In the world of digital audio and music production, there’s always room for unique, organic textures that can add depth and character to any track. Amidst the variety of synthesizers and samplers, percussion instruments, especially simple ones like woodblocks, hold a special place, offering a clean, resonant tone that’s perfect for creating rhythmic patterns, accents, or adding unexpected sound elements.
This is where a plugin comes in that can revitalize your percussive palette. It’s a tool that takes a classic, simple sound and embodies it in a convenient digital format, preserving its natural acoustics while adding the flexibility of a digital environment. Such a plugin becomes an invaluable assistant for both electronic producers seeking new textures and composers aiming to add live percussion to their works, whether it’s folk, ambient, or even experimental music.
About the Clog Boxes plugin from Alan ViSTa
Clog Boxes is exactly such a tool: a sampled set of woodblocks created by developer Alan ViSTa. This plugin offers a simple yet effective way to integrate authentic woodblock sounds into your music projects. It’s based on high-quality recordings that have been carefully digitized to preserve the natural timbre and dynamics of the original instruments.
Unlike software synthesizers that emulate sounds, Clog Boxes uses real samples, which gives it naturalness and organic quality. This makes it an ideal choice for creating rhythmic underlays, adding unique percussive accents, or even as the main rhythmic element in minimalist compositions. Its simple interface allows you to quickly find the right sound and integrate it into your workflow without unnecessary complexity.
Features and functions
The Clog Boxes plugin is designed with a focus on convenience and authenticity. Its key features make it a flexible tool for various musical tasks:
- Set of woodblocks: The plugin contains samples of 5 woodblocks of different heights, allowing you to create melodic or polyrhythmic patterns.
- Two Velocity Layers: The presence of two velocity layers provides dynamic expressiveness, allowing sounds to react to the force of a key press, making the performance more realistic.
- High-quality samples: The plugin is based on 10 mono samples in 24-bit format from the public library of Electronic Music Studios at the University of Iowa. These samples are known for their quality and authenticity.
- Stereo samples for spatial reverberation: Based on mono samples, an additional set of stereo samples has been created that simulate room ambience, adding depth and volume to the sound.
- Panning and volume control: Each instrument has independent pan and volume controls, allowing you to accurately position sounds in the stereo field and adjust their balance.
- Amplitude dynamic range control: The amplitude dynamic range control function allows you to further shape the sound character, making it more even or, conversely, emphasizing dynamic changes.
- Master volume: A general volume control for the entire plugin provides easy adjustment of the overall output level.
Who is this plugin for?
Clog Boxes will be a great addition for:
- Music producers working in genres such as ambient, folk, electronic, indie, or anywhere organic percussive sounds are needed.
- Composers for film, television, or games who are looking for unique sound textures and effects.
- Sound engineers and sound designers.
- Musicians who are experimenting with sound and rhythm.
Thanks to its simplicity and sound quality, Clog Boxes is an affordable and powerful tool for expanding your percussive palette, adding the authentic sound of woodblocks to your creative projects. It’s not just another sampler, but a focused tool that masterfully reproduces a specific, yet extremely useful in production, sound.
The plugin is compatible with VST and AU formats and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-bit) and macOS operating systems.
