Glitching Stuttering Darkness, Now Synced

I noted in January that enigmatically-talented programmer Jack Dark had released the source of his misbehaved SynthEdit-made plug-ins for Windows VST. Here’s one of the fruits of that release: a glitching, stuttering sonic thing that now also syncs to your host, so your little glitchstutters hit on, um, an eighth note or whatever instead of just appearing willy-nilly. SynthEdit may be notorious for insanely unstable and sonically-destructive plug-ins, but DarkWare’s plug-ins are so beloved for their unpredictability that developers are actually worried about making them too normal

For those knowing and loving Shattershot Lite VST, Shattersync is essentially a host (and therefore BPM) synchronized version of its predecessor. it should be noted that the work I made to modify the creature will not make it sound any better and possibly all the voodoo magic spawned from Shattershot Lite will disappear, replaced by a tamed, ordered, boring, mechanism of nothingness.

Original DarkWare VSTs

Pluggotic and C.d.P. Page, with various free VSTs for Windows, including the Scattersync download.

Rekkerd.org: Pluggotic releases Shattersync — and, yes, I love Rekkerd.org; it’s like a nerdster filter for the barrage of 2.43.0.5 upgrade releases and eight trillion forum messages at KVR

In addition to a new GUI and MIDI implementation, there is a “new independent stuttering FX in the signal chain”, so perhaps that’ll add a little voodo back. Presumably, you’ll still be able to do the same glitching, stuttering thing as the gentlemen in the video here (aka Pluggotic & C.d.P.).

Hint: with either the synced or un-synced version, this will sound different from Ableton BeatRepeat.

Refresh: Asides

Plugins From the Edge: Free SynthEdit Source from Jack Dark

Jack Dark himself

If you like your plug-ins extreme and dangerous — like causing bodily injury to pregnant women and children dangerous — here’s some good news from you. Legendary (or perhaps infamous) Windows VST plug-in developer Jack Dark has decided to leave the scene, and he’s leaving his source projects for plug-ins released on DarkWare and (later) Novuzeit:

All DarkWare & NOVUZEIT SynthEdit source files, here, free. [KVR Audio forums]

That’s dangerous as in sonically and, uh, technologically. And digging into the source means finding still more of the technological avant-garde. Jack explains:

One word of warning though, I never intended for anyone else to see the guts of these projects. As such don’t expect the .SE1 layouts to be clean and elegantly organized. That’s not how I worked. I always created at the speed of thought.

Jack is one of the punks of plug-ins, with creations like Hypnotastic, Hands of Darkness, Nuclear Cranium, and The Nightmare Machine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But if you can decode the Dark arts here, you could make some electric mayhem of your own. Thanks, Runagate!