QuotaFX 1.2: Six New Effects, Six Scopes, and a Control Surface That Holds Still
44 effects now, six of them new. Three knobs and a hold instead of a grid that resized itself. Six scopes that pop out to their own screen. Fader strips on iPad. Free update for everyone who owns it.
1.2 is out. It is a free update if you already own QuotaFX.
Six new effects, six scopes, a control surface that stops moving, and seven new looks. Here is what actually changed and why.
Three knobs, two pages
The old surface drew as many knobs as the effect had, so switching from a three control effect to a ten control one redrew the window at a different height. On desktop that meant the plugin jumping under your mouse. On an iPad it rescaled the whole panel, pads and all.
One geometry now. Every effect, every page.
CTRL 1, 2 and 3 sit where they always sit. Hold the CTRL 4-6 button and the same three knobs become 4, 5 and 6, then snap back when you let go. That is the hardware gesture and it is one motion, held, the whole time you are turning something. Tap it instead and it latches, because a mouse cannot hold a button and turn a knob at the same time.
An on off switch is always on CTRL 3 now, whatever the effect. Your hand stops looking for it.
Six new effects
逆さ Sa-Ka-Sa (*sakasa*, upside down). Punch it and the last chunk plays back at you backwards, then hands the beat back. It grabs on the grid rather than on your finger, so the throw lands musically no matter when you hit it. Ride the length while it runs.
鐘 Ka-Ne (*kane*, bell). A rack of tuned strings. Feed a hi hat in and it rings out a chord. Pick a root and an interval set and percussion becomes harmony.
Bad Rip. The file barely survived. Dropouts, stuck buffers, and the smear you get off a rip of a rip. Every other bit of grit in here is analog era: vinyl, tape, cassette. This one is the corrupted download.
霞 Ka-Su-Mi (*kasumi*, haze). Sprays the audio into grains and lets them drift. Two bars turn into weather.
ずれ Zu-Re (*zure*, out of alignment). Slides every partial by the same number of Hz instead of the same ratio, so nothing stays in tune with itself.
喉 No-Do (*nodo*, throat). Puts a mouth in front of the sound and moves it between vowels.
Six scopes, and they pop out
Tap the scope to change it: peaks, wave, spectrum, vector, depth, trace. Right click to change its colour ramp, including full rainbow.
Then hit the arrows in the corner and it opens on its own window. Drag it as big as you want. Close QuotaFX and the scope stays up, which is the point: put it on the display behind you and keep your hands on the gear.
Desktop only, since an AUv3 lives inside its host's window on iPad.
iPad gets fader strips
On a touchscreen the CTRLs are strips, not knobs. A rotary hides its own pointer under your thumb and the drag is indirect. A strip is a direct grab the full width of the slot, and you can see the value you are holding.
They do not jump to your finger either. You grab and drag from where the value already is, so a stray touch cannot throw a live parameter across its range mid take.
Rebuilt
Beat Repeat got taken apart. The punch used to sit at control 10 of 10, which on a three knob surface is nowhere. It is on CTRL 3 now, next to Grid and a new Roll control that subdivides the division progressively while you hold it. That accelerating build into the drop used to need an automation lane. The loop seam was also splicing rather than crossfading, and the default grid was a 64th of a beat, which is a buzz and not a stutter. Both fixed.
Chorus was a stock part with a fixed delay time. It is a real ensemble now.
Phaser had its centre frequency nailed to 1 kHz, so it did nothing on a bass line and everything on a hat. Centre is a control now, plus a stage count.
Reverb swapped its engine for a small feedback network. Same four controls, a tail that does not announce itself.
Seven new looks
Faceplate themes: a dark or neutral panel with the accent as the only saturated thing on screen. Gunmetal, Terminal, Graphite, Slate, Ink, Chalk and Bone. The eight original two tone themes are still there, and you can still build your own from any two colours. The app mark in the corner follows the theme now too.
Get it
Free update. Open Quota HQ and it is there, or download it from the product page. The browser demo runs all 44 if you want to hear it first.
On iPad and iPhone, 1.2 follows separately once Apple finishes reviewing it. Same update, same price, it just takes as long as it takes.