Manipulator

Very few plugins can warp vocals as well as this does. This isn't meant to be a pitch correction plugin that leaves your pretty little vocal otherwise unscathed. Think of it more as a vocoder on steroids. If you are looking for pitch correction, get Melodyne. It's the best. If you are looking for vocal robotics, mind-warping midi-controlled pitch, formant and other changes, this is one of the best plugins out. I've been very happy with it, though I have no illusions about what it is appropriate for. If you're looking for Autotune, move along.

PS: Polyverse put out a couple nice tutorials as well, to break us out of a mental box.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zgkX15KG0E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPcSy01CaxA

Being a new to vocal processing software and being an impulsive person, I bought Manipulator. I wasted 118 GBP. There is nothing Manipulator can do that could not have been achieved by many examples of freeware vst. That's not to say there is lots of free software similar to Manipulator but in combination, free software can make a pig's breakfast out of an audio signal just as Manipulator does all by itself.

If you like your vocal tracks to be clear, Manipulator will be of no use to you at all as it seems to add many extraneous random sounds. Weird wandering sine waves, little whistles, drones and pops abound.

Amid a plethora of 99 cent shop Sci Fi audio FX presets, are perhaps as much as 3 (ish) usable settings. All the other presets, and there are lots and lots, are of use only if you work on low budget Sci Fi and must edit audio so that the 'alien' actors sound like frogs with sore throats or pigs inhaling helium... with sore throats. Or Darth Vader... with a sore throat.

Seriously, it's really very difficult to think of any work, any vocal where Manipulator would not completely screw up the audio signal and render the output literally painfully uncomfortable to listen to. I challenge anyone who is not engaged producing poop noises and silly voices for cartoons to say they are happy with this example of vst.

The makers of this plugin mention 'algorithms' and there's a whiff of the disingenuous about that. Mathematics is not the tool needed to create Manipulator's sounds. It can be done with mathematics but there's no need to go to such trouble. All that is required is plenty of electrical interference and lots of old worn cables and loose fittings on ancient, knackered obsolete and incompatible equipment. That has the exact same effect on audio signals and is far, far cheaper.

You'd have to be as daft and inexperienced and impulsive as me to buy Manipulator, or 'Audio Signal Shredder' as I have more accurately renamed it.

Manipulator certainly manipulates. The same way a man wearing a metal gauntlet manipulates an egg.

It could have been just as accurately named, 'The Emperor's New Clothes.'

Just bought Manipulator and after playing with it for a short while I must say this thing works really well with - not just vocals but with other instruments too such as drums, synths, basses.. everything. You can create some totally unique, twisted and never-before-heard effects and movements with this. Awesome plugin.