Text appeal
The debut release from industry veterans Jim Credland and Dom Smart is a plugin effect that analyses the dynamic envelope of the input and uses it as the amplitude control signal for the playback of a sample-based source sound from its onboard library.
Feed Texture a drum loop, for example, and you can set the envelope follower up to add a noise layer to just the loudest hits, or dynamically responsive crowd noise, vinyl crackle or sampled reverb to the whole signal. Or perhaps run a bassline in for bolstering with all sorts of synthesised waveforms and tones - you get the idea.
Texture’s interface puts sound selection and tweaking on the left, filtering and envelope controls along the bottom, levels and mix balance on the right, and everything else in the main four-tab window at the centre. Clicking the sound source selector pops up a categorised menu of over 340 ‘regular’ and granularised sampled sounds - see Texture messages. Selecting one loads it into the plugin, complete with a visual representation of its waveform, a brief description, and between one and three adjustable parameters. For almost all sources, the first of these will be Pitch, enabling up to two octaves of pitchshifting up or down.
Pros:
- Underlying concept works well.
- Excellent library of onboard sounds.
- Quick and easy to use.
- Sidechain filter and ‘limiter’.
Cons:
- No sample import yet.
- Pitch tracking would be very helpful.
- No dedicated modulation envelope.
Verdict:
Just the thing for adding textural layers to beats, basslines, FX and more - and it’ll be even better when it can import samples.
Read the full review: MusicRadar
