HY-Plugins has announced the release of HY-Slicer, a loop slicer in VST and AU plugin formats for digital audio workstations on PC and Mac. The plugin is offered in HY-Slicer Free ($0, fully functional with fewer features) and HY-Slicer ($50) variants.
Let’s take a closer look at HY-Slicer Free first before moving on to the paid version. The audio slicer panel at the top of the user interface can be used to load any audio file in WAV, MP3, and AIFF formats. The audio file can be loaded either via drag-and-drop or using the built-in file browser. Once the file is loaded, it can be sliced into up to 32 sections, either automatically or using the auto-slice feature. The auto-slice feature simply divides the loaded audio file into equally long sections without beat detection. The slice start points can be manually adjusted by dragging if required.
See also: HY-Filter3 Is A FREE Filter VST/AU Plugin By HY-PluginsLocated below the slicer is the step sequencer which is used to trigger the slices in any order. Each step can correspond to a different slice, with adjustable volume and optional slice reverse. The sequence can be up to sixteen steps long and the plugin can store 24 different patterns. Apart from editing the steps manually, the user can generate a random sequence or manipulate the current sequence using various functions like step rotation, duplication, and more. Individual steps can be locked so that they aren’t affected by the sequence randomizer.
As for the full version of HY-Slicer ($50), it adds various cool features such as the groove editor, a rather impressive effects chain, step accent, a pattern chainer, step probability, and step shape, among others. The FX chain features a variety of effects like delay, reverb, compression, and EQ. The effects can be rearranged freely. The groove editor makes it possible to use customized shuffle patterns via MIDI import. After loading the MIDI pattern, the groove can be further adjusted manually.
Additional features include a freely resizable user interface, undo-redo functionality, a built-in preset manager, and a brickwall limiter on the output to prevent clipping. The free version of HY-Slicer can be downloaded directly from the product page linked below. The full version is priced at $50 although you can test the demo free of charge before purchasing.
HY-Slicer Free is available for free download via HY-Plugins (12.5 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/AU plugin formats for Windows & MacOS).
Last Updated on June 15, 2018 by Tomislav Zlatic.
