Product Review

PSP Audioware VintageWarmer
Formats: Mac VST; PC VST and DirectX
(Mac MAS and RTAS forthcoming).

Polish developers PSP Audioware's VintageWarmer is a single- or multi-band compressor/limiter with sound and saturation characteristics carefully modelled on those of analogue tape machines, accessed through a very attractive laboratory-style front end incorporating retro 'VU' meters. The large Drive control sets the input level to the limiter, while Knee adjusts from a hard turnover suitable for limiting through tape-saturation characteristics all the way to soft-knee compression, and Ceiling lets you adjust just the peak output level. Speed adjusts both attack and release times simultaneously (its name refers to tape speed), while you can shorten or lengthen the latter using the Release control.

Mix and Output are self-explanatory: I often found myself using the latter to set levels to exactly those of the input, and then using Bypass to hear exactly how VintageWarmer was enhancing my sounds. The twin 'VU' meters can display either pre-equalisation, gain reduction, or output levels for the left and right channels, with similar needle ballistics to either a hardware VU or PPM meter.

VintageWarmer can be used in two completely different modes. In single-band the High Freq, High Adjust, Low Freq, and Low Adjust controls adjust a high and low shelving equaliser with a range of ±12dB. However, switching to multi-band mode lets these same controls adjust the crossover frequencies and high and low band pre-limiter gain settings. Clicking on the front-panel logo lets you access a 'back panel' display, where there is separate adjustment for saturation levels and release multipliers for each of the three bands, as well as a further handful of knobs controlling various aspects of meter ballistics. The saturation controls are worthy of special note, as they let you do what Paul White was discussing in SOS December 2001: add density and warmth to just the bass end, or drive the high band harder without interfering with the mid-range.

As you might imagine, initial impressions can be a little overwhelming given the number of controls, but thankfully PSP have provided plenty of presets with suggested uses ranging from subtle mastering tweaks, mix first aid and finalising, 'analogue' warmth or saturation at various simulated tape speeds and a variety of multi-band compressor/limiter formats, along with a range of 'in your face' treatments intended for specific instruments such as guitars, bass, and drums. I was very impressed by the range of treatments on offer, and by the high quality of the results. This is a plug-in that you can use to completely mangle individual tracks, but also to add warmth and detail to complete songs without worrying about undesirable side-effects. Martin Walker

£ $149.

E Click here to email

W www.psp-audioware.com

Steinberg Voice Machine
Formats: Mac & PC VST

Steinberg's Voice Machine utilises pitch-shifting technology licensed from TC Helicon to allow vocal pitch and formant to be adjusted independently, and to enable a recorded vocal line in any key to be 'repitched' to follow a MIDI melody line. There are two components, which are actually separate plug-ins: Voice Machine Processor and Voice Machine Generator, the latter allowing up to four MIDI-controlled harmony parts to be created in real time in a similar way to some of Digitech's Vocalist range of products. Both variants have simple control interfaces for adjusting the formant of each shifted voice up or down using a slider and both can apply delayed vibrato to the shifted voice, which makes Generator's harmonies sound more natural. Generator also has a Humanizer parameter that introduces small random delays between the four harmony parts, and the level/pan values of each part may be set independently.

The plug-ins work by first analysing the pitch of the recorded voice, which means it must be monophonic and reasonably free from spill. The voice is then repitched to an incoming MIDI note, though Voice Machine Processor also offers the option of applying formant shift without pitch-shift, a fixed pitch-shift of up to one octave either way without formant shift, or both together. The pitch-shifting responds to both pitch-bend and mod depth controllers. The MIDI input can be recorded to a track or played in real time, but the vocal component must be prerecorded. Furthermore, the VST host application must be fully VST 2 compliant so that you can route MIDI to the plug-in. I could find no way to do this in Logic 4.8, where the plug-in showed up as a VST Effect, not as a VST Instrument, though I'm hoping that version 5 will fix this. Because of this foible, I reviewed the plug-in using Cubase. It's rather a shame that the plug-in isn't more accommodating when it comes to other VST hosts, but as Steinberg designed the VST specification, I suppose they have right on their side.

The plug-in must be first configured as an insert plug-in, which can be either mono or stereo, and then activated: only then will Voice Machine appear as a valid MIDI destination in the output field of the MIDI tracks. This way, any MIDI track can be selected to control the plug-in.

