Artillery 2: Keyzone Multi-Effect Plugin by Sugar Bytes Free Download

The core idea of Artillery 2 is simple: a set of 28 effects is distributed across your keyboard. Playing a key fires the effect assigned to its zone, which makes the plugin usable on stage as well as in the studio.

The developer says the effects range from traditional filter sweeps and delays to granular, loop and vocoder processing. Stacking several effects is supported, and Sugar Bytes states that CPU load will rarely be high.

Key tracking is one of the more distinctive options. Applied to a range of keys, it lets the pitch of the played note modify an effect, for example changing a delay time or feedback as you move up or down an octave.

Once a keyzone is defined, its controls appear on screen. Every effect parameter can take its own modulation source: key tracking, an LFO, an envelope or a step sequencer. A green ring around each knob shows the modulation depth in real time, which makes it easy to see an LFO pulsing against a parameter.

Each effect also has its own modulation, envelope and dry/wet controls. To use Artillery 2 with a sequencer that supports MIDI routing, you create a MIDI output layer in the host and set the matching input and output numbers in the plugin. The developer gives FL Studio as the example workflow.