Sugar Bytes

For some years now we’ve had access to
glitch plug-ins that o er more sonic madness
within ten seconds of iring them up than could
be achieved with ten hours of manual tweaking.
Unlike other established e ects, though, there
are no particular expectations of how any given
glitch plug-in ought to work.
Turnado is Sugar Bytes’ latest take on the
concept: it’s a VST/AU plug-in and standalone
app centred on eight one-knob e ects chosen
from a palette of 24. When a knob is turned right
down, the e ect is o ; turning it up engages and
then increases its e ect. You can also access an
editing screen to determine which parameters a
knob controls, and by how much. There are even
response curves, so increasing the knob doesn’t
necessarily result in a linear increase of the
parameters it controls. You’ll also ind two LFOs
and an envelope-follower.
A feature dubbed Dictator allows control of
all eight knobs at once. It features an editing
panel where you can precisely determine the
setting of each knob at any point of the Dictator
slider’s travel, and is lexible yet intuitive.
Each e ect o ers a good number of presets,
and there are global and Dictator presets too.
One of our favourite features is the randomise
function for creating brand-new global presets
at the touch of a button. It’s hard to overstate
how awesome this is – we didn’t get a single
randomised preset we didn’t like.
Running as a standalone app, Turnado is ideal
for using as part of a DJing or other live setup,
and is completely rock solid. As an insert e ect,
it serves up huge doses of powerful glitchy
edits. Get hands-on with MIDI control in your
DAW and you reach a sort of middle ground,
allowing real-time but easily editable mayhem.
As great as the plug-in is, the manual feels a
little thin. There aren’t nearly enough practical
tips and walkthroughs for using Turnado in real-
world projects. This is a deceptively versatile
and powerful plug-in, and it rewards experience
and a subtle touch. Without practical advice, we
fear too many users will either get frustrated or
fail to scratch the surface.
Blink and you’ll miss it
On a related note, even an experienced user can
spend too long trying to recreate or capture a
particularly cool-sounding e ect and still not
always succeed. We think Turnado needs some
way to store its audio output – say for ten or 20
seconds – so that at any point you could just hit
stop on your sequencer and export the contents
of the bu er as a wave ile. As it is, you lose too
much of that leeting good stu . It’s infuriating!
Turnado probably isn’t for everybody. It’s
great for adding glitchy interest to individual
parts or full mixes; and as a live e ects processor,
its ratio of power to simplicity is arguably
unrivalled. But the e ects are often extreme,
Sugar Bytes
Turnado €139
Glitch efects come in all shapes and sizes – this new one
from Germany is blessed with eight mighty knobs
Verdict
For Incredible efects, and lots of ’em
Terriic fun with MIDI control
Some unique sounds
Lots of presets
Randomise function
Against Incomplete manual
Tricky to recreate speciic efects
Guitar amp is mono-only
Turnado is fun, immediate and inspires
creativity. For wild efects on tap, there’s
little to touch it
9/10
Alternatively
dblue Glitch
N/A » N/A » £Free
One of the earliest and best glitch
plug-ins, but Windows-only
Sugar Bytes Efectrix
126 » 8/10 » €99
This efects sequencer is a better
bet for predictable results
We could devote ten pages to the efects on
ofer in Turnado, but some deserve special
mention. We love Reactor, which is a looper
that’s triggered by transients, and the Slice
Looper always seems to give fantastically
musical and funky results. Other gems
run the gamut from vocoding and pitched
looping to frozen reverb and formant
iltering. They’re amazingly consistent,
hugely varied and include a few genuinely
new efects. There are plenty of clever little
touches, too, like the ability to have the
efects routed either in numeric order or the
order in which you engage them. Crafty!
There are some slightly controversial
decisions to be found, however, like making
the guitar amp efect realistically mono.
It can sound cool in conjunction with fast
modulation or Dictator setups for mono-to-
stereo swapping, but a stereo option would
have been nice, as any subsequent efects
will be fed the mono signal too.
Deeply effected
ON THE DVD
Hear Turnado getting
wild, then read the
manual and try the demo
so if that’s not your bag, then £120 is a big
investment for something you’ll no doubt enjoy
but might rarely use.
That said, the e ects are truly top notch, so
you could even ignore the performance aspect
and use Turnado as a conventional processor –
even pedal-loving guitarists would get a lot out
of it. Throw in those performance features and
this really is a stunning plug-in. If you’d like to
treat yourself, then we recommend spending an
idle afternoon playing with the demo. Just don’t
expect to get much else done that day.
Web www.sugar-bytes.com
Contact [e-mail]
92 / COMPUTER MUSIC / October 2011
> reviews / sugar bytes turnado
CMU169.rev_turnado.indd 92 8/4/11 4:44:00 PM