It’s rare to come across a plugin with a fresh sound manipulation approach nowadays. Instead of reinventing the wheel, Kalide (a new Los Angeles company) took a different angle with Collage 2.0. This is a powerful multi-effects plugin. The emphasis is on how the user interacts with the tool and how that affects the resulting sound.
Visual Art Meets Audio Processing
Collage 2.0’s centerpiece is the initial view. When opening the plugin, you encounter a unique visual dynamic unseen elsewhere in audio processing (except maybe Metasynth). The GUI is vibrant, colorful and grounded in visual art. The interactive elements are big, flat shapes. It took me a moment to realize some ‘knobs’ were meant for moving.
There are no labels or visual feedback for the audio. This refreshingly forces you to rely on your ears. The presets are categorized enigmatically to encourage discovery. The ‘happy accident’ approach works best. Quickly flick through presets until one sparks interest, then focus on the tweakable options.
One of my favorite buttons while working on the Kalide Collage 2 review was the dice logo at the bottom – it randomized the preset choice. I quickly flicked through until something sparked interest. At that point, I focused on the different tweakable options. I took creative turns I wouldn’t have with parameter-based plugins.
Under the Colorful Hood
But Collage is more than just a visual experiment. It’s a powerful multi-fx with 43 processes at your fingertips. The processes are listed in sections like delays, reverbs, compression, distortion etc.
Standouts include the Colossus section’s 31 fantastic distortion flavors – from analog emulations to waveshaping and digital crushing. The Sift envelope adds a cool white noise vibe. The Eskalator pitch delay reverb transports you into Blade Runner territory. All effect categories are good quality, blending standard processors with esoteric ones.
Here’s an overview of the effects:
Creating Your Own FX In Kalide Collage 2
You can design your own presets too. Set up the desired processes, then choose the backdrop, slider shapes/colors and assign parameters. It’s super simple and fun.
There aren’t many fine-tuning options – the visuals use basic colors/sizes, and parameter selection/tuning isn’t granular. But that adds appeal – you’re not spending hours tweaking envelopes, you’re creating preset after preset.
I made a preset in 2 minutes with distortion, compression, delay, and a macro slider combining delay feedback/noise with the wet/dry mix.
Collage is MIDI-learnable for creating custom mapped effects chains. It seems very stable for live use. You could create your own FX chain mapped to your MIDI setup (some Intech Studio Grid modules would work wonders!) to suit your music specs and process choice.
Kalide Collage 2 Review – Final Thoughts
Collage is truly refreshing for inspiring creativity. It removes typical signage, forcing different creative paths – listening first, experimentation, trying new things. The whole process is impressively simple.
This new creative approach excels for experimentation, finding new sounds, going in out-of-the-box directions you wouldn’t with parameter-based plugins. Kalide emphasizes interaction and listening over visual feedback.
While it may not be as useful for precise mixing, Collage 2.0 is designed for speed and deliberate variety of processing.
Pricing and Availability
You can order Collage 2.0 from Kalide’s website. It’s available as AU, VST, VST3 and is currently on sale at $129 (MSRP $179).
