Hainbach Bundle

German composer and YouTuber Hainbach opened his treasure chest for us: we are happy to present to you Wires, an accurately modeled and enhanced 1970s Soviet wire recorder. Made originally for military and secret service use across the Iron Curtain, in the hands of a few avant garde musicians it became a magical lofi-tool and ghostly echo machine. Now this rare and rather finicky to operate piece of hardware is available for the first time as a faithful yet modern plugin. Transform your audio to the world of numbers stations and secret operations, dub out to very unusual echoes or make the most lofi beats to study too.

We took great care to get all the idiosyncratic behavior exactly right – it reacts dynamically to the input and does stuff to audio that is a completely different texture to magnetic tape. There is a special tone to the hair-thin wire and the vacuum tube output stage of this machine, unheard of anywhere else. The standard way to make a unit such as this music is to put it on an aux channel of a mixer, to turn it into a fixed tempo echo. We offer all the variable time features you want, as well as the option to switch off the rather high noise floor of this machine without sacrificing the rather alive sound.

Motor is a plugin effect that uses side-chaining to combine signals in new and interesting ways: put in any two signals and they will dance around each other like courting birds drunk on fermented cherries. Use it to gentle morph between sounds or rhythmically cut them up, affecting both volume and spatial position. Add life to the plainest signals with vibrato, or destroy them in interesting ways with extreme modulation speeds.

Gong Amp takes an exciting experimental amplifier from the beginnings of electronic music to the plugin world of today.

In 1932, Maurice Martenot was looking for a way to make his groundbreaking proto-synthesizer “Ondes” audible beyond what could be archived with the horns and loudspeakers of the time. He developed a set of “diffuseurs”, of which the “Métallique” was one. Instead of a paper cone or horn, Martenot put a gong behind the amplifier circuitry. This seemingly simple idea resulted in resonances and brilliant overtones that excite audiences to this day.

In 2011, the French company Eowave took inspiration from Martenot’s invention and made their own version, the Resonator Metallik. When we heard what our friend, Berlin composer Hainbach, did with this rare and discontinued amplifier, we knew this sound needed to be available to more than a select few. So we made Gong Amp, our third collaboration with Hainbach since Motors and Wires.

Using a complex mixture of convolution processing, physical modeling, and feedback systems, we created an instrument that is true to the responsiveness of the original and even transcends it in terms of sound design possibilities.

Noises is an experimental instrument with a playful and inspiring interface, designed to bring a vast world of noise into your music and audio production.

Noises is the fourth plugin we developed together with German composer and “that guy with the sweaters” Hainbach. He crafted hundreds of recordings of rare vintage measurement and tape equipment, analog synths, strange field recordings, electro-acoustic and magnetic field experiments, and more in his lab to create this creative noise instrument with us. It is designed to be fast and inspiring to use, with a big dial at its center inviting you to search for sounds and a sequencer to make them music. This results in a minimum of clicks for a maximum of sound.

Used subtly, it adds coherence to your tracks. Used creatively, this can be the basis for whole tracks. It is easy to create modern scores for film, games, and podcasts with it and a quick tool for sound design. If you need a break, put it on and relax to carefully curated noise sequences.

The treasured sound of 1950s electronics re-created

Dials is a detailed digital translation of a unique combination of 1950s electronic music hardware from composer and YouTuber Hainbach’s studio. It is made with the rich sound and experimental spirit of early electronic music studios in mind.

The basis of Dials is a re-purposed German vacuum tube radio broadcast device paired with a heavy-duty American bandpass filter. They form a channel strip like no other. The scientific and radio background of the equipment provides a tone that sets it apart, whether you are processing vocals, drums, or any other instrument. Due to the built-in compressor, it is perfectly suited to lend your voice-over the „larger than life“ feeling of great recordings of the past or make your drums sound like they could get past the door at Berghain. Speaking of which: if you are feeling adventurous, feed it impulses and hear it roar like Stockhausen at a Gabber party.

While its roots are in the past, this is a truly modern device with an unparalleled sound. It can be used to sweeten your music or to experiment – it can even become an instrument in your hands.

Lines is an effect plugin that crosses borders: it can be used as a creative mangler of all kinds of signals, ranging from lo-fi telephone sounds, lush phasing, warm distortions, crushing feedback, ring modulation, and unique frequency shifting. But even without any input, it can be an experimental synthesizer based on feedback, allowing for a wide range of inspiring rhythms, pulses, and organic soundscapes. If you combine input and internal engines an unheard spectrum of sounds appears.

Lines is the sixth plugin made with Hainbach, composer and YouTuber known for his test equipment explorations.

Lines is available for MAC, PC, and LINUX (VST, VST3, AU, AAX, CLAP, 64-bit only), and also as AUv3 and Standalone on the App Store.

Things – Voice is a simple one-knob “throw it on and it sounds good” compressor for voice-over and vocals. Based on our channel strip Dials it gives you everything you need to make your voice loud yet smooth. The compressor is an unusual and complex design from a German 1950 radio broadcast instrument. If you desire to get even closer to that unit’s vintage tone, add authentically modded tube gain with the saturation button. For an authoritative bass boost we have added a rather euphonic EQ that excites just the right frequencies. This is the seventh plugin in our ongoing collaboration with Berlin musician and video personality Hainbach.