K-Devices Shaper 2: Modular multi FX plug-in destroys your audio

Expired

09 Apr 2021 by Lasse Eilers | Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes

K-Devices Shaper 2 · Source: K-Devices

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K-Devices has released the Shaper 2 multi effects plug-in. Designed as an audio ‘destroyer’, as the developer puts it, Shaper 2 attacks your audio tracks with waveshaper, glitch gate, transform and resonator modules, which you may rearrange in a modular fashion. Looks like a great way to turn an audio signal into something completely different.

K-Devices Shaper 2

At the heart of the K-Devices Shaper 2 plug-in is a waveshaper module with five modes of operation: Muffin, Multistress, Cracker, S&M and Bits&Samps. Muffin and Cracker are ‘digital warming functions‘, while Multistress delivers FM-like results. S&M uses amplitude modulation to create metallic effects and Bits&Samps is a standard bit reducer.

The Transform module offers four more ways to turn your audio into a digital pile of rubble: Clip, Wrap, Fold and sFold. The Glitch Gate lets you add unpredictable glitches for a bit of randomness. Finally, there’s a Resonator module based on a short delay, which you can use to add tonal resonances to any signal or produce a comb filter effect.

Thanks to the modular structure of the plug-in, you can freely rearrange the waveshaper, transform, glitch gate and resonator modules. This increases the sonic possibilities quite dramatically.

The latest version of Shaper adds a high pass/low pass filter before the output, for final adjustments to the processed sound. It would be even better if you could stick the filter anywhere in the plug-in’s signal path, but it’s a welcome addition nonetheless.

I do like the minimalistic GUI of the plug-in, which avoids text almost completely. It invites you to just play with the controls without overthinking what you’re doing. Instead of presenting each module as a separate entity, the GUI looks more like a mysterious machine that makes you wonder what will happen if you turn any knob. But it doesn’t leave you in the dark completely: The various shaping functions are represented graphically, and there are lines that indicate each module’s position in the processing chain.