“Dark formant” vocals are everywhere in modern rap, drill, horror-trap and alternative pop — that heavy, oversized, slightly inhuman voice that sounds bigger and more menacing than the original take. The secret isn’t pitch alone. It’s the formant. This guide explains what formants are, why lowering them creates that dark character, and gives you exact…
You recorded a take, the performance is great — but a couple of notes are wrong, or you want a completely different melody. Instead of re-recording, you can rewrite the notes of a sung vocal by playing new ones on your keyboard and letting PITCH FIEND force the voice to follow. This guide shows how,…
Soundtoys’ Little AlterBoy earned its place on a lot of vocal chains — it made pitch and formant shifting simple, and its “robot” mode became a signature sound on countless records. But it isn’t the only tool for the job, and if you’re shopping for a Little AlterBoy alternative — a different feature set, a…
Formant pitch plugins are the tools that transform a voice rather than just tune it — pitch shifting, formant shifting, robot/hard-tune modes and everything from subtle gender bends to full demon ad-libs. Here are five worth knowing in 2026, what each does best, and who they’re for. (Quick note: prices, versions and features change —…
Devproaudio has released version 1.0.0 of Reverside, a reverb for macOS and Windows in VST3, CLAP, and AudioUnit v2 formats. Here’s what they say: At its core, Reverside is a versatile dual-engine fully algorithmic reverb. It gives separate control over the early reflections and the reverb tail, allowing users to shape the sense of space,…
The Asylum has announced the release of The Asylum Analogue, a dual-path tape and cassette emulation plugin that models the complete analogue journey of 1980s music production, from a studio mastering machine through generational cassette duplication to playback on everything from foam headphones to a car stereo. Built on a full magnetic hysteresis model rather…
Remi Blaze has released Gaugex, a free loudness and metering plugin for macOS (AU / VST3, Apple Silicon native) — part of a growing collection of free tools built by a house and tech-house producer and DJ with a catalogue of 170+ original tracks across 35+ labels. Mastering to a streaming or club target shouldn’t…
ABYZOR has released Genesis v1.7, a major free update for its free MIDI Generator plugin. This version introduces a new Pattern History workflow, improved harmonic generation with a new Harmonic Timeline, smarter rhythm generation and a significantly enhanced audio preview engine. Genesis generates melodies, basslines, chord progressions and arpeggios for Techno, House, Trance, Psytrance, Drum…