Audioblast - Instalooper

For our free plug-in this month, we want to point you in the direction of something a little different; Audioblast's Instalooper. It's different to the plug-ins that we normally discuss because it was created primarily as a live tool. That makes it really fun and intuitive to use, but doesn't mean that it can't be used more conventionally in the studio too; particularly for producers that like to lay things down on-the-fly, rather than meticulously automating their tracks.

The plug-in is a simple looper tool at heart. It allows you to capture a slice of audio from 1 bar to 1/32 beat in length and loop it. In itself this is not that remarkable, but Instalooper comes with various on-board FX as well as the ability to alter the speed of the loop or reverse it in real time; it is these features that turn it into a plug-in that is worth investigating.

The speed control works like a tape machine, as you increase the speed, you also increase the pitch and vice versa. The available effects are; a hi-pass filter, a phaser, 'autopan' - which pans your audio according to your loop size and 'time expand' - which slows the loop without changing its pitch, in the style of a vintage sampler.

Instalooper is available from the Audioblast website for Mac, Windows and Linux OS. It is available as a VST and an AU plug-in in 32 and 64 bit versions.