LOOPERATOR Review

Sugar Byte’s Looperator is a sequenced multi effects unit with an incredibly simple user interface. On the surface it appears to be a clone of Dblue Glitch or Effectrix, but it’s worth considering that Effectrix is already a SugarBytes plugin, why would they even bother with Looperator? Well, this plugin is quite a bit deeper than it first seems. Rather than simply turning each effect on or off with a simple sequencer for controls, Looperator allows you to select from a set of presets per step, creating a more dynamic and intricate pattern of changes, you can do so much with just a single lane of Looperator. On top of that you can map different Looperator patches across your keyboard and a variety of randomizer options make it easy to just get lost with.

SLICE: Another important factor that separates Looperator from Effectrix and Glitch is the “slice” lane. This lane acts as a beat juggler, taking larger chunks of audio and rearranging them. For example, if you set any step to “1” that step will play whatever audio that remains in step 1’s buffer. Ofcourse you’ll want to keep values lower than the current step# as Looperator can’t predict the future, but you can set any step to random, where it randomly picks a lower value for the given step.

LOOP: The Loop lane is pretty straight forward and comes with some nice visualization to indicate what’s happening. It works like a stutter, but has quite a few variations to pick from. you can do a simple double stutter, and many faster repeats, but also pick some shapes with interesting patterns for unique grooves, or even some with reversing.
You’ll also find User settings here, where you can select from up to 4 different user defined settings where you can create your own patterns, panning, and even repitching.
Timing is incredibly accurate in Looperator, something that can sometimes be an issue in other glitch type effects.

ENV/FILTER: The Envelope and Filter pages have shapes for adding motion to your sequence. Lots of different gated shapes to pick from and filter sweeps. I think it’s worth mentioning here, but this applies to all other lanes, the chain icon actually stretches the effect across each step, rather than repeating it. This lets you play with timing, giving you the ability to do sweeps over longer period of time.
In the user page Evenlope gives you access to a bitcrusher. Filters user section gives you full control over the vowel filters, and even has a nifty comb filter that’s fun to play with

FX1/2: This is where the plugin really surprised me, FX1 and 2 have a variety of different preset effects you can load into each step, but I actually rarely use these.
Because the user pages allow you to select between 9 different effects, each with their own unique settings. I wont go into each one, but these include: delay, reverb, distortion, grain, tonalizer, phaser, vinyl, chaossynth, and ring modulation. 
The grain effect is far from replacing Graindad, but is fun and has a unique character closer to sounding like a time stretch. You get to pick a few window shapes and playback direction, and also can be used a s a pitch shifter. Applying modulation to amount, grain size, and distance provides a variety of textures and smearing.
Vinyl replicates those spin down effects, but also has an LFO for creating warble or scratches.
The Tonalizer and Chaossynth effects can even facilitate adding melodic content into your effect pattern

MODULATION: The modulation is somewhat hidden in Looperator, instead of having universal modulators you can map around, each control can be set into one of 3 modulation modes: envelope follower, randomizer, or a motion shape. My favorite are the shapes, they allow you to set the range of motion that the shape will travel. Usually you just need a simple ramp creating motion from one value to another, but some of the shapes come in handy as well. The envelope follower allows incoming audio to modulate the parameter, useful for autowahs, or dynamic distortions or just creating effects that interact with and react to the incoming signal. And finally the random mode randomizes the control per step between a minimum and maximum value. This can be set to change once per step, or up to 16 times per step, and can either jump or glide between values.

UI: Looperator’s UI is a big part of what makes it special as well, for one it just looks pretty, with vibrant simple colors and fun shapes. But actually interacting is a breeze, the system of clicking a step and selecting a patch for that step is intuitive already, but you also can drag any step across to draw it onto the others, as well, you can use the scroll wheel to rotate through the different patches , and right click to erase steps. All this Combines to make for a fun and interactive interface.

At first glance it looks like Looperator just lets you sequence out various static effects, then you discover the user tabs, and learn that each effect has 4 controls, it’s more, but still not much, it’s after you go one layer deeper, and find out each control can also have randomization or a variety of motions that it really becomes clear just how deep this plugin really is. What at looks like an ordinary binary grid reveals its self to be upwards of around 100 controls. With 4 user settings per effect you can really mix things up and get some crazy patterns going. I will say, I wish Looperator allowed for odd meters, as well as individual step lengths per lane, this would really allow for some generative patterns to be formed. But being able to trigger presets from a midi keyboard REALLY opens up a lot of possibilities I’ve yet to explore.

Looperator continues to be one of those plugins I grab for various purposes and can sometimes be a hail mary for inspiration. There’s several similar plugins out there, but hopefully this review can give you an idea about what makes Looperator unique

-If you are interested in comparing Looperator to some other Multi Effect Sequencers, give my shootout a read: https://www.databroth.com/blog/infiltrator-2-vs-effectrix-2-vs-looperator

If you plan on purchasing Looperator from Plugin Boutique, please consider supporting me by using my affiliate links
LOOPERATOR: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/53-Multi-Effect-/1324-Looperator?a_aid=61c378ab215d5

and if you already own Looperator or just want more presets, consider picking up my pack of 100 presets for Looperator “RECONFIGURATIONS”: https://databroth.gumroad.com/l/Reconfigurations