CYCLES - an innovative loop manipulation and granular synthesis environment.

Hey guys, 

Not sure if its appropriate to share this on here, so let me know if not...

My sound design and software company Slate + Ash have just put out a new VI -CYCLES - which I thought some people on here might be interested in.

www.slateandash.com/products/cycles

Without wanting to blow my own trumpet too much, it is a very cool instrument and has quite a few new ideas and possibilities for sound design.

Let me know if you have any questions! 

Thanks,

Simon

Just curious if you can share any technical details of how it's made? C++ with the JUCE library to produce a Kontakt-compatible plugin?

I realise I could have googled this stuff as well, but I am kind of trying to plan a career path out of "boring" enterprise programming and making stuff like this seems like a really cool job so I am wondering what sort of skills you need to have aside from a drive to be a creative sound-mangler?

Kontakt actually has its own scripting language (KSP) which you can do quite a lot in and is how Cycles was made.

It has some limitations which can be frustrating but there are some great benefits of working off of this pre-existing platform. 

 

I have limited experience with Kontakt but I remember trying out the Reaktor blocks thing on my old laptop where things straight up refused to work due to CPU limitations, so I am wondering if this way of building things results in resource intensive software.

Although I imagine the DSP stuff for wrangling the samples and doing god knows what also matters a lot.

Anyhow thanks for the info, it seems like this is a little bit easier to work in than C++ (with the caveat that your VST now requires Kontakt Player).

to me it's interesting to see all of those 'innovative' software products that came to the market in the last 10 yrs or so but with every new year music is progressively less and less innovative. something's wrong here!

  On 1/28/2020 at 6:23 PM, xox said:

to me it's interesting to see all of those 'innovative' software products that came to the market in the last 10 yrs or so but with every new year music is progressively less and less innovative. something's wrong here!

Inflation.

Also, calling something you made yourself “innovative” is tacky as hell.

  On 1/28/2020 at 6:23 PM, xox said:

to me it's interesting to see all of those 'innovative' software products that came to the market in the last 10 yrs or so but with every new year music is progressively less and less innovative. something's wrong here!

More people have more access to tools to make music, therefore more music is made, but also it becomes harder to really find the pearls from all that material. I would say there is innovative music being made that regularly puts my jaw on the floor, but you got to go find it and (in some cases) be mentally open to it.

  On 1/28/2020 at 8:22 PM, rhmilo said:

Inflation.

Also, calling something you made yourself “innovative” is tacky as hell.

Tacky or not truth matters imo.

waitaminute! who says anything about calling it innovative by yourself?

  On 1/28/2020 at 8:35 PM, thawkins said:

More people have more access to tools to make music, therefore more music is made, but also it becomes harder to really find the pearls from all that material. I would say there is innovative music being made that regularly puts my jaw on the floor, but you got to go find it and (in some cases) be mentally open to it.

can you name few of them, pls? ...those that are less known

  On 1/28/2020 at 10:39 PM, xox said:

waitaminute! who says anything about calling it innovative by yourself?

Check thread title. Check thread creator.

  On 1/28/2020 at 10:39 PM, xox said:

Tacky or not truth matters imo.

waitaminute! who says anything about calling it innovative by yourself?

 

can you name few of them, pls? ...those that are less known

I realise some of this list may not be innovative in the sense of "sound design" and also some of this stuff is probably from 5-6 years ago so not bleeding edge new, but for me it was "new" when I discovered it in the last 1-2 years. And of course this is not limited to IDM at all. I am not going to link things here otherwise this post will be insane, everything's on youtube or bandcamp anyway.

Lightning Bolt - Blow To The Head. Extremely energetic attitude and does not sound shit like most punk (not sure if punk is the right word).

Purl - Stillpoint [SSCD17]. Amazing dub techno, for me completely different than the formulaic chord stab stuff.

Floating Points - For Marmish Part II. Pretty much everything by Floating Points is interesting and because he manages to blend analog/acoustic and electronic sounds together. Sometimes it feels like he likes to play around with synth knobs too much which is boring.

Van der Wiese - Ether. Like psytrance but not over the top, like tekno but more mellow.

Cigarettes After Sex - Cry (full album). Extremely good sounding album, takes the slow hungover rock ballad to another level.

Ainara LeGardon - Agota. Like Earth but not like slow motion country music.

Fabulous Diamonds - Track 1 (Fabulous Diamonds II). I really like how this track builds on repetition played live.

ATB - Ecstacy (DJ Warlord Remix). No comment.

Ann Annie. Probably the only time something advertised as "modular" music did not end up being 40 minutes "modular", but instead it's music.

  On 1/29/2020 at 12:00 PM, Mesh Gear Fox said:

goddamn that's one expensive kontakt instrument. kudos for your hard work and all that but yeah. not many people here are gonna have the scratch for that.

Just wait a couple of days and brexit will fix the exchange rate.

  On 1/29/2020 at 7:39 AM, rhmilo said:

Check thread title. Check thread creator.

 

Aaaa yes sorry! I dunno why I thought you were talking about an innovative music lol

but yes, marketing!

@thawkins

thnx! Will check them out