One of the more interesting product demonstrations at the Frankfurt Musikmesse held earlier this year came from French research institute IRCAM and plug-in developers Flux. As we reported back in the May issue of SOS, the two organisations joined forces to develop a handful of plug-ins (part of a new IRCAM Tools By Flux product range), including two high-quality reverbs (Spat, a surround-sound plug-in with advanced sound localisation features, and Verb, a more traditional reverb plug-in that uses the same algorithm as Spat), and a suite of three innovative vocal-morphing plug-ins.IRCAM Tools Trax
IRCAM Tools Trax

Trax Transformer was, in this writer’s opinion, the most jaw-dropping new plug-in at the show: its ability to quickly, easily and convincingly transform vocals to sound as though they belonged to an entirely different person (with such controls as ‘Young/Old’, ‘Male/Female’, ‘Flat/Expressive’ and ‘Breathy’) was quite remarkable, and it has obvious uses in both the post-production and recording studio worlds.

Flux have just announced that Spat, Verb and the Trax plug-ins are now available to buy, at a cost of £1397.25 for Spat (this includes a license for Verb), £698.13 for Verb on its own, and £398.50 for the Trax suite.