Fractured beats and shifting micro-rhythms run through Playbeat 4's engine, ready to be reshuffled into fresh variations.
Built by artist KITSUNE, the new expansion for Playbeat, Sublation, leans into glitchy, abstract and forward-thinking electronic sound design. Inside the expansion are 40 fully unlocked presets and more than 300 bespoke samples, all running through Audiomodern’s Playbeat engine. Since Playbeat reshuffles and remixes patterns on the fly, the presets work as a starting point rather than a fixed set, and the same material can be reworked into fresh variations more or less endlessly.
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The sounds themselves feel cinematic and tactile, derived from KITSUNE’s transdisciplinary practice and time spent on international residencies. Delicate clicks break down into fractured grooves, sparse atmospheres build into busier percussive textures and the micro-rhythmic detail shifts consistently, rather than settling into a loop.
Powering all of it is Playbeat, Audiomodern’s AI-based drum designer, which uses randomisation algorithms to generate new patterns and sound combinations. Sublation arrives in that proprietary Playbeat format, so it imports to any device running the software on desktop or iPad.
The download comes in at a slim 25 MB and works across the major DAWs, among them Ableton Live, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Bitwig and Reaper. Sublation needs Playbeat 4, version 1.0.0 or later, to run, so it’s an expansion for existing users rather than a standalone.
Sublation is available here.
