Descent is a real-time granular effect plugin for macOS, Windows, Linux, and iOS. It records incoming audio into a buffer and immediately plays it back as grains: up to fifty short, overlapping fragments at once, each one sized, pitched, panned, and placed on its own. The results can pass for a delay, a reverb, or a pitch shifter, and frequently all three at once, but the territory past those is the point. Subtle thickening, rhythmic stutters, pointillist scatter, frozen washes, and clouds of pitch-shifted sound that have no conventional name.

Everything is on one panel. Size sets the grain length in note values, locked to your host's transport, or in seconds once you punch Chaos and cut the grains loose from the grid. The envelope knob shapes every grain from a plucked, percussive attack to a reversed swell. Pitch shifts two octaves in either direction, and the Shifts panel quantizes every transposition to the intervals you allow, so a randomized cloud lands in the key of your song instead of somewhere nearby. Six randomizer sliders scatter size, count, level, pan, pitch, and position per grain. Feedback recirculates the input so the grains keep arriving after the source stops, and Diffusion smears the output until a delay becomes a reverb.

Same as the rest of our catalog: Mac, Windows, Linux, and iOS. No DRM, no subscriptions, no dongles, perpetual license.

Platforms & Downloads

Fully functional demo. 20-minute session timer, save disabled.

In Use...

The un-obvious trick is restraint: a few grains, no randomization, and Amount around thirty gives a track thickness and air without reading as an effect at all. From there it escalates. Position and pan scatter turn a drum loop into a broken beat that still lands on the grid, because grain timing stays locked to the transport until you decide otherwise. A pad through fifty long grains with Dwell up and Diffusion on stops being a pad and starts being a place. Quantize the shifts to octaves and fifths for shimmer that flatters the song instead of fighting it. Reverse a vocal's grains for tape-flip swells without owning a tape machine. And since the engine runs whether or not you can hear it, riding Amount like a send level turns the whole plugin into a performance control.

Features

• Real-time granular engine - Up to fifty simultaneous grains played live from the incoming audio. Grain size runs in note values from a 1/32 to a whole note, locked to your host's transport, or free in seconds with Chaos on.
• Per-grain envelope - One knob shapes every grain from a plucked, percussive attack through a smooth bell to a reversed swell.
• Pitch shifting with quantization - Two octaves up or down, with a Shifts panel that pins every transposition to the intervals you choose. All thirteen on for chromatic; a subset for the key of your song.
• Six-axis randomizer - Independent per-grain randomization of size, count, amplitude, pan, pitch, and position, applied the moment each grain begins.
• Direction control - Grains play forward, backward, or flip a coin per grain.
• Chaos - Unhooks grain timing from the host clock entirely, for textures that drift instead of march.
• Feedback and Diffusion - Feedback recirculates the incoming signal so the grains have something to play after the source stops. Diffusion smears the result toward reverb. Between them, Descent covers the ground from slapback to wash.
• Amount, with a lock - A true processed-signal level that behaves like a send: the engine runs regardless of the setting. The lock pins Amount while you audition presets, ideal when Descent lives on a return.
• Live visualization - An animated display driven by a 24-band analyzer, so you can watch the cloud you are hearing.
• 35 factory presets - Shimmers, delays, freezes, glitch, and a few settings that qualify as dares.
• Our preset system - System-wide browser with folders and favorites. Plain XML presets move between every format and OS, desktop and iOS.

Frequently Asked Questions