Efx FRAGMENTS

Creative Granular Effect

Efx FRAGMENTS is a software effect that allows you to divide, transform, and rebuild any sound by unlocking the power of granular processing. Instantly elevate any project with glitchy stutters, grainy stereo ambience, experimental textures, and beyond.

Effortlessly transform,
instantly inspire

Breathe life, musicality, and character into any sound, and discover inspiring & intricate new textures.

From dramatic rhythmic stutter effects to cloudy reverb shimmers, and everything in between. Efx FRAGMENTS takes the complex concept of granular synthesis and makes it more flexible, more accessible, and more musical than ever.

Glitch & stutter

Build tension and sprinkle variety into your beats, compositions, and soundscapes with dramatic stop-start stutters, pitch-shifted fluctuations, and reality-shattering glitches. Slice sounds rhythmically or go totally off-grid for true sonic chaos.

Rhythmic variations

Efx FRAGMENTS listens to the rhythm of your track and can respond in a number of creative ways. Make every grain of sound respond to your tempo for glitchy beats, fractured rhythmic textures, flowing percussive sequences, and more.

Textural enhancement

Whether you want to add sparkling character, or just make something ‘feel’ better in a mix, immediately excite and accentuate any instrument stem, loop, or vocal part with the ethereal sound of granular processing, complete with built-in mix-ready FX.

Beauty or chaos

Whether you want musical or experimental, beautiful or chaotic, Efx FRAGMENTS can make any sound exciting, evocative, and entirely yours. Effortlessly explore and manipulate granular processing with amazing sonic results guaranteed.

Redefining ambient

Go beyond conventional reverb and delay and immerse your mixes in material ambience. Create vast shimmering clouds of sound particles, delicate cave-echo trickles, or fast-flowing spatial movement with any sound source.

Forge new timbres

Turn the smallest transient, the crunchiest sample, or the most unassuming stem into a bowed string, a grainy drum hit, or a mix-enveloping pad. By tightly weaving grains together, Efx FRAGMENTS creates texture and density in the most unexpected ways.

Dream Sequence

Shimmering Tape Pads

Fragmented Arpeggio

Granular WahWah

Sequenced Slicer

Unique Shimmer

Granular synthesis
explained

At its most basic level, granular synthesis involves splitting a sound into parts - ‘grains’ - and using them in creative ways.

You can change the size of the grains, the amount of space between them, their pitch, their playback behavior - the list goes on.

The resulting sound is both highly recognizable and wholly unique to granular. Frozen timbres from smooth & transparent to sharp & brittle; rainfall delay that drenches any mix; dense clouds of reverberating sonic texture; cascading modulations that turn a short sound into an endless flow.

Once you’ve experienced Efx FRAGMENTS’ unique interpretation of granular processing, you’ll never look back.

Parts of
a whole

Efx FRAGMENTS breaks the process of granular synthesis down into easy-to-use modules that intuitively interact with each other.

By individually tweaking different parts of the granular process, you can explore and experiment with your sound with absolute control and unprecedented detail; here’s how it works.

  • Buffer

    This is where incoming audio passes through to be used as the raw material for Efx FRAGMENTS’ grains, giving you real-time, top-level control over its behavior. See the moving playback and recording points, customize the buffer length, tweak the feedback and wet/dry levels, and freeze the buffer in place for a static slice of sound.

  • Grain Capture

    Here you can explore the many tools that Efx FRAGMENTS uses to capture grains from the buffer, from the Speed controls to the Transient & Snap-To-Grid quantization modes. Make your grain capture respond to hits and swells, introduce ‘sprays’ at random, manually scan what you’ve captured, and more; granular essentials.

  • Grain Release

    At the core of Efx FRAGMENTS’ interface is an array of parameters and responsive options that give you full control over every aspect of the newly-created grains’ behavior, from shape to play direction to density - and far beyond. The Grain Release module is topped off with a dynamic visualizer, providing vivid visual feedback of your sound.

  • Pan & FX

    Navigate the stereo space of your mix in a plethora of curious and exciting ways, from randomized grain panning to tempo-synced movement around a virtual 3D space. For the final end-of-chain touch, run Efx FRAGMENTS’ signal through two FX slots, featuring algorithms like Multi-Filter, Tape Echo, Stereo Flanger, and more.

  • Advanced controls

    In keeping with the rest of our virtual instruments and FX plugins, Efx FRAGMENTS comes armed with a host of dynamic modulation and expression tools. Assign Macros to multiple parameters for real-time sweeping effects, make your grains respond to each beat with a built-in Envelope Follower, create custom functions and step-sequences.

Artistscorner

PressClippings

  • Future Music

    On Efx FRAGMENTS

    “A powerful, user-friendly sound design tool. It’s likely to become a secret weapon for many users. ”

Granular
triple threat

Despite its near boundless possibilities and potential for sonic chaos, granular synthesis doesn't need to be daunting.

Efx FRAGMENTS distills this expansive concept into 3 clearly defined modes that deliver tangible, usable, and inspiring results - whatever your style.

Classic

As the name suggests, this is Efx FRAGMENTS' broadest and most customizable mode. Choose between quantization and chaos, lengthy grains or pinpoint snippets of sound, delicate enhancement or outright granular destruction.

Rhythmic

Rhythmic mode locks grain size and density in with tempo-matched values, ensuring that every grain pulses, flutters, and resonates in perfect sync with your project. Great for creating precise machine-like movement and mangled drum loops.

Texture

Create sprawling clouds of sound, ethereal mix-filling drones, and organic bow-like resonance. Texture mode introduces features like the Layers macro, creating a harmonious relationship between size and density that adds ensemble-like richness to Efx FRAGMENTS' sound

Sound design
frontier

Granular synthesis goes beyond glitchy transients and shimmering reverb.

