Recording - September 2013 - 61

preset in Bloom and running audio through
it, switching between all of these routings
to hear the very audible and often drastic
differences between them.
Automate, modulate
Even if you were to never control
Bloom’s parameters in real time, there’s a
huge variety of sounds to be discovered
here. But the real fun begins when
you start automating things... and
a lot of that fun is how easy it is to
do. The TransMod system built
into Bloom, represented by a row
of buttons across the center of the
interface, makes parameter
automation a breeze.
Just select a modulation source,
which we’ll list in a moment. Then
click on the small arrow outside the
parameter you want to automate
and drag to open up a range of
motion, shown by a blue ring (see
the Mid Freq in Figure 1 or the Pan
in Figure 3). That’s all there is to it!
The Mods page (Figure 2) offers two LFOs
with beat sync and highly adjustable waveshapes, an Envelope Follower to track the
dynamic content of the music (fantastic for
drums!), and a Sample & Hold, effectively a
randomized control source. Note the Gain
knobs; these can be automated to turn the
LFOs’ effect on parameters up and down.

The Seqs page has three 16-step
sequencers whose step values can be set by
dragging the mouse over them. Each
sequencer has a very cool hidden second
function—Seq 1 can control delay time (as
shown in Figure 3), Seq 2 can turn Freeze on
and off in steps, and Seq 3 can turn Reverse
on and off in steps (again, see Figure 3).
Each sequencer can be randomized or use a

“Drunk?” setting to occasionally stumble
backwards rather than always stepping forward through the sequence.
You can also set up TransMod control
using MIDI note pitch or velocity, or use
the comprehensive MIDI Learn function to
automate and control pretty much anything you want from your DAW or control

surface. Other amenities include a Panic
button to clear the delay’s buffer in case
of runaway feedback, and a more CPUintensive HD audio mode.
Speaking of CPU, Bloom hits pretty
hard, but not outrageously so. On my test
Mac, a relatively new 2.3 GHz quad i7
MacBook Pro with 4 GB RAM running
Ableton Live 9 with buffer size set to 128
samples, Bloom ate between 15%
3 and 25% of available CPU in HD
mode, depending on the preset.
While PreSonus Studio One doesn’t provide numerical values for
CPU load, performance seemed
to be about the same. I was able
to run Bloom successfully on my
former test machine—a 2 GHz
Core 2 Duo MacBook with only 2
GB RAM, well below FXpansion’s
stated minimum requirements—
although it needed a much larger
buffer setting in Live 9.
Let a thousand flowers bloom
If you’re into time-delay effects as a way of
creating glorious soundspaces, adding interest and zing to samey rhythm tracks or loops,
or creating crazy effects to spice up your
mixes, Bloom is a no-brainer. It’s easy to use,
has lots of power at your command, and
sounds awesome; check out the demo and
hear it for yourself. Ewige Blumenkraft!
http://www.eartrumpetlabs.com http://www.realtraps.com http://www.eartrumpetlabs.com
Recording - September 2013

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