Triptych is my latest Max/MSP madness. Another in a line of plugins designed to stave off sterility, Triptych is an organic, triple pitch shift.

First, I split the incoming audio signal out into three discrete pitch shifters.

Each pitch shifting abstraction ranges +/- one octave. In addition to transposition, each shifter also has its own gain, pan, instability range and duration until next instability event. The instability values are randomly chosen within the specified range and change smoothly from one value to the next over the course of the chosen duration.

Mix the pitched signals to taste with original signal and endlessly samey-samey drumloops are set free to wobble as they wish. The effect can range from very subtle pitch blurring to drastic, wild swings. It sounds great on everything, and layered beneath the original audio changes a static mix into something more unpredictable. Automating the parameters in Live creates serious sonic chaos.

This demo clip has been treated with moderate, quick pitching. The original loop is a classic Roland CR78 preset I recorded direct from the machine.

Triptych CR78 Pitch Twizz (0:18, 44.1KHz, 128kbps, 292k).

I'm working on a slicker interface for Triptych next, then some standardized components to speed up the plug-in writing process. Parts like stereo submixers with channel soloing and mute functions are very similar in every plugin I've written over the past year, and can be abstracted easily.