Enhance Your Plug-ins with FX Permutator
Those who have been into sound design for a long time definitely have their favorite processing methods to go through. If you’re someone who’s been a sound designer for a while, you’ve accumulated quite a few plugins over the years, right? Some that you completely forgot about that you purchased on a sales promotion years ago, and some that you don’t even know you have any more (and they just add up over time). Is it your case? Well, what would you think if we tell you that there’s a tool that can look at every single file path that you have listed in your Reaper preferences, and knows where to look for plugins of all kinds, and it puts them all together in a list so that you can start curating your plug-in collection by creating different ones. Would you like it? If so, it’s a pleasure for us to present FX Permutator.
This is simply a premium script that creates unique effects chains based on collections of the effects that you usually choose, and then, within a few clicks, it allows you to create effects chains that you’d never thought were possible (since even uses effects that you probably forgot about and creates new combinations). So, this is a great jumping-off point for sound designers, and, if you purchase it and try it, you will definitely find a quite useful tool.
The functions are plenty, but it’s essentially like a Vector Signal Transceiver (VST) exploration station, acting as a creativity force multiplier. It takes a collection of VSTs from your selections, and it helps you to mix and match those you want to slot into randomized effects. You can even randomize the parameters in them as well as the presets, and the combination of all these actions for then rendering them out. The results are impressive! When playing with different options, you don’t know what’s coming next, and it can be pure gold.
Furthermore, it includes a lot of tonal possibilities and it also comes with literally hundreds of presets, so, even stacking multiple versions of the same plugin on top of each other — all using different presets — leads to unique results as well. So, maybe the best way to use this tool is to build several DSP Collections and then iterate through them to get new and interesting combinations.
One of the most surprising features of FX Permutator is not only that it brings new life into old plugins that either you forgot you had (or you don’t use anymore), but the possibility of putting them all together in FX chains that you never EVER would have put together manually, and it means massive creative options. As a sound designer, it helps you understand the total scope of your DSP capabilities, and it speeds up the creative process when you’re looking for something new, unique, or interesting (that you already have without knowing, and don’t have to pay for…).
FX Permutator is mainly for sound designers, especially for experienced ones, but maybe for composers too, considering the way it works. You basically select a track, then you bring up the script, then you go through a collection, you hit run, and it goes through the various parameters (that you have previously selected) at the bottom for generating multiple tracks with different effects chains. Then you get a vast number of effects that you can choose from, and, indeed, the results are so unexpected that you wouldn’t have come up with them on your own.
It inspires you to use tools that you forgot about, or combinations that you wouldn’t have thought of (perhaps functional things that you would have considered wrong in the first place). It operates by following the basic recipe for all forms of creativity: by creating new combinations of old elements.
If the Reaper can see the plugin presets, which is usually the case for the majority of VSTs when coming across a random present, it will pick it, and then it will search all of the available parameters to start randomizing them. And that’s not all: there’s a random percentage number that you can slide for how much randomization you want in order to keep things organically — despite the uncommon combinations.
So, the main features of FX Permutator are interesting. On the one hand, as was mentioned, you have the possibility of creating and storing collections of plugins. Secondly, apply plugin collections to the tracks you are working with. In third place, you can randomize the plugin presets, as well as the parameters and the slot locations. Also, you can easily render the tracks you create with created regions, and, finally, you can save the FX chains that you like, and share them if you want.
The price is $29.99, it’s compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux, and the only requirement is Reaper Daw.
If you need further advice about how to use tools like this, don’t hesitate to contact Enhanced Media Sound Studio. We can help you to take your audiovisual productions to the next level.
