Bram Bos Skulptur is a new performance kinetic filterbank FX for macOS and iOS created in collaboration with Hainbach.
The Berlin-based experimental musician and YouTuber has collaborated on hardware and software products with various companies. Most of the products solve problems. Often, they bring old devices that are no longer useful as software into the DAW, making them accessible to everyone.
The latest project between Hainbach and Bram Bos was different. Okay, it also has a problem/solution thing. He wanted to use a filterbank live but didn’t want to take any of his rare vintage, heavy hardware. Hainbach asked Bram Bos, and the result is Skulptur.
Bram Bos Skulptur
Skulptur is a performance-oriented filterbank for iOS and macOS with a unique, unusual feature set. Not to be confused with Sculpture a great physical modeling synth in Logic Pro.
It has 10 bands in a 1 lowpass + 8 bandpass and 1 highpass configuration, each with a steep, surgical 48dB filter. You can choose between four different models that can by toggled between: analog, resonant, 1949, and Vowels.
Each model has 10 bands, but each band has different center frequencies and bandwidths, offering different personalities. It also ships with a built-in noise generator and a filter feedback for additional character. The input also includes a saturator to add harmonics to your signals immediately.
Up to this point, it’s a traditional filter with an expanded feature set. Yes, it’s a Hainbach plugin, so it must have some special things.
Three Animation Modes
Bram Bos has incorporated motion and kinetics into Skulptur, making the filters animated in various ways. Three different animation engines are available. Fader physics is the first mode, and the faders move based on the impetus and the friction setting. Plus, you can adjust the fader range.
The second mode connects the modes together, giving you less sharp filter effects and letting you animate the spectrum. Alternatively, you can use a draw mode to draw curves across all bands. It allows for individual bands to be a set, but you can also use fluid gestures to draw curves.
The third and last mode is the tempo syncable cycle mode, which acts like a massive set of 10 linked sinewave LFOs, adding movement to different parts of your sound.
This mode also lets you creatively animate the Bram Bos Skulptur filterbank, which, in some settings, resembles a complex phaser. It is also nice to be able to mute any of the 10 bands in the bank.
Don’t forget that Bram Bos Skulptur can also be a standalone noise Synthesizer. Use the built-in noise generator and shape it with a filterbank and its animation; you have a pretty unique noise synth.
First Impression
Another beautiful, creative Bram Bos Hainbach app. Animated filters are a lovely sound design tool. Here, it allows you to set an entire filter bank in motion, which can be very exciting. However, compared to the other Hainbach apps, it’s less experimental and weird.
But it’s again a creative effect with which you can dive into sound design. I’m looking forward to using it.
Bram Bos Skulptur is available now for 14,99€ from the Apple AppStore and runs as an AUv3 plugin on iPhones, iPads, and macOS 13+ (native Apple Silicon + Intel).
More information here: Bram Bos
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