Let's Groove Tonight with Stylus RMX

Wow –I certainly hope you all have lots of hard disc space. Spectrasonics new Stylus RMX has a 7.4-gigabyte core library, designed and produced by industry veteran Eric Persing and his team. This groove-based virtual instrument plug-in takes the companies’ popular Stylus Vinyl Groove Module, and kicks it up many notches on the coolness scale. Aside of including all the sounds from the original program, there are there are three times as many grooves in this new offering – as well as a lot more flexibility on how they are utilized.

Above: Filters a' plenty are included with stylus RMX.

S.A.G.E. Advice Stylus RMX uses an innovative new software technology called S.A.G.E - which stands for Spectrasonics Advanced Groove Engine. What this does is allow for real-time control over the creation and manipulation of grooves, essentially handling complex synchronization issues "behind the scenes". Whenever you call up a groove pattern to hear it, it’s always in the exact tempo of the host sequencer. As you increase or decrease your tempo, it will follow, while maintaining its high-quality audio characteristic. An amazing feat indeed, as you almost have to hear it to believe it works so well. RMX’s Chaos Designer, for example, relies on the core S.A.G.E. technology. This feature allows you to introduce what they call "musical chaos" into the grooves, providing constantly evolving deviations in the patterns. By adjusting the user controls, varying from almost nothing to extreme, you can make the plug-in "improvise". Basically, Chaos Designer rearranges the slices in musically intelligent ways. The first three sliders on the Chaos Designer Page - Pattern, Repeat and Reverse, control the probability of how often Chaos is introduced into the pattern. Then there is the Timing, Pitch and Dynamics sliders, which also control the Chaos probability. The Timing section is quite interesting, in that it has the option to Rush or Drag the beat, or both, if the knob is left set in the 12 o'clock position. The Range Knob can control how much it rushes or drags. Dynamics lets the amplitude of each slice be altered. As you can imagine, the combination of options can create some really cool groove effects. Since these selections are random, you can actually have control over the randomization by using the edit group functionality. For example, you can take the Chaos function off the backbeats and downbeats - leaving the elements in between to be randomized. Also, the Chaos can be captured as Midi data (in real time), and then dragged into your sequencer - where you can then edit it like any other midi file. If your host supports the automation of RMX, you can even automate the parameters - to throw in an occasional change in the groove.

Above: A very organized system makes finding and accessing sounds in Stylus quick and painless.

Plug It In Spectrasonics developers were smart to make this plug-in expandable. They offer a series of S.A.G.E. Expanders, such as BackBeat, Liquid Grooves and Retro Funk. Not only can you use any of the Groove Control sample libraries, you can use Propellerheads REX files as well. I myself, have a huge library of REX files, so that allows me to get much more out of them. You simply process your selected files through the included SAGE Converter Utility, and it will show up in the plug-ins User Library. Include the fact that RMX has almost 10,00 single hits in the sound menus, and the possibilities become almost endless. There are three different kinds of elements in this program - Grooves, Sound Menus and Kit Modules. Grooves have their original tempo listed next to them in its first three characters, but Sound Menus are simply menus of various sounds laid out across your USB or Midi keyboard. A kit module (which appears in Kit Mode) will only show module elements offered, and it lets you put sounds together individually. Instead of recording a full groove into your sequencer, you would play each element and create your own pattern.

Above: One of several effects screens in Stylus RMX.

Rack It Up Stylus RMX has many features beyond a traditional plug-in. It’s got a cool FX Rack, with 24 effects such as; Tube Limiter, Vintage and Modern Compressors, Wah, Distortion, Gate Expanders, 3 BPM Delays, a Tape Delay and 6 different Vintage/Parametric/Graphic EQ’s. To use them, you simply go to the FX section and either insert them individually on each part (up to 8), on Aux 1-4, or on the Master mix. There’s Multiple Stereo Outs on supported software, a built-in mixer w/ 8 channels of mute/solo, level, meters, and 4 aux sends (for the aforementioned FX) and output assignments, and a great Easy Edit Page with big knobs and sliders. Grooves can be auditioned in half time or double time if you like, and you can even drag and drop midi files right into your sequencer. Spectrasonics even included over 3 hours of video tutorials – something I wish EVERY manufacturer would do with their products. We all have to learn so much these days to keep up, and this just makes our life easier. This essentially let me learn the program immediately, get relatively deep into it, and creatively use it on a session the day I installed it. Bravo on that move!

Above: more cool stylus RMX effects.

Happy Hosts Stylus RMX works with both Mac and Windows platforms and operates on most host systems – check out this list! Apple Logic and Garage band, Digidesign Pro Tools, MOTU Digital Performer, Ableton Live, Steinberg Cubase SX, Nuendo, V-Stack, Fruity Loops, Acid Pro (Sony), Cakewalk Sonar, Project 5, and many other host apps. Overall, Stylus RMX is one of those few "must have" plug-ins. It’s intelligent, easy to use and incredibly flexible. Most importantly, it sounds great. Now I understand why the users I’ve talked to rave about it!