For makers and artists, the arrival of every something’s new plugins means a shift from static sequencing to fluid, organic chaos. Jelle Akkerman introduces Glosso and Artikulation, tools designed to turn vocal synthesis into a chaotic, polyrhythmic dialogue and to bend grooves with liquid, unpredictable control.
The maker behind the noise
Jelle Akkerman is an engineer and artist based in Northern Italy who famously opened for the Vengaboys at the local zoo when he was just 14. His imprint, “every something,” covers music, hardware, and software. This includes the every division and duration Eurorack module, a collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Bougaïeff and Johannes Lohbihler. Today’s release focuses on two new plugins, Artikulation and Glosso, with further tools like perp and otophon arriving next month. These AU and VST3 versions for macOS and Windows embrace tuplets and polymeters in friendly black and white designs.
Glosso: Speaking in tongues
Glosso takes the concept of glossolalia—speaking in tongues—and applies it to audio. When you load it into a track and hit play, dualing voices begin immediately, their vowel-filter shapes visualising in the interface. The design draws inspiration from Rob Hordijk’s circuits, specifically the “rungler” in the Benjolin. That circuit features two “entangled” oscillators where a shift register is clocked by one oscillator and fed by another, creating a chaotic feedback loop of control voltage.
In Glosso, two chaotic rhythmic circuits drive two voices. The pseudorandom nature ensures constant variation, meaning the voices will always differ, sometimes slightly, sometimes radically.
Controls allow you to manipulate the sound with precision:
- Head/body and haat/boty tune each voice’s frequencies.
- Q emphasises phonemes by accentuating the vowel filter.
- Stagger determines the separation between voices, allowing you to tweak the rhythm from shuffling to distinct.
- Clock can be synced or free-running. The free-running mode unleashes maximum rungler-style chaos with no grid control.
- Cross-modulation introduces physics-based interaction between the channels.
You can also adjust crossfeed directly, moving from a hard-panned default to voices overlaying in the center. Pushing everything to the limit produces rich drones and textures, venturing deep into Benjolin-style territory.
Artikulation: Rhythmic sculpting
While many plugins focus on binary envelope shapes or hand-drawn step sequences, Artikulation offers a different approach. It allows you to precisely shape rhythms and grooves, from simple structures to complex polymeters, bending and skewing them with just a few controls.
Instead of manually drawing a rhythm, you adjust levels in divisions of /2, /4, /6, or /8. You can then move the shape and skew parameters to create envelopes ranging from crisp, on-the-beat patterns to pumping, ducked values.
For complex patterns, the tuplets settings overlay a new pattern atop the existing rhythm. This adds swing, accents, and polymetric effects, all dialled in an instinctive, analog manner. You can shift the whole envelope left and right using phase, while the scale control on the right-hand side lets you fine-tune the effect size.
Timing warp is where the tool truly excels. You can squeeze the entire pattern forward or backward in time, creating fast-ratcheting, rubato, or accel/deccel effects. This ability to bend time while retaining the grid makes it an essential addition to any rhythmic arsenal.
Using Ableton Wavetable and Max for Cats’ Modulators Plus, these controls become a powerful compositional engine. A host of terrific presets are included to help you explore the possibilities, and tweaking them is a deeply satisfying experience.
Both plugins are available today with a free trial available at https://plugins.every-something.com.
Key takeaways
- Glosso generates chaotic, dual-voice textures based on entangled oscillators, perfect for creating unpredictable vocal weirdness and rich drones.
- Artikulation replaces manual envelope drawing with intuitive controls for shaping rhythms, tuplets, and timing warps in real-time.
- Both tools are available now for macOS and Windows in AU and VST3 formats, offering a free trial for immediate testing.
Stay ahead of AI. Get the most important stories delivered to your inbox — no spam, no noise.
