MTransformer: ridiculously…

[Neon Breath]

...Powerful!!

I’m totally blown away by the extreme power and the possibilities, artistically & creatively. I had it laying in my Melda plugin folder for a while, already knowing it was good but I just recently truly discovered it by digging deep into it for real this time. Shame on me!

For pure sound design, sonic exploration and sound creation, this thing is really, really nuts. Not sure how it would handle for stuff more ‘musical’ as some people often say cause it’s very easy to go extreme with it, but man for pure sound design and experimental tasks of all sorts, it’s a diamond tool. In fact, I can’t believe it’s not mentioned more frequently in audio & music forums. When talking about spectral FFT tools, I keep hearing about other spectral tools like SpecOps, GRM Tools, Michael Norris’ spectral tools, etc, but very rarely see MTransformer mentioned. No idea why cause in my opinion it is on top, way way above all these and it pretty much crushes them all.

So a thread for MTransformer here to show it some love!! And if you guys use it, how do you use it and for what purpose?

[enCiphered]

I can’t believe it’s not mentioned more frequently in audio & music forums. When talking about spectral FFT tools, I keep hearing about other spectral tools like SpecOps, GRM Tools, Michael Norris’ spectral tools, etc, but very rarely see MTransformer mentioned. No idea why cause in my opinion it is on top, way way above all these and it pretty much crushes them all.

You should post some examples of what you are talking about, what you see and understand as extreme powerful, crushes everything etc.. Otherwise this is just the usual aggressive advertisement and rhetoric from someone who barely makes real music and only lives in his strange sound design cosmos.

Really easy enough and weird to devaluate top-notch software like GRM and Specs Ops for no obvious reason.

[Neon Breath]

I said it in my post, I use it for sound design (commercial, not going to spam here), sound creation and other otherworldly textures and sounds. Nothing 'musical', if that term means anything anyway. I use it for my drone and experimental & electroacoustic projects as well.

I hang around here since years now and people know me for my love for experimental and unorthodox tools, so it's quite ignorant from you to say I'm doing aggressive advertisement here. How can this be advertisement, this is Melda's space anyway. And no, I'm not going to post anything for satisfy you just because you asked.

[jmg8]

Hey Neon Breath! I can share some ways I use this beast. Like you, I love it.

I get some interesting sound by pitching up or down and then frequency shifting in the opposite direction by a similar amount. This brings the sound back somewhere similar to where it started, except in a strange way because as you know the frequency shift doesn't keep the harmonic relationship.

In the pitch transformation graph change the curve type to steps and play around with different values, it sort of acts like a pitch resolution.

The variations parameter is really cool. I use it subtly to sort of soften or diffuse sounds. This can be use effectively to push a sound back in a mix and give it less focus, as it breaks up the constant pitch, making it more noise like.

I like turning the dormant all the way down and then compensating for the loss of level with the level transformation graph. Makes for a very interesting sound.

The spectral envelope can be used in a musical way if used subtly it can change the character of the sound in quite a different way to EQing.

Lastly and probably my favourite is the smering and blur controls. So good for drones and soundscapes.

Most of this is also available in MSpectralDelay. But there you get some additional features, and when all of this power is inside a feedback loop, all hell breaks loose!

[Neon Breath]

Hey man you shouldn’t say you love MTransformer too, cause that's just aggressive cheap advertising!

Seriously, that is what I’m talking about! Very interesting ways of using it, I’ll have to try that pitch down/up VS the frequency shifting in the opposite direction trick, that’s something I haven’t thought about. The level window can opened up some pretty strange metallizing effect as well, like turning water sound into some weird metallic fluid. Boring one-shop sound can greatly acquire some impact as well.

On a side note, the smearing parameter combined with a bit of feedback, when used in a subtle way without too much other transformations, can produce and act as spectral reverb and produce quite unique and unnatural (in an interesting way) reverb tails.

Well done, thanks for sharing your tips

[ZentralmassivSound]

Care to share some Sound examples? I find MTransformer always has that "spectral engine" Sound and that turns me off.

[Nspace]

I for one, value when an appreciative thread comes out sharing uncommon views _typically of course_ together with out of the norm remarks, and (hopefully) mentioning novel uses.

That said, it could be guessed that many here would welcome such adjectives and qualifiers accompanying the novel usage, with detailed descriptions ...being an important part of the content of such threads.
Which is precisely what came to mind while reading

You should post some examples of what you are talking about, what you see and understand as extreme powerful, crushes everything etc.. Otherwise this is just the usual aggressive advertisement and rhetoric from someone who barely makes real music and only lives in his strange sound design cosmos.
Really easy enough and weird to devaluate top-notch software like GRM and Specs Ops for no obvious reason.

Then, by reading following posts, got aware of the rather strong adjectives (aggressive advertisement and rhetoric) enCiphered included. Surely each of us takes such wording in their own context.

//The good thing is that if the main aim of that enCiphered's answer was a call for descriptive cases, it actually is the same that the OP intended, and what it has developed into so far.

So fast actually, that is throwing this very post into Off Topic territory. Thanks to Above for this, well not that far really; thanks for this Community progress, which also is my shared aim here.
BEst

[dark water]

Coincidentally, I just tried it tonight for the first time in about 2 years from my plugin folder. I was very impressed too but still need to explore further. Nice tool to have as you say in contrast / addition to some of the others.

[vectorwarrior]

I also love this effect. The challenge with it is that things quickly become atonal so I find it less useful than I'd like... much like a ring modulator. The spectral envelope is useful to change the tonality while keeping the relationships the same (i.e. not making it atonal), I just wish you were able to push the spectral envelope to more extreme values to really mess with it.

Definitely don't feel like I've finished exploring it yet.

[Scotty]

Thanks for sharing your enthusiastic support for a plugin I own and have truly never explored. That will change tonight!

[Dirtgrain]

I fooled around with MTransformer and MTransformerEX in MSoundFactory just now, and it got me some ham-radio-sounding stuff. Not pleasant. The EX version does have some nice modes that weren't so dramatic.

Did Chandler do a video on it yet?

[Russell Grand]

I can’t believe it’s not mentioned more frequently in audio & music forums. When talking about spectral FFT tools, I keep hearing about other spectral tools like SpecOps, GRM Tools, Michael Norris’ spectral tools, etc, but very rarely see MTransformer mentioned. No idea why cause in my opinion it is on top, way way above all these and it pretty much crushes them all.

You should post some examples of what you are talking about, what you see and understand as extreme powerful, crushes everything etc.. Otherwise this is just the usual aggressive advertisement and rhetoric from someone who barely makes real music and only lives in his strange sound design cosmos.

Really easy enough and weird to devaluate top-notch software like GRM and Specs Ops for no obvious reason.

Sigh...

[Russell Grand]

Hey man you shouldn’t say you love MTransformer too, cause that's just aggressive cheap advertising! :lol

[Neon Breath]

Did Chandler do a video on it yet?

Don't know, but Melda did a video that is more technical with some tricks on how to use it wisely on concrete music, and not just as a mangler tool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qW6HikxFnc&t=320s

[whyterabbyt]

Otherwise this is just the usual aggressive advertisement and rhetoric from someone who barely makes real music and only lives in his strange sound design cosmos.

would you mind not thinking you're the arbiter of (a) what 'real music' is and (b) which sorts of audio creation somehow preclude expressing an opinion at KVR. cheers.