Efx FRAGMENTS is designed as an end-to-end granular toolkit, offering never-before-seen sound design flexibility, features, and presets to make any sound interesting. Here’s what you can expect…

Animating sound

Turn the simplest sample or drum loop into an exciting focal feature in your mix. Any sound, no matter how static or plain, will become an animated, living, breathing sonic curiosity when processed through Efx FRAGMENTS. Keep things moving without relying on ambience or repetitive sequences with features like Spray, randomization, macros, and the Advanced modulation section.

Exploring pitch

Go beyond basic harmonization and shimmering octave shifts with accurate pitch tracking, scale quantization, and spatial enhancement. Make harmonic and melodic content more interesting, more textural, and more characterful by experimenting with Efx FRAGMENTS' +/-3 octaves of pitch-shifting capabilities, randomized fine-tuning for swirling chorus and detuning effects, and more.

Freeze

Bend the rules of time and sound by freezing any audio in place. Experimenting with different combinations of size and grain while engaging Efx FRAGMENTS' Freeze function can create never-ending drones from a single frozen point of your sound. Transform a short sound into an artificial dense trail, create a pedal note layer underneath a melody, or manually skim through a sound by adjusting the playhead position.

Rhythmic variations

Take a simple beat or repeating drum loop and inject variation, color, and complex rhythmic content in seconds. Using Efx FRAGMENTS' tempo-sync options alongside built-in Step Sequencer, Pitch control, and Grain Crush can twist and contort your drums and percussion beyond recognition, while retaining their core rhythmic purpose. An essential tool for enhancing beats, drum hits, and rhythm sections.

Distort, Destroy

Yes, Efx FRAGMENTS can introduce subtle changes and character to a sound - but it has an extreme side too. Add grit and noisy digital artifacts with the Grain Crush feature, including authentic bitcrushing algorithms from CMI V and Emulator II V; Go red-hot with Multi-Distortion in the FX slots; Crank settings to the extreme using essential effects like Comb Filter, Phaser, and Tape Echo; push your granular sound to the limit.

Double Axis Spatializer

From rich stereo modulation, to detailed reverb & delay FX, to the versatile Pan module, Efx FRAGMENTS gives you full control of the stereo field. Introduce random left-to-right movement, hypnotic stereo drones, spacious granular atmosphere, and everything in between.

Included in
FX collection

Effects you'll actually use

This effect is part of FX Collection, a suite of essential audio effect plugins empowering musicians, producers, and artists to get creative with their production. From iconic recording gear modeled with breathtaking accuracy, to cutting-edge contemporary effects, the collection includes the most sought-after studio tools, rare guitar pedals, modern mix enhancers, and beyond. Elevate your production and add color to your mix like never before.

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The features
you need

  • DAW ready

    However you use these plugins; for the amazing tone of their reverb, for the gritty preamps, or for their incredible sound design abilities, you'll be safe in the knowledge that they are fully compatible with your setup. These plugins work with all major DAWs, and on both Windows and MacOS.

  • ASC

    Arturia Software Center lets you download, organize, and update all of your Arturia software titles in one place, as well as manage all of your licenses across multiple devices. Keep it simple.

  • Resizable GUI

    Whether you want the full visual immersion of our classic effects emulations, or to save precious screen real estate, the interfaces for all of your Arturia plugins can be resized to a scale that suits you.

  • Real-time control

    Every parameter in every FX Collection plugin can be mapped to your favorite MIDI controller for instant, hands-on control of your mix. Sweep a filter, crank a preamp, or warp your modulation on the fly.

  • In-App Tutorials

    Every plugin in FX Collection comes with built-in tutorials, guiding you step-by-step through the crucial parameters, adjustments, and mixing hacks to get the most out of your sound. The tutorial panel also explains the controls you’re using in real-time - so you’ll never miss a tweak.

  • Preset browser

    FX Collection’s streamlined preset browser lets you filter, organize, and save your favorite presets for instant recall. Search by instrument type, genre, production technique, and much more - so you can quickly find the tweak you need and save valuable creative time!

Gallery

Main Features

  • Creative effect plugin based on granular processing
  • Features 3 distinct granular modes: Classic, Texture & Rhythmic
  • Pitch quantization with 15 different scales
  • Grain quantization with transient detection or snap-to-grid modes
  • Spatializer section with 9 different trajectory presets
  • 2 FX slots with sophisticated routing for unique sound design possibilities
  • Advanced modulation section, featuring an envelope follower, 3 function generators and a step sequencer
  • Curated 60-preset library for instant access to inspiring tones
  • Apple M1 compatibility

Platforms specifications

Windows

  • Win 10+ (64bit)
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 4 cores CPU, 3.4 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo-boost)
  • 1GB free hard disk space
  • OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU
  • ARM processors not supported on Windows

Required configuration

  • VST, AAX, Audio Unit, NKS (64-bit DAWs only).

Apple

  • Mac OS 10.13+
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 4 cores CPU, 3.4 GHz (4.0 GHz Turbo-boost) or M1 CPU
  • 1GB free hard disk space
  • OpenGL 2.0 compatible GPU

Work with ASC

  • An elegant and simple solution to help you install, activate, and update your Arturia software.

* All manufacturer and product names mentioned on this page are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Arturia. The trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose features and sound were studied during the development. All names of equipment, inventors, and manufacturers have been included for illustrative and educational purposes only, and do not suggest any affiliation or endorsement by any equipment inventor or manufacturer.

*NKS ready