These are ideal for imbuing patches with anything from subtle unpredictability (faux analogue fluctuations, cheeky pitchbends) to total chaos (sci-fi burblings, hyper-animated pads), and, depending on the plugin, will ideally be able to reach down beyond the usual filter cutoff and pitch parameters into effects controls, oscillator shapes, wavetable scanning and switching, sample selection, unison detune, sequencer controls, and the controls and even selection of other mod sources. Random modulationĪlmost every synth and sampler – and a great many effects plugins – includes some form of random modulation source, whether it’s an old-school sample-and-hold module or an actual randomiser. Randomising playback of the slices, then, is as easy as moving notes around willy nilly, or bringing your MIDI randomiser of choice (see above) to bear. This chops the loop in question up, loads each slice onto a single note in a multisample patch, and creates a MIDI clip that triggers them sequentially with the exact same timing as the original loop. ![]() Three of the best are Audio Damage’s Replicant 2, Sugar Bytes’ Looperator and HY-Plugins’ HY-Slicer, each of which approaches the randomised repeating, stuttering and effects processing of slices within a loop from its own direction.įor quick and dirty loop randomising without the need for a dedicated plugin, you can always rely on your DAW’s ‘slice to MIDI’ function, if it has one. Loop slicing and buffering plugins are awesome for tweaking and transforming beats, basslines, riffs and anything else you care to fling at them, and some of them include the means to have slices of whatever length you choose (16th-notes, eighth-notes, etc) randomly rearranged and/or repeated on the fly. All of them support drag-and-drop MIDI export, so you can refine the results in the piano roll (or randomise them further using the in-DAW options described above). AudioModern’s super slick Chordjam, Riffer and PlayBeat, for example, serve up random chords, sequences and drum patterns respectively, while AudioCipher converts words – yes, words – into MIDI sequences to great effect. There are a few notable third-party plugins to consider here, too. And when you’re looking to randomise the playback of complete MIDI and audio parts within a project, the Follow Actions system in Live’s Session View includes an ‘Any’ Action that can be used to jump around randomly between clips on a track. ![]() Integrated tools such as Logic’s Randomize MIDI plug-in, Cubase’s Random MIDI Modifier, Live’s Random MIDI FX plugin and Studio One’s Random Notes function let you set boundaries and likelihoods within which pitch, velocity and note length changes will (or won’t) be applied to your sequences. Most DAWs incorporate at least crude randomisation of MIDI notes in the form of humanising algorithms that randomly shift timing and velocity to make programmed parts sound more ‘live’, but many of them let you go considerably further with your randomisation. And we’re only really scratching the surface – randomness is ubiquitous in the plugin sphere. ![]() On the effects front, Sugar Bytes Effectrix never fails to delight with its loony random effects sequencing AudioThing’s various plugins all enable their parameters to thrown up in the air at the click of a button and all MeldaProduction effects feature randomisers among their modulation sources. Sonic Charge’s Synplant, for example, centres on the idea of generating patches from ‘seeds’, and makes heavy use of randomisation as part of the process and there are plenty more synths and drum machines out there with random preset (for unique sounds) and sequencing (for unique patterns) generation functions baked in, too, including models by Krotos, Rob Papen, Sugar Bytes, Tone2, XLN Audio, D16, Audio Damage and Plogue. The easiest and most obvious way to work a bit of random into your tracks is to avail yourself of plugins in that incorporate or are even built entirely around the notion, and there are copious excellent options to check out, both instruments and effects.
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