EFFECTRIX 2 Review

Sugar Bytes gave me a sneak preview of their latest plugin Effectrix 2, a polished and updated version of the original Effectrix. At its core Effectrix 2 is an effects sequencer, instead of drawing out a drum beat or melody, you draw out a effect activations as if it were a piano roll. It’s quite an incredible concept and such a fun way to add sound design and motion to any audio. It’s easy to write this sort of tool off as something you could “just do with automation”, but it’s important to remember how much process impacts out creativity. While one could draw out automation for mix controls and manage multiple tracks of this, the editing would be tedious. In Plugins like Effectrix you just click and draw, it’s dead simple, and this allows you to save enough time to try out things you wouldn’t have otherwise. Already with Effectrix 2 I’ve made some patterns that really inspire me get quite bizarre, it’s the perfect tool to browse presets with and resample. 

Whats new?

First off, the UI has been significantly improved, gone are the high contrast outlines and pointless knob indicators. The color scheme has been updated to cool pastels on a soft slightly purple background, rather than what looks like the default colors that show up when opening ms-paint. Everything has been rounded off and made more “smooth”, it just looks nicer, it reminds me of those fancy prismacolor marker sets for some reason. There’s been some changes to the effects lineup, the biggest additions being a new spectral delay and a ring modulator. It looks like all of the effects have been expanded with one or two more controls and sometimes a few extra options. A couple effects have been removed or renamed, but they can be replicated using the updated effects for the most part, so nothing is really missing. Finally the modulation has had a significant upgrade, you now get access to step sequencing for every control simultaneously. Control sequencing isn’t just limited to steps either, you can apply LFOs randomization, envelops and more to individual steps, making for a much more dynamic modulation system. There might be some other improvements here and there, like undo and redo buttons, but I’m not completely familiar with the original Effectrix, so the rest of my thoughts will be looking at this system for the first time.

EFFECTS: The purpose of Effectrix is, as the name implies, effects. Effectrix offers a range off effect types covering most things you’d find on a pedal board and a few more creative remixing tools. They all sound nice, I don’t think I’d reach for many of them as a source for a static effect, but none of them sound bad by any means. Stuff like the phaser, delay, filter, and reverb are all pretty basic, but some of the more interesting effects are definitely fun. The new ring mod sounds great, one of my favorite things to do in these types of effects is to have steps mix in a ring mod with a downward slope, creating a percussive tone. The Vinyl effect is quite cheesy, but fun, adding scratches can really twist up a pattern and give a weird vibe to things, but it can easily get out of hand. There’s also the “Tonalizer”, a short delay that can be tuned, it’s a simple effect, but one that is useful for converting drums or bass into harmonies. The spread control can be set to some basic chords, intervals, octaves, or even unison

Loopers: There are two loopers, each slightly different from the other. Both are very solid with timing and can go all the way up to 2 milliseconds for some really crazy buffer tones. They also have decay and swing, giving you some more percussive options. The first looper changes speed over time, with each repeat sounding different (should you set it too) where the second looper has a speed envelope that is repeated for each loop. Both are useful in different ways and fun to swap between.

Grain: This one is a granular effect, you get control over grain size, density, pitch, and some stereo/jitter options. The tempo control can be used to stretch the incoming audio, you can even push it into the negatives for a granular reverser. It’s no Graindad, but it gets the job done, capable of getting some airy time stretching and fizzy scratchy tonal effects. Applying simple motion to the grain size and density controls goes a long way, allowing for some more bizarre warping effects. You can change chord type per step, meaning it’s possible to create actual harmonies in key. 

Spectrum: I’m not quite sure how to describe this one, it’s a spectral delay, there’s several individual delays, each isolated to its own frequency band. You can set it up to 32 bands and longer delay times create a nice cascading effect. Diffusion applies a bit of randomness to the timing, and pan spreads out every other band to left and right channels. The fun comes in with the various frequency modes, which rearrange the band frequencies based on a few formulas. I believe this effect is similar to the one in Turnado, but I’m not certain. Spectrum is capable of adding some weird bizarre sounds to your Effectrix arrangement. It can create very watery rainy sounds and weird thwips, as well as more tonal atmospheres. It’s a bit of a strange addition, and somewhat of a challenge to tame, but I’m glad it is involved. 

MODULATION: As mentioned there is modulation per control, you can sequence out values per step and even use different shape types per step, again, per control. This gives quite dynamic articulation to control sequencing. Effectrix is not just about turning different effects on and off, you can also completely alter those controls per per step. The most basic shape is called “From To” which allows you to set a target value that will be travelled to by the end of the step, you can apply a curve to this, and even multiply it 4 times for a fast trill. “Step Sequencer” mode may seem redundant, but it really comes in handy if you have a short pattern you’d like to repeat and iterate on. The LFOs are a little sad in my opinion, they reset on new triggers, meaning they don’t quite behave like LFOs and are a bit too predictable. Random on the other hand gets the job done right, it’s a simple sample hold randomizer, and you can set it all the way down to randomizing straight values per trigger, up to 4 values per step. It has smoothing as well to get more organic motion. There’s a few more shapes, like envelopes, followers, and something called “Step Train” which creates a pattern of envelopes. 

It’s a different workflow to have patterns per control, normally I’m used to creating and mapping MSEGs as needed, and you could argue that is a little more powerful. But having quick access to every control per step leads you to some new creative decisions. As well, being able to change shape per step actually opens up some new possibilities, for example you can have a set pattern, but one single step is randomized, or switch between smooth randomness and envelope following every four steps. It’s a little detail, but these little details can lead to new ideas.

Over all, Effectrix 2 is more of a nice alternative to existing products rather than anything groundbreaking or new, even Sugar Byte’s own Looperator effect has many similarities. This is the type of plugin I really enjoy having presets for, and Sugar Bytes have included quite a few. Just clicking through presets alone can open your mind up to new ideas and completely transform what you are working on. I do wish more of the included presets made use of the midi swapping feature, which allows you to swap patterns via midi notes. These are a chore to set up manually and really open up some performance potential. If there was anything I’d wish for in this plugin, it would be per track sequencer lengths, I’d love to make some polymetric effects patterns and see all the transport markers pass by own another as they fall out of sync. You can use multiple instances of Effectrix for this though, as you can set the main sequencer length to any step count. I use Looperator all the time, so I’m not sure quite how often I’ll use this one, I’ve already made presets for it, so likely quite a lot. I love these tools for remixing loops and coming up with new sound design. I make very glitchy music and stuff like this is perfect to just throw basses or drums into, then pull and chop the results into nice fills or new pattern variations. One last detail I’d like to mention is how the rainbow in the logo reflects effect order, this is even paralleled in the credits page, where you can change themes or even create your own. It’s a small detail, but it really lets you change the vibe if you want to.

-If you are interested in comparing Effectrix to some other Multi Effect Sequencers, give my shootout a read: https://www.databroth.com/blog/infiltrator-2-vs-effectrix-2-vs-looperator

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EFFECTRIX 2: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/53-Multi-Effect-/11389-Effectrix-2?a_aid=61c378ab215d5