I’ve seen many plugins in my time, but Feedback-Killa Gorilla by Artists in DSP is something I’ve never seen before, which is quite the feat.
So, what does Feedback-Killa Gorilla do besides having a name that makes you chuckle? It turns feedback into a creative instrument with a few twists of some knobs. Check it out!
Some might object that feedback is musical, with a status established long ago by rockers, angsty shoegazers, drone heads, and bad sound engineers. That’s fair, but Feedback-Killa Gorilla wants to give you some more options to play with.
Tame the gorilla to make anything from wild roars to serene choral sounds or the FFT-based cousin of the Tibetan singing bowl.
First, you’ll have to create a feedback signal. The old-school method would be to capture the sound of a speaker with your microphone for that classic ear-piercing sound.
You could also configure your DAW to make feedback internally through loopback recording or by following the tips in the demo provided by Artists in DSP.
This doesn’t seem like a very popular production technique, so it’s refreshing to find a plugin that encourages this kind of experimentation.
The UI is straightforward with four parameters labeled “limiter,” “overdrive,” “gain” and “killa” to let you control the FFT-based frequency elimination that is tuned to get the most out of your feedback while ensuring that your speakers don’t immediately vaporize from the intensity.
“Killa” controls the threshold where feedback generation stops. It kills the louder overtones first. Varying the threshold creates different sonic characters, and could be a great tool to create pads and atmospheric sounds.
On the other hand, you could also use the threshold control to create unhinged roars of sound for experimental noise performances.
You can also fine-tune the signal with an FFT-based limiter, an overdrive that adds additional distortion to the signal, and a gain control to adjust the overall volume level.
Experimenting with different effects between the feedback and the Feedback-Killa for additional texture and movement is also encouraged.
This is certainly a plugin for the open-minded out there which could yield a lot of fun and cool sounds in the right hands.
Also, check out the recently featured Transpanner 2 by Artists in DSP. It’s free and gives you access to psychoacoustic panning, a very handy tool for mixing and sound design.
Feedback-Killa Gorilla works with macOS and Windows in AU and VST3, 64-bit. There have been some reports of troublesome installations with Windows, and the dev has a quick guide to circumvent this issue on the Gumroad page.
For the record, I’m a Windows user and didn’t get any issues with installation.
Download: Feedback-Killa Gorilla (FREE / Name-a-fair-price)
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Last Updated on April 15, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.
