Zerone
Audio Particle Splitter
Part of Studies
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The original plugin with its own interface, as a one-time purchase.
Description
Zerone is an audio particle splitter that uses granular processes to dissect sound. It has two granular voices that can compress or stretch time and loop over short segments of your audio.
At one end of its range, Zerone is a repeat, time-stretch and stutter effect. At the other it creates space, with huge washes of evolving, cascading ambience. Use both sides together and it becomes a sound design tool for finding new sounds hidden inside your audio.
Zerone sums your input to mono and keeps recording it into a buffer a little under three seconds long. Two particle voices loop through the buffer from its start as a stream of 100 ms grains, 20 a second, and each voice has its own echo, reverb and place in the stereo field. The two voices are summed, and BLEND mixes them with your dry sound.
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Particle 1
- SIZE 1
- Sets how much of the buffer voice 1 loops through, counted from its start, from 10 ms to 2 seconds. Short settings stutter, and long settings repeat whole phrases.
- POS 1
- Lengthens voice 1's loop by up to 2 more seconds on top of SIZE 1. The loop always starts at the beginning of the buffer, so POS 1 and SIZE 1 together set how long it is.
- TIME 1
- Sets how fast voice 1 moves through its loop, from four times normal speed backward to four times forward, while the pitch stays the same. The center freezes it in place. Normal forward speed sits at about five eighths of the knob. Slower settings stretch time, and faster ones compress it.
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Echo & pan 1
- PAN 1
- Places voice 1 in the stereo field, from left to right. It starts out on the left and voice 2 on the right.
- ECHO 1
- Adds a single 100 ms echo to voice 1 and fades it into a large reverb at the same time. Low settings keep the particles dry, and high settings turn them into an ambient wash.
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Particle 2
- SIZE 2
- Sets how much of the buffer voice 2 loops through, from 10 ms to 2 seconds, just as SIZE 1 does for voice 1.
- POS 2
- Lengthens voice 2's loop by up to 2 more seconds on top of SIZE 2.
- TIME 2
- Sets how fast voice 2 moves through its loop, from four times backward to four times forward, and freezes it at the center.
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Echo & pan 2
- PAN 2
- Places voice 2 in the stereo field, from left to right.
- ECHO 2
- Adds a single 100 ms echo to voice 2 and fades it into a large reverb.
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Master
- BLEND
- Sets the mix between your dry input and the two particle voices.
- GAIN
- Sets the output level, from silent up to double. Noon is unity.
Try thisKeep the two voices panned apart and run one TIME slightly forward and the other slightly backward. The particles drift against each other across a wide stereo image, and a little ECHO on both turns it into a slow, shifting wash.
In Studies
Zerone is in Studies Effects, under Glitch, Granular and Modifier.
Standalone
The standalone plugin, shown further down the page, works the same way and calls its output knob OUTPUT. In Studies we renamed it GAIN.
Bundle
The standalone plugin is also part of the Granular Suite.
- Formats
- Studies: Audio Units, VST2 and VST3 on Mac, VST3 on Windows · Apple silicon native
- Systems
- Current macOS and Windows 10/11 x64
Standalone version
The original plugin with its own interface, as a one-time purchase.
AU · VST2 · VST3 · macOS · Windows