Software: it looks bland. It often sounds the same. Then there are the gems, like Ohm Force’s incredibly tasty line of plug-ins. Their delay plug-in Ohmboyz really isn’t over-hyped when they call it “the best delay money can afford,” as it’s almost frighteningly deep, with wild special effects and dirty-sounding vintage-style possibilities.

And those wacky interfaces aren’t incidental, either. Dave Cronin of San Francisco design firm/consultants Cooper just posted a great blog entry on “whimsical interaction design.” He says he’s been pondering whimsy in design, pointing to the playful music app Bloom, but also humor by industrial designers Droog, wacky Google cartoons, and, yes, Ohm:

In many cases, it seems that playfulness in interface design is not just for laughs but also help users tap into a different part of themselves than the strictly rational mind. OhmForce, a bunch of slightly crazed French audio software whizzes provide “funky” skins for their products that feel designed to help users think a bit more like Lee Scratch Perry, and little less like Bill Gates.

OhmBoyz does so much, indeed, that you might need to tap a bit of that irrational part of your mind just to use it successfully. Oliver has a great screencast for wire to the ear.

Ohm Force OhmBoyz from wiretotheear on Vimeo.

And that’s just one of many wonderful Ohm creations. If you want to invest in some new Ohm goodness, ProToolerBlog is doing a group buy. The idea is, the more customers commit to buying, the more the price goes down. The discount is up to 35% off already and should hit as much as 50%. (In fact, sign up now and you automatically get that 50%; see comments.) Details and specifics here. Let us know if you’re feeling the Ohm love, and if there are any others you’d want to see in a screencast. (how about “synth grain” plug Symptohm?)

Strange Ohm group buy interactive widget thing, showing discount

What it is, how it works, which plug-ins you can choose and other details

Ohm Force Site (get ready for lots of wacky Flash; sorry)

Daz Diamond is back with another wacky, experimental effect. When we last joined Daz, he was sharing strange and wonderful granular, delay, and sidechain effects. Now, he’s been thinking about buckets (as in brigades, as in sets of delay lines combined to form a reverb). He writes:

Hi Peter, I’m at it again, and have just put out bucketEER MK I – a stereo reverb/delay fx inspired by bucket-brigade style machinery – simple, quite primitive, and surpirisingly good sounding – also interesting for unusual delays with lots of taps …

Full specs on his site, but here’s what I like about the fact that it’s very much in “beta”:

At the moment, when changing from one preset to another, the buffers may get stuck for a few seconds resulting in a glitchy effect. this may or may not be a bad thing, and may or may not happen depending on your host.

So, quick, go grab that before he fixes the problem, and add some organic glitches to your reverb!

Some powerful features:

• Pre and Post effect shelving filters


• Predelay with control over level and time


• Size and Time controls


• Width and Mix controls


• Central readout of knob values


• 17 Randomize buttons – ‘global’ and ‘local’


• Freeze Function


• Bypass switch for each bucket and slot


• Output level meter


• 8 presets

Daz welcomes donations. I may also give this a go on Linux — enjoying Windows VST compatibility on one machine.

Updated – somehow left out these links. Been a bit out of it this week; sorry!

whiteLABEL bucetEER Product Page and Download
Daz Diamond / whiteLABEL Google Discussion Group

Building and Using a Reaktor Grain Delay in Kore 2 from Create Digital Media on Vimeo.

Let’s cut straight to the reason we use this stuff: we want crazy-sounding delays we can play with. Reaktor guru Peter Dines shows just how you’d build such a thing in Reaktor from the ground up for CDM’s Kore site. He also takes it one step further by creating not only the Reaktor ensemble, but also a Kore performance preset to match. The advantage of going this route: Kore provides a way of organizing parameters for control, performance, and automation.

This is another all-free download, so have at it. Now I feel like I’m in a patching race with Peter, because I’ve got some ideas of my own for how you might modify this basic idea; let’s see if I can actually make that happen.

Making sense of Kore

The other side of the minisite is we’re further exploring what Kore is for and how to make it work. We asked readers of the minisite to tell us their thoughts on how Kore is going and how they use it, which has yielded an interesting comment thread:

How Do You Kore?

Our main focus, of course, is simply teaching people how to use the tool effectively – from there, you can decide whether it’s for you and how you want to use it. To that end, I’ve got the first half of a tutorial up that explains what for me was the biggest draw and the most initially confusing, which is the control pages Kore uses to assign automation and physical control. I walk through why you’d want this, how it works, and how you manage different levels of the control pages:

Demystifying Kore Control Pages for Automation and Performance, Pt. I: Different Page Types

We also have some important basics, like Kontakt automation, how to get a normal mixer view, and external MIDI control.

Coming soon: I’m planning some short features on each of NI’s instruments. We’ll have to call it the “get it out of the shrinkwrap” series, especially for people who got the overwhelming set of instruments that comes with Komplete.

The PSP 608 reduces other multi-tap delays to tears. 24-bit, 192 kHz, of course, but check the specs: feedback, stereo image and position, delay time, multimode filter, modulation, drive/tape saturation, and reverb for each individual tap. There’s a full-featured LFO and envelope follower for modulation, and with MIDI control of each parameter, yes, you could base an entire performance around this one plugin.

Overkill? You bet. Ain’t it beautiful?

The prolific PSP developers will be at AES next month, so expect more from here in NYC.

PSP 608 Multi-Delay [PSP]
Compatibility: Mac, Windows, VST, AU, DirectX, RTAS, HTDM
Pricing: US$149; discounts and bundles available
Demo? Yes

In follow-up to my story Tuesday about the new Dubstation from Audio Damage (and other assorted Dub links), ever-vigilant reader Adrian Anders is here with a couple of free VST alternatives. I still think the Dubstation may be worth US$40, but there’s no reason not to check these out, too, if you’ve got a PC. I’ve used the Retro Delay on my PC laptop; it’s fantastic. Take it away, Adrian:

ConcreteFX’s Tape Delay
[Download ZIP]
This SOB packs some major punch and has such original features as bit-crushing, distortion, 2 flutter LFOs, 2 multi-mode filters, and ducking, all inside the delay loop itself. Has to be heard to be believed how devastating the feedback on this delay can get. Not for the faint of heart (or ears).
Peep the other CoFX freebees [at a KVR audio post]. Ed: HUGE list there; check it out!

E-Phonic’s Retro Delay
What’s great about this delay is that the delay can be modulated (by the pitchbend no less!) in real time without the glitches in the audio normally associated with digital delay time-modulation. Furthermore, the delay also features the oh so neat reverb module that can create dub-style reverb->delay effects that I have yet to make with any other plug-in.

PC (Win) only (time to whip out that P4 you have hidden in your closet!) Ed: So THAT’S where my tricked-out P4 tower went! -PK

Thanks, Adrian. Got a favorite effect? Let me know. By the way, after my abysmally-incomplete Dub music roundup Tuesday (so I was in a hurry, okay?), you can expect a fuller story soon. Send your nominations for favorite artists + links if you haven’t already. Cheers! eers! ers! rs! s!

[Updated] Mac Plugin: Never fear, penniless Mac users. King Dubby for AU gives you a free Mac-compatible dub plugin; apparently some compatibility issues for some users so let us know how it goes. Thanks, Symbiotic!

King Dubby