Flintpope has introduced Wavcloud, a free (pay what you want) granular re-synthesizer for Native Instruments Reaktor.
Wavcloud is the latest release in a recent series of outstanding NI Reaktor ensembles crafted by Nick Dwyer aka Flintpope. Following the introduction of Dropsynth which was announced one week ago, Wavcloud brings a somewhat different take on sample playback.
The instrument features dual grain re-synthesis sample playback engines, along with a filter section, a volume envelope, and an LFO module. Also included is an array of effects like tape hiss, vinyl crackle, reverb, pitch shifter, limiter, and a sub-bass generator. A set of 127 samples and 36 factory patches is included to help you get started with the instrument. The controls are well laid-out and easy to understand. The results are very interesting, to say the least, and you should certainly consider Wavcloud as an option for generating weird sound effects, glitchy melodies, and background textures. It is loads of fun to use and capable of producing some rather unusual sounding SFX.
The only improvement I’d like to see in a future version of Wavcloud would be the option to quickly load external samples in WAV format (although the lack of this feature in the current version is probably a limitation of NI Reaktor as a platform). At the moment, the user is required to double-click the waveform display and then manually replace one of the samples that are mapped across the keyboard. It’s not too hard to pull off, but definitely a bit fiddly.
You can grab Wavcloud as a “pay what you want” download from the product page linked below. There is no minimum payment requirement, meaning that you can download the instrument completely free of charge by entering “0” as the amount (valid email address required). You can enter any other amount if you’d like to support Flintpope’s sound design endeavors.
Wavcloud is available for free download via Gumroad (373 MB download size, ZIP archive, contains 1 virtual instrument in ENS format for NI Reaktor).
