AUTOCHROMA Review
Autochroma is the first effect plugin by a new developer Imagiro. Autochroma is a competent multi lane granular effect with modulation and interesting rolling sampler built in. This simple pastel UI is quite cute and pleasant to look at, I really enjoy interfaces that explore various color schemes and styles, and this one just fits together nicely. Each of the three granular layers run parallel to each other, so you can stack various grain settings and effects side by side in interesting ways not always possible on other grain effects. This is actually something I’ve been wanting lately, as most granular effects just give you one instance of the plugin at a time. Often times in grain effects there’s several interesting settings that all create pleasing textures and atmospheres, but you can usually only move from one state to another. In Autochroma you get to layer these various settings, and mix them as you please, giving each layer its own unique granular settings.
The grain engine takes a bit of getting used to, you don’t get the typical random spread controls and theres a few limitations compared to more advanced granular effects, but you still get quite a lot to work with. Grain rate goes down to 1 millisecond with 0.01 ms resolution and up to 200 grains per layer. The window shape is controlled by an XY position allowing you to morph between smooth windows, square, plucks and ramps. The filter and spread also use this XY system, with the filter allowing for control over both high pass and low pass at the same time. There are tempo sync options and grid snapping as well making it capable of doing rhythmic content. I really enjoy setting different layers to capture different times of the audio buffer especially when they have completely different textures. It’s also fun to modulate the gain of each layer, so you blend between different granular settings.
Speaking of modulation, Autochroma has four modulation slots that can be freely mapped to any control. Several different modes are offered, from a sine wave LFO, to stepped/smooth random, macros, envelope follower and even this interesting “pulse” modulator. The pulse modulator is a brief sine pulse, that seems to have a bit of randomness involved. The envelope follower is interesting because it can follow not only the input signal, but any of the layer outputs, this gives you the ability to have different layers interacting with one another in some interesting ways. I do wish there were a few more LFO shapes. I tend never to use sine modulation, and often prefer triangles, there’s also several applications for saw/ramp and square modulation that just aren’t possible here. I feel like modulation is what really makes these plugins special, I’d likely still take an interest to Autochroma simply for the layering, but modulation opens up a lot of motion and sonic evolution to these types of effects
One last feature I’d like to mention is the rolling sampler, in the bottom right hand corner there is a window that displays Autochroma’s output buffer. You can drag this buffer out into your daw, and it renders it as a sample you can now work with. This is such a pleasant feature to see, granular effects are so chaotic and unpredictable, having the ability to just capture a moment built in is incredible. There is a plugin that does just this, but it’s so nice to see it built in. Where Autochroma really steps things up though, is by letting you drag this buffer straight back into the plugin. This freezes the window and loops the rendered audio back into the grain effects. You can do this over stacking grain instances on top of each other until things become a wash of sound. It’s quite an interesting take on one of my favorite type of effects. I can’t wait to see Imagiro create more devices in the future.