile, has been designed specifically for kick editing and is said to react extremely fast to cutoff and resonance changes and not to introduce ‘zipper noise’ or artefacts.
Another intriguing feature is Punch Protect; when activated, frequencies below ~150 Hz (the ones that deliver the punch, basically) are protected from the filter.
Chop Suey is available now for PC and Mac in VST/AU formats. It currently costs $58; this price will rise to $89 after 22 May. There’s also a demo version for you to try.
Find out more on the Tracktion Software website.
