Sugar Bytes Transfigure is a new creative multi-FX plugin for macOS and Windows, powered by evolving spectral and resynthesis.
Berlin is calling. Not only does it host Superbooth, the largest synthesizer trade fair, every year, but it’s also home to numerous music software companies: Ableton, Bitwig, Native Instruments, Orchestral Tools, u-he, and many others.
Among them is Sugar Bytes, which has been bringing creative and highly unique plugins to the market for many years. Sugar Bytes’ latest plugin, Transfigure, is another exciting, inspiring software development.
Sugar Bytes Transfigure
With Sugar Bytes plugins, the sounds never stay the same. They have plugins in their portfolio designed to creatively and playfully turn sounds on their head. The new Sugar Bytes Transfigure multi-FX processor fits in perfectly.
They describe it as not just another multi-FX but as a sound design tool that creates something entirely new and unrelated to your original audio. Instead of the classic coloring of existing sounds, it’s all about a complete sonic transformation.
This transformation enables two engines: a spectral (yellow) and a resynthesis (pink) engine.
The spectral engine lets you manipulate your sound in the frequency domain, unlocking a variety of original effects. It offers features such as isolation of specific frequencies for freezing sounds, delaying individual frequency bands, and more.
Well-crafted algorithms allow you to adjust particular frequency ranges with precision, opening up wide-ranging sound design possibilities. Most algorithms come with detailed control options.
The resynthesis, the second engine of Transfigure, analyzes your input signal to detect which pitches are present. It then uses this information to generate new audio with its own internal sound engine. The results can be close to the original or completely transformed.
Alongside deep resynthesis parameters like freeze rate, FM, and more, it also includes various scales, enabling the engine to create complex musical progressions.
Refinements & Motion
Additionally, the resynthesized and spectralized sounds are processed through a multi-FX processor. This processor also offers other, more exciting options. You can modify the signal path and route your audio input through these effects first, then into the spectral or resynthesis engine.
Sugar Bytes has implemented two slots for loading algorithms. You can select from various: delay, phaser, filter, reverb, looper, and capture.
This secondary routing option primarily delivers its benefits through the looper and capture algorithms, enabling you to loop audio sections. These are also excellent for creating the famous glitch sounds for which Sugar Bytes is known.
On top of that, Sugar Bytes Transfigure also ships with a powerful modulation engine with four customizable, loopable multi-segment envelope generators, an envelope follower, a trigger, and a random generator.
You can modulate all the parameters of the engine, including the classic effects. Further, you can map various parameters to an XY pad, giving you even more modulation and expressivity options.
Sugar Bytes ships the plugin with many presets to try out the engine.
First Impression
An exciting new plugin that combines two more exotic mangling techniques in one multi-FX processor. I appreciate that it’s not just another bread-and-butter multi-effects unit, but one that delves into experimental territory.
Okay, I wouldn’t have expected a classic plugin from the Sugar Bytes developers, who are known for their wild synths and processors. I hope we get an iOS version.
Sugar Bytes Transfigure is available now for $129/129€. It runs as a VST, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel) and Windows.
More information here: Sugar Bytes
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