Karanyi Sounds has announced a major update to its audio effect plugin which is designed to turn any audio into rhythmic patterns, harmonic layers, or musical textures.
Cloudmax 3 comes with various new features and improvements.
Cloudmax 3 is not a reverb and not a straight granular tool. It pairs a granular texture engine with a tuned modal resonator — so you get both the smear and a musical body underneath it. If you’ve tried to get this sound with reverb + granular + EQ chained together, you’ll understand what’s different in 30 seconds of demo.
Cloudmax 3 features
- Easy Control: One gesture, the whole sound. Move a single macro and the entire engine follows — texture, motion, space — at once. Pop into Landscape Mode for the full canvas: every parameter visible, every move within reach.
- 3 Texture Pitch Modes: Stay in key, or break it. DUAL stacks 2×2 grains for thick octave-pair textures. SNAP locks you to musical intervals. FREE opens the engine for continuous detune and microtonal exploration.
- 4-Engine Granular Core: Four parallel grain engines, one massive texture. Up to 4 grains of shimmer, stretch, and smear — layered, detuned, and modulated independently. Pitch in semitones or continuous. Length from 1/64 to infinite. Feed it anything — the engine makes it sing.
- Reverb Engine: The classic Cloudmax reverbs, rebuilt with significantly upgraded DSP. CIRRUS — vast cinematic tails, longer and more precise than ever. STRATOS — a flexible plate for tight, musical reflections. Two characters, switchable per patch.
- Designable LFO: Powerful modulations, shaped by gesture. Quick drags set rate, depth, and shape — sync to tempo or let it drift free. Assign one LFO to length, filter, resonator pitch — anything modulatable.
- 8 Cloud Models: Eight worlds in one knob — and the library will keep growing with future updates. Cloud Models reach across every parameter at once: grains, resonator, modulation, space. Cloud-type models drift into long soundscapes; Drift-type models snap into rhythmic patterns for drums, vocals, and keys.
- Mod Automation: That same LFO drives any knob, in time with the music. One source, many destinations — assign it to length, pitch, filter, resonator, all at once. Musical animation that used to take a session of automation lanes, alive inside the plugin.
- Powerful Browser: Find the sound, not the file. Audition presets instantly, filter by tag combinations — dark + percussive, bright + drone — and dig through your saves, factory content, and DLCs the same way. From idea to inspiration in seconds.
- AI Tagging: Tag once. Find forever. One click and the AI tags every preset for you — mood, character, motion. No more interrupting the flow to organize. Save it, name it later — the browser already knows what it sounds like.
- Unlimited Undo / Redo: Don’t lose the take. Step back through every move, then walk it forward again — across the entire session, no limit. Rare in audio plugins, essential when ideas are coming fast. Try anything; nothing is final.
- Dark & Bright: Two skins, one feel. A deep Dark mode for late-night sessions and a clean Bright mode for daylight studios. Same workflow, same precision — just the light that matches the room.
- 18 Languages: Speak your studio’s language. Localized in 18 languages, with the in-app Guide explaining every parameter in plain words. The most intuitive workflow we’ve ever shipped — in any tongue.
Available in VST3 and AU plugin formats for Windows and macOS (AAX coming), Cloudmax 3 is on sale for the intro price of $59 USD for a limited time (regular $79 USD). Owners of the Cloudmax version 1 or 2 can upgrade for $39 USD during the promotion.
More information: Karanyi Sounds / Cloudmax 3
