Kieran Foster, the developer known as illformed, dblue, and MaDHaTTeR, has passed away. He was 47.
I never knew Kieran personally, but his work was a significant part of my music production journey. When I first started making music on a computer, around 2008, the original dblue Glitch was one of the first plugins I used.
I was working in MuLab back then, still figuring everything out, and Glitch was one of the free plugins that made computer music feel so exciting. It was chaotic and fun, and it opened doors I did not even know existed yet.
I used it in basically all of my early projects. It could completely change a drum loop, a vocal chop, a synth line, or anything else you threw at it, and it made experimenting feel natural.
So this is one of those moments where you realize that someone you never met still left a mark on your life. I cannot speak about who Kieran was personally, beyond what is written in the memorial on the illformed website. But I can say that his work mattered to me, and I know it mattered to many other producers who grew up with freeware VSTs and early computer music forums.
His tools gave a lot of us a way to make music differently. I am very sorry to see such a developer go, especially so young. Kieran shared fantastic tools with the music community over the years, and that work will be remembered.
My condolences to his family, friends, and everyone who knew him.
In his memory, Glitch² is now available as a free download from the illformed website.
Glitch² is the later version of the classic illformed/dblue glitch effect. It is an audio effect plugin designed for slicing, retriggering, reversing, stretching, gating, and generally reshaping audio in tempo-synced ways.
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Last Updated on August 1, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
