Introducing Alter Echo and Holder: Two Powerful New Devices for Creative Sound Design

Searching for new sounds can lead you down a rabbit hole of effects chains and complex routing. It’s all too easy to throw on more and more processing tools when you’re looking for something. A more efficient method is to use plug-ins which combine the best elements of different effects and bring them into a single powerful unit. Then you can focus more on the sound itself, rather than endlessly tweaking huge rows of effects.

Alter Echo

Two new Max for Live plug-ins from K-Devices do exactly that. First up Alter Echo, a delay module that allows you to sculpt echoes into evolving, rhythmic patterns via a pair of step-sequencers. These transport-synced step-sequencers push you to think outside the box; labelled “What” and “When”, they control how much audio is sent to the unit and when the delay is heard, so it’s easy to set up criss-crossing rhythmic patterns. Plus there are multiple options for ramp slopes and shapes for adding supple corners and dynamics to your delay. The “Texturize” section takes things a step further, providing a second delay which can run forwards or backwards in relation to your original echo signal. Completed by an onboard filter and a handy side-chain compressor, Alter Echo can quickly and intuitively get your sounds ducking and weaving around the stereo field.

Holder

Holder is a device which grabs slivers of an audio signal and turns them into something completely different. Its mysteriously intriguing set of controls rewards free-wheeling experimentation. The user interface is dominated by a spectrograph which allows you to isolate and freeze specific shreds of the input signal. You can freeze audio manually or allow Holder to sync to Live’s tempo and grab slices at your desired rate. A particularly wild section is the “dronizer” panel, featuring “void”, “swarm” and “blur” settings, which can send you off into strange audio landscapes. Drum hits morph into endless, surreal pads; icy grains wash out to the edge of hearing. Holder also works great in tandem with Alter Echo. Place them together on a return track and listen as your depth perception is rewired - it’s like the stereo field becomes a Rubik's Cube of shifting planes.

Dive deeper into Alter Echo and Holder on the Packs page.