If you’ve got a groove for ghoulish glitches or glitzy effects, you’ll probably fall instantly in love with Effectrix 2, an effects sequencer from Sugar Bytes. In simple terms, it applies a range of effects over a given time period. The layout mimics the arrangement view of a DAW, letting you sequence different effects anywhere along a bar measure or a time signature of your choosing. While you could accomplish a similar sound by spending hours messing with your DAW’s effects rack and automating each plugin, Effectrix is a one-stop shop that will accomplish the same thing in minutes.
The software includes two loopers, a grain delay, a ring modulator, vinyl distortion, filter sweep, delay, reverb, phaser, and several other effects. Each has a range of settings that can be adjusted to dial in the sound you’re looking for, and multiple effects can be stacked atop one another. Each effect also has its own independent wet/dry knob, so you can choose how much of the audio signal is affected, and of course, there’s a global wet/dry, too. If you’d rather leave things up to chance, there are a slew of randomization options to create unique parameters. Once you’re finished creating a sequence, you can save it as a preset to reuse later.
More than anything else, the experience of using Effectrix is just plain fun. Creating glitchy beds of fake synths out of a vocal sample, turning a guitar riff into a bouncy house lead, or making a bassline spin wildly out of control injects a satisfying sense of playfulness into any production session. Even better, it will have other producers asking you, “How did you do that?” Effectrix 2 costs $129 directly from Sugar Bytes at the time of writing.