Using Voice Machine Processor is easy enough as you only have to send it a monophonic MIDI line to control the voice pitch, but it also has a couple of useful parameters that Voice Machine Generator doesn't have: specifically, Portamento and Tolerance. Portamento provides a glide rather than an abrupt change from one note to the next, and can be set to up to five seconds for special effects. Tolerance sets a pitch range that will be allowed through without processing so that natural 'off-note' artifacts or vibrato can be preserved.

Voice Machine Generator can handle up to four voices, and MIDI notes are dynamically allocated to these voices unless you specifically write four separate control melody lines and send these on four separate MIDI channels. If you've used formant-shifting to make the four harmony voices sound different, working on four MIDI channels produces more predictable results: simply sending chords offers no guarantee as to which voice will 'sing' which note.

As with the Vocalist products, the synthesized harmonies don't sound entirely natural but they do sound more convincing than most vocal samples (and they sing the right words!). Using the vibrato and Humanize settings, it's possible to create a lush harmony backing that sits nicely behind a lead vocal, and the formant-shifting is quite effective providing you don't move too far from the original. Push the slider all the way up and you're most definitely back in singing piglet territory! I'm also a little surprised that Steinberg didn't go the whole hog and include automatic pitch correction, as they seem to have the necessary technology here.

Voice Machine Processor is slightly more flexible for single-voice treatments, but again it's very difficult to get anything that sounds completely natural. However, it does create some musically useful effects that I can see working well in certain pop or dance situations, ranging from the hard pitch-quantised 'Cher' effect to simple vocal character-changing. The portamento stops the pitch changes sounding too mechanical and the delayed vibrato helps put life back into an over-controlled sound, but I don't think anyone would accept an exposed vocal part treated in this way as sounding natural. Nevertheless, Voice Machine is an interesting and musically useful plug-in providing you don't expect completely natural-sounding results, and it's also extremely easy to use. Paul White

	£129 including VAT.
	Arbiter Music Technology +44 (0)20 8202 1199.
	+44 (0)20 8202 7076.
	Click here to email
	www.steinberg.net

Plug-in Tips

If you need to conserve flexibility and CPU power, remember that the effects of plug-ins such as tremelo, rhythmic gating, swell, and auto-pan can often be replicated by the sophisticated automation facilities available in most sequencers.

When I'm using any reverb plug-in in Cubase or Nuendo, with the default settings I rarely find that I want to set any channel's reverb send amount to more than about a fifth of its maximum. In this case, it makes a lot of sense to bring down the output level of the reverb plug-in to, say, a quarter of its full level (or whatever suits your mix). This allows you to make full use of the range of each send control to make precise adjustments and ensures a healthy input level to the reverb plug-in, which can help to deliver better reverb quality. Sam Inglis

Plug-in News

Delaydots have released a new version of their Sound Designers PC plug-in bundle, containing three DSP plug-ins in both DirectX and VST PC formats, with a fourth bonus DirectX plug-in. Phat is a subharmonic synthesizer, PitchShift Multiband is a formant pitch-shifter with independent pitch control for each of several frequency bands, while daBomb is a distortion plug-in with two modes: a clipper/saturator and a physically modelled stompbox based on the Ibanez Tubescreamer. All are compatible with Windows 9x, NT, 2000 and XP. The entire package costs $55, while individual plug-ins can be ordered for $19.99 and a separate 'de luxe' version of Phat, Phat Pro DX, is available for $24.99.

www.delaydots.com

LinPlug's RM111 is a bundle comprising three percussion-related VST Instruments: the RM111 drum sampler, the Roagine percussion synth and the Manytone 24-bit acoustic multisampled drum set. RM111 provides 18 velocity-sensitive pads, each of which can host up to 32 layered, velocity-switched, crossfaded or switched samples. Roagine is a sophisticated instrument which synthesizes percussion sounds multitimbrally, while high sound quality is claimed for Manytone's 24-bit samples of real drum kits.

$99.90 (download) or $109.90 (on CD-ROM).

www.linplug.com

PSP Audioware, makers of the VintageWarmer 'valve' compressor (see main text), are offering a free enticement to visit their site in the shape of VintageMeter, a retro-styled PC and Mac plug-in offering VU and PPM metering.

www.pspaudioware.com

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