KVR Audio

wagtunes · Post by **wagtunes** » Mon Nov 30, 2015 1:57 pm

Discuss.

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/mutate-by-wave-alchemy

Jorgeelalto · Post by **Jorgeelalto** » Mon Nov 30, 2015 3:33 pm

Cute toy for EDM ploducels (like me

).

Numanoid · Post by **Numanoid** » Mon Nov 30, 2015 7:59 pm

Based on Wave Alchemy's pedigree (i.e. Pro-II) it is most def a go.

And WA even got the guts to launch a new product without intro price during BF/CM period

That's confidence

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 2:48 am

Wave Alchemy produces some excellent samples and instruments The scripted instrument may be especially useful for people who do most of their work using Kontakt.

I don't care to try to pigeon-hole an instrument into some genre or set of genres. At first glance the GUI looks functional and easy to read without lots of tiny widgets and fonts that we often see on scripted instruments due to the limitations of the resolution of the Kontakt GUI area.

I confess that I have become something of a whore when it comes to smaller scripted Kontakt instruments, collecting just about everything from Hollow Sun, Hideaway Studios, and others.

acYm · Post by **acYm** » Tue Dec 01, 2015 3:47 am

It would be very surprising if WA were to release anything less than a stellar production tool with this. PROII and Bass Pedals were impressive feats of sampling, it can only be even better since then.

_pix_ · Post by **_pix_** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 5:26 pm

It is even better than the previous instruments imo. The basic sounds are all multi samples (1 sample per key so no stretching or interpolation) from an eurorack modular with a bunch of crazy new analog and digital oscillators (cyclebox, E350, WMD PDO, makenoise DPO) and most of them were based on true stereo patches (through a macbeth dual SV filter and 2 oakley classic VCAs). They sound really good and they're certainly different from the sounds you usually find in sample libraries. If you're looking for simple bread and butter sounds this may not be the best instrument.

However, if you're looking for something new and refreshing I think this will certainly deliver. The heart of it is actually the sequencer, and one of its strengths is that you can easily modulate the start point of the samples per step, so you can scan the waves for really interesting rhythms and textures. You can also sequence lots of other parameters like send fx, filters, stereo width etc. It was originally conceived as a wobble maker but it goes much further than that and I've been taking all sorts of sequences from it.

The required disclaimer here is that I was involved in making the instrument together with Wave Alchemy but I don't think I'm being that biased about it. Basically the initial idea behind the instrument was to increase the amount of things you could take from complex multisamples (in this case from this particular synth). To my knowledge this is the first instrument to allow sequencing of stereo multi sample programs this way. Some samplers could do it in stereo but could not use the multi samples, others could play multi programs but lacked any sequencing or the modulation tricks to make it interesting. So mutate solves this and provides a fantastic platform to run, sequence and morph multi sample programs. And you can always edit the programs under the hood as with any other kontakt instrument so you have access to all kontakt filters and fx.

Let me know if you have any questions about it I'll be glad to talk more about it.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 5:33 pm

OK if Rui did the sound design for this that's a huge point in its favour in itself

_pix_ · Post by **_pix_** » Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:39 pm

much obliged, Sir!

Gribs · Post by **Gribs** » Thu Dec 03, 2015 7:37 pm

WA just sent me a loyalty discount code for this out of the blue. I was going to wait since I just bought a few things during the black Friday sale frenzy, but Mutate is now a no-brainer for me. I am at work but will buy it when I get home.

I have a pretty large modular synth, though the only oscillators listed above by _pix_ that I have owned is the 350 (I kept the cloud chamber but dropped the 350 and replaced it and something else with the Kilpatrick dual oscillator). I am very interested in hearing/playing the patches to see what WA has done with this.

_pix_ · Post by **_pix_** » Fri Dec 04, 2015 3:27 pm

There are a few patches with the classic wave table sweeps from the E350, you'll recognize them right away, but I mostly used it as a modulator for the WMD PDO - which is also a great osc. You can phase modulate the internal oscillators independently and then hard pan them and play with the phase offset to get this really nice stereo spread. I think I might have abused this trick a bit but it creates such a nice stereo field.

another awesome osc is the cyclebox. The thru-zero FM algo sounds really good and the mode switches are great to make glitchy stuff on the fly. I also used it n a lot of the sounds, mostly the more noisy ones.

If you have a chance to go through the sounds and the kontakt patches let me know what you think. I'm making another patch bank to release as bonus material some time around the Christmas, I'm focusing on more wobbly sequences and basslines but let me know if you think some of the other sound types are lacking.

acYm · Post by **acYm** » Sat Dec 05, 2015 1:26 am

So can you switch waveforms while playing a note now in Kontakt, or is that still an issue? I recall that Pro II and BP were very jammable for sampler instruments, except for that.

_pix_ · Post by **_pix_** » Sat Dec 05, 2015 3:05 am

no, that was the initial plan but unfortunately when pushing things in the sequencer it'd make the program unstable. Most of the raw waves on mutate are extremely modulated and have a lot of timbre changes in them though, so by sweeping the start point you end up changing the sound considerably, but it's not the same things as being able to sequence the waves. Maybe it'll be possible to implement in a future version.

Kontakt Mutate...Cute Toy Or Serious Music Maker?