RIPPLES Music has released Pulse, a free rhythmic volume shaper plugin for macOS and Windows.
Pulse combines sidechain-style pumping, rhythmic gating, and LFO volume shaping in a simple interface with an editable curve. This type of plugin was first made by Cableguys around a decade ago with their legendary FilterShaper.
There have been quite a few more takes on this kind of tool since then, especially in recent years. A couple of months ago, we featured Orra Pump, and Pulse follows a similar concept but without the filter.
With this one, you start with one of five shapes. Pump creates the familiar sidechain ducking, Soft provides gentler movement, Tri works for tremolo-style modulation, Saw is the classic saw wave, and Gate gives harder on/off rhythmic chopping.
The Flip button turns any shape upside down, and you can drag the curve nodes to place the dip or rise where you want it. Depth controls how far the level moves, Curve adjusts the return shape, and Smooth rounds off sharper corners. Mix is useful for parallel processing because it blends the effect with the dry signal, and Out controls the final level.
Sync mode locks the curve to the host tempo. You can choose between nine rates covering 1/16 notes through dotted divisions and patterns up to four bars long.
The fun one for me, though, is the Trig mode, which launches the shape from detected transients instead. It can be triggered from a sidechain, while the Sens control determines how strong a hit must be to fire the envelope.
And if you want something similar without filtering, we recently featured Okay Shaper. Okay Shaper offers deeper three-band control and completely editable curves, while Pulse is the quicker option when you want familiar pumping or gating shapes without much setup.
Unfortunately, there is some download friction here. Pulse requires a free RIPPLES account and installs via the RIPPLES Tap desktop manager.
Once installed, Pulse appears on Tap’s free plugin shelf and doesn’t require a license key. The installed plugin works offline.
RIPPLES Tap v0.7.2 is a 192 MB macOS download and an 81 MB Windows download. The Windows installer is not currently code-signed, so Microsoft Defender SmartScreen may display an Unknown Publisher warning.
Pulse is available in VST3 and AU formats.
Download: RIPPLES Pulse (FREE)
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