INFILTRATOR Review
Devious Machines have kindly sent me their multi effects sequencer, Infiltrator. I don’t often pick favorites, but if I had to pick one, it would likely be Infiltrator. Infiltrator is a 10 part multi effect unit with internal modulation, dozens of effects to choose from including a variety of spectral effects, and a sequencer for activating and bypassing effects easily. The list of features alone aren’t what make infiltrator so special, it’s important to not look at these tools as simple boxes of parts, but instead as cohesive systems with workflow in addition to features. The real magic of Infiltrator is just how fast and easy it is to work with and get fun results. There’s never too much information on screen at once, and there is basically no menu diving. Each effect has a main control that by default is mapped to an MSEG modulator and the effects sequencer is easy and intuitive to use. On top of this there is strong visual language, the right balance of sections, control size, color coordination, and communication via contrast make the interface incredibly intuitive.
I love to use Infiltrator for various rhythmic effects, anything that needs motion, and extreme glitching or warping of the incoming audio. If you are used to static effects, or perhaps you’ve only used a bit of automation on effects, you owe it to yourself to try modulated effects like these. Being able to draw a curve or pattern, and have it control a parameter that would otherwise be static can be a great way to add new life and detail into your mix. I’ve even used infiltrator as essentially a synth, by either sending white noise, a sine or saw wave, or even external feedback into Infiltrator, you can use the set of included effects to treat it as a monophonic synthesizer. This can be a great way to generate new patterns or beats, but I often times over do it a bit, making crazy glitched insanity that barely resembles the original source material.
MODULATION
The modulation system in Infiltrator is fairly simple, each effect gets one main MSEG that is tied to the main control, this is alway up front and center ready for editing. The MSEG editor is easy to use and functions in a very predictable manner. They give you some special tools here, such as different ways to draw shapes, a randomizer, and the ability to double or repeat the envelope shape for more detail. By default this is tempo synced, which I really appreciate, it’s clearly designed with the intent of creating groove based effects in mind. Instead of an MSEG you can also use the input audio as an envelope follower modulation source. You can adjust the follower curve and filter the input audio so it only targets one region. I have yet to really play around with these features much, but I’m glad the option is there for when I do.
In the 2.0 update of Infiltrator they added a whole extra modulation source
In the 2.0 update they’ve added a second modulation source, this is deactivated by default, but can be routed to any of the effect’s controls, and either an envelope follower or MSEG. This gives you an extra level of motion and control that can be applied to the effects, and opens up many possibilities that were previously not supported, such as filter resonance, delay feedback, or reverb mix. It is possible to randomize the MSEG start point, but unfortunately this is only pure random, it’d be nice if it randomly picked MSEG points to start from, or beat divisions.
I really enjoy the effect sequence page, it contains a step sequencer grid of up to 32 steps and can be as fast or slow as you want. Drawing in steps is incredibly easy, you can just click and drag. They’ve included tools to shift the sequence forward or backwards, duplicate regions, randomize steps, or clear/fill entire rows. You can set the sequence length to odd meters, but unfortunately you get one length for all patterns. I would have really enjoyed seeing an ability to do different meters per effect.
EFFECTS
I can’t possibly describe and go through every single effect, but I will discuss some of my favorites. The effects include a wide range of filters, including notch, formant, phaser, comb, and EQs, a solid variety of distortions, FM, RM, frequency shifting, pitch shifting, reverb, various granular effects, and a solid collection of spectral effects. The granular effects are pretty basic, there’s some really good buffer looping, and simple time stretching, there’s even vinyl/tape style slowdown or half speed effects which are incredibly fun to use with the MSEGs. The distortion modes offer a variety of options for different tones/textures, and the compressor even offers “OTT” style multiband compressing.
The spectral effects are what elevate Infiltrator to another level, I think they could get away with releasing just these spectral effects as their own plugin. These spectral effects range from rather subtle to intense sonic alteration. you can choose a window size between 256 and 8192, but these will cause different amounts of latency and really alter how the effect sounds. I can’t quite describe what each effect does, but many of them are self evident via their name, while others are a bit more obscure. A few of them move bins around, creating entirely new shifted tones. There’s a couple that smear out bins over time, there’s even a spectral compressor and a bandpass filter. Some of my favorites are the lofi and corrupt effects which produce really interesting glitchy sounds, and another favorite “cascade” which delays bins over time, creating a rising or falling tone out of the input. Cascade could probably be its own effect it is so useful.
On the master you get one extra distortion and compressor, but these don’t have any modulation, they are simply there for that finishing touch. Being able to combine, modulate, and sequence these effects in a variety of ways really opens a lot of doors with sound design, especially when you consider the inclusion of spectral and granular effects, and some of the more unique and obscure options. Rearranging and demoing different effects is incredibly easy, you can swap stuff around, switch out one effect for another, bypass effects all with ease. Best of all, modulation stays consistent, in many other plugins, swapping an effect would remove the modulation completely, this makes playing around and trying things out completely free form and engaging.
I don’t think Infiltrator is the most powerful multi effects unit in terms of what it is capable of, but I do think it offers the best workflow for beat production and experimentation. Everything is transport locked so you never have to worry about ideas falling out of phase or being lined up with the wrong point in time.being able to draw in patterns, then swap between different effects with a sequencer and do this all without having to constantly check the “keep in time” box whenever you add something new just makes things so much easier. Presets also load incredibly fast, meaning if you have a good bank, you can quickly swap between ideas to find the best fit. In fact, you can swap presets so fast, they’ve even added a program change option, which you can use to trigger different presets via midi. It’s a bit cumbersome to work with, but scaling Infiltrator up, and sequencing instances of Infiltrator is beyond impressive. I can’t wait to see what they add next, and I hope they take this concept and build a synthesizer in the future.
-If you are interested in comparing Infiltrator to some other Multi Effect Sequencers, give my shootout a read: https://www.databroth.com/blog/infiltrator-2-vs-effectrix-2-vs-looperator
If you plan on purchasing Infiltrator from Plugin Boutique, please consider supporting me by using my affiliate links
INFILTRATOR: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/53-Multi-Effect-/7627-Infiltrator-2?a_aid=61c378ab215d5
and if you already own Infiltrator or just want more presets, consider picking up my pack of 100 presets for Infiltrator “INCOHERENCE”: https://databroth.gumroad.com/l/erbzp