How to Freeze Any Sound Into a Pad with Vaporate

Vaporate is a spectral smear and freeze plugin for Mac and Windows. It captures the frequency content of whatever is playing and holds it as a sustained pad, or blurs sharp attacks into a smooth wash, so one vocal phrase, chord stab or drum hit can become a texture that carries a whole section.

What problem does Vaporate solve?

A breakdown needs a bed, a drop needs a swell into it, and sometimes one sound needs to last longer than it does. The usual fixes have trade-offs. A long reverb tail fades and washes everything else out with it. Looping a short sample makes the repeat audible. Building a pad from scratch on a synth takes you away from the sound that gave you the idea.

Vaporate works on the sound you already have. Freeze holds the tone of one moment for as long as you need it, without the attack and without a loop point, and Smear softens a sound without adding the reflections of a room.

How does spectral freeze work?

Vaporate splits the sound into many narrow frequency bands (an FFT, with sizes from 512 to 4096) and treats the level and the phase of each band separately:

• Freeze captures the level of every band at one instant and keeps playing it, so the tone of that moment becomes a sustained sound.
• Smear (0 to 100%) randomizes the phase across the bands, which blurs transients into texture while the tone stays put.
• Feedback (0 to 99%) keeps feeding the smeared sound back in, so it gets blurrier over time, and Blur smooths the levels between frames.
• Decay lets a frozen sound fade out, and Drift slowly changes it so a held pad stays alive instead of static.

How do you turn a sound into a pad?

1. Pick a source. Put Vaporate on a vocal, a chord or a drum bus, or drag a WAV, AIFF, MP3, FLAC or OGG file onto it to use a sample instead.
2. Freeze the moment. Press Freeze on the vowel or chord you want, or hold the momentary Freeze Hold to grab it only while the button is down.
3. Shape the tone. Raise Smear to soften it, use Tilt to darken or brighten it, and Spread to widen a mono source.
4. Keep it moving. Add Drift so the pad evolves, and Decay if it should fade out by itself.
5. Save it. Store the result in one of the 4 capture slots. Switching between captures crossfades from one texture to another without clicks.

For hands-free holds, Auto-Freeze engages when the input drops below a threshold, so the tail of a phrase freezes on its own at the end of the line.

Where does it fit in a track?

• Breakdowns: freeze a word from the vocal and let it sit under the section, a pad made from the song's own voice.
• Transitions: push Feedback on the last bar before a drop for a smear that builds into it.
• Softening: a little Smear on a harsh element blurs the attack without pushing it back with reverb.
• Ambient beds: freeze one chord, add Drift, and you have a bed that lasts as long as the arrangement needs.
• Percussion: smear a drum loop into glitchy, washed-out texture.

The 22 factory presets cover these starting points, including Vocal Wash, Cinematic Pad, Frozen Moment, Feedback Build and Glitch Percussion. A/B comparison and Randomize help you find a direction fast, and your own presets save and load as files.

Frequently Asked Questions