Glitch² 2.1.5 goes free on all three platforms

Glitch² 2.1.5 lists two changes: “Glitch2 is now free in memory of Kieran”, and VST3 versions added for all platforms.

Downloads are direct ZIPs from illformed.com, with no email address, no account and no key, and there is a PDF user guide on the same page. Windows takes VST2 and VST3 at 64-bit on Windows 7 or higher. macOS takes VST2, VST3 and AU on OS X 10.11 or higher, Intel or Apple Silicon. Linux takes VST2 and VST3 at 64-bit on Ubuntu 18 or higher, with a real-time kernel recommended. The page states in red that Pro Tools AAX and RTAS are not supported.

Inside, it is a multi-lane sequencer with 128 scenes per program, each fired from its own MIDI note. The original Glitch 1.3 is still up at illformed.org too, bundled with Crusher, Stretch and TapeStop in a 1.2 MB pack of Windows 32-bit VSTs that the page calls no longer in development and completely unsupported. The illformed.org copyright line runs 2005 to 2026.

Producer’s note

Give it headroom on the way in. Retrigger and Stretcher repeat and overlap short slices of whatever is under the playhead, so a drum loop that peaked at minus 1 dBFS as a straight take will find new peaks the moment single hits start looping at sixteenth-note rates. Pull 4 to 6 dB off before the plugin and put it back after, or use the per-module volume controls to trim only the offending blocks.

The other habit worth forming is running it on a parallel send rather than inserting it on the drum bus. The clean loop stays underneath, you can automate the return so the mangling only shows up in the bar before a drop, and if a randomised scene turns out better than the part you wrote, you push the return up instead of rebuilding the arrangement around it.