MOTIONS: FRACTAL Review
Plugin Boutique has hooked me up with Excite Audio’s Motion Fractal. Excite Audio’s “Motion” line consists of various effects connected to a central 6 control XY macro system. Fractal is focussed around granular processing with a UI that somewhat reminds me of both EFX Fragments and Portal. I find the editor for the underlying engine a bit dry as it is mostly just rows of evenly sized controls. But the main macro UI and color scheme are quite lovely. I really enjoy the animation of these moving grid patterns such as in Portal and Codec.
Fractal consists of two parallel grain engines, a gate sequencer, a beat repeater, and a simple reverb. As far as granular plugins go, this one is on the simpler side, being closer to Autochroma and Glow rather than Portal or Fragments. That said, even these smaller granular effects can offer some neat features, so I’m happy to see the gate sequencer and beat repeater here.
The grain engines are pretty typical, nothing bad, nothing too innovative. All your standard controls providing a wide variety of granular textures. The density can go up to 199 hz and grain size can get down to 10 ms, also the beat repeater can get as fast as 50 ms. The reverb sounds quite pleasant and each effect can be routed freely.
What makes Motion Fractal particularly unique and interesting is the macro system that is shared across the “Motion” series. Six macro sliders wrap around the central orb animation. Doesn’t seem like much until you realize each macro responds to your mouse passing by, no need to click. You can set the behavior of this, with sliders being pulled or repelled by your cursor, You can set the mouse rand attraction behavior, strength, and even the release time. This creates some organic motion across multiple controls that has more depth and nuance than a typical XY controller.
Add to this the ability to draw and record paths instead of requiring physical mouse motion and you get a pretty unique and comprehensive modulation system. There’s plenty of tools to help draw the path, as well as an editor that allows you to trim the recorded motion to isolate the best expression. There’s even a timeline editor that lets you modulate the speed of your drawn or recorded motion. I actually think this motion section would make a solid midi expression plugin without the effects, sadly it can’t be used this way.
With these smaller granular effects, I think it really comes down to UI and the little added goodies. The beat repeat on Fractal is fun, and I think the motion system alone makes for a unique enough playable granular effect. Unfortunately not all of the presets use the macros, but luckily the preset browser can filter for ones that do. I should also say, I’m not super fond of the macro routing, dragging and dropping is easy, but the label as you drag is far too large and makes it difficult to see if you are actually dropping it in the right place. Otherwise, the UI is super cute and I think this would fit in very nicely when the vibe calls for it.
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FRACTAL: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/45-Granular-FX/14438-Motion-Fractal?a_aid=61c378ab215d5