Review: STREAKULATOR Max4live Effect by Audiomodern

Streakulator  is a midi-modulated audio effect for Max4live which produces a host of effects in Ableton Live, turning a simple signal into a complex filtered and modulated sound, quite easily and quickly.

Streakulator is developed by AudioModern in collaboration with Ernesto Cecco D’Ortona (StrangeLines), sound designer artist, developer and Max/MSP guru from Italy.

Comprised of an amp envelope, four filters with filter modulation section, a gate for both left and right signals and the Streakulator effects section which has vibrato, flanger, chorus, wchorus and doubling, this Max for Live plugin is pretty packed in its features and can do strange things to your signal without much effort.

So, with all of these features packed into one Max4Live device, what can you do with it?

Well a few of its main features are sidechaining, waveshaping, filtering, synced gating and all of these are triggered via MIDI, which allows you to keep any kind of source in the time you want it to be even if it’s off tempo. Mainly this device would be used in sound design, just because it’s so easy to create some a wide range of cool sounds.

Streakulator can be placed on any kind of signal you want as a simple operator patch or an audio drum loop. If you  want to mangle up beyond recognition or you to create a robotic voice out of a vocal, it is really up to you.

Once you have a nice effect to your signal you can store it in the preset slot section where you can store up to eight of your “creations” and then modulate between them by drawing-in some automation to create some real audio weirdness. For example you could make eight kinds of wobbles and growls and modulate between them making an insta-dubteppy kind of sound. All other parameters are automatable as well, so you can go as crazy as you like.

Seeing as it is not easy to think a new way of processing audio these days with different FX units coming out almost every month, Streakulator has done it quite nicely.

In conclusion, Streakulator is a nice Max4Live device that can spice up any signal you push through it and is quite easy to work with. It produces a host of effects with little effort and could speed up your workflow by quite a bit, which is a win in many situations.

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Pros:

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• Easy to work with.
• Use with Max4Live.
• At 39 euros, is not too expensive for the wealth of effects you can make.

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Cons:

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• Needs more presets
• More of a feature request but being able to make your own points in the amp envelope would be great and maybe being able to see the waveform in the background of the amp envelope.
• The developer has listened to our opinion and introduced all the above features in the new update.

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Streakulator is available via AudioModern at an introductory price of €29 (€39 regular).

We also recommend you to read another great article about Streakulator, written by our friend Andrey Romanenko (Ableton.in.UA): Streakulator – Revealing Tweak Magic