If you’re interested in producing warped audio in the tradition of such bands as Sonic Youth, Audio Damage may have the answer: Mayhem, a collection of four VST audio plug-ins “designed exclusively for the abuse of your audio,” as the company says on its Web site.
Filterpod is a low-pass filter plug-in that features an adjustable distortion stage and an internal oscillator capable of wide and deep frequency sweeps. It can quickly transform a synthesizer track into a shriek.
Master Destrukto provides an array of distortion tools, including wave warping, asymmetric clipping, sample-rate and bit-depth reduction, and overdrive, which is based on a vintage guitar pedal.
Crush is a compressor that flattens and boosts vocals and drums, giving them a kick they didn’t have before.
TimeFnk offers tempo-synchronized delay times and a low-frequency oscillator that modulates the filter frequency and panning position of the delayed signal. You can choose between repeats that decay cleanly or with a murky sound.
Mayhem is US$149. You can download a demo, which drops out the audio every 15 to 25 seconds, from the Audio Damage Web site.