Article Preview - Sound Toys Native Effects

It’s not often you encounter plug-ins that combine detailed emulations of analogue classics with a wealth of new tricks, but Sound Toys' Native Effects do just that.

Sam Inglis

It’s probably a sign of something amiss in my life that the email announcing the availability of Sound Toys plug-ins for Windows made my week. Having become hopelessly addicted to their Filter Freak effect on my old Mac, I had been forced to spend a couple of years in cold turkey on XP. It would be like being reunited with an old friend; and not only that, but the Sound Toys range had grown in the meantime.

Filter Freak is now part of Sound Toys’ Native Effects bundle, wherein it is accompanied by no fewer than five of its colleagues. These are available in RTAS and Audio Units formats, but not as VST plug-ins. Anyone wanting the full low-down on the filter should revisit our original review from January 2004, which is available on-line at . Suffice to say that, nearly four years on, it is still a fantastic plug-in; it remains my first choice for almost all filtering duties, and the output distortion its Analog Mode offers is excellent for adding dirt to drums or synth bass.

Also included in the Native Effects pot is the equally marvellous Echo Boy delay. This too has already been reviewed by Sound On Sound, in April 2006 (), and all I can add is that it is the best plug-in of its kind that I’ve heard.

The oldest of the Native Effects plug-ins is Speed (see ‘The Need For Speed’ box), which dates back to Sound Toys’ earlier incarnation as Wave Mechanics, and was originally reviewed in SOS February 2001 (). Unlike the others, it’s an off-line plug-in which is only available in Audiosuite format, so it won’t work with Audio Units hosts such as Apple Logic. Speed offers high-quality pitch-shifting and time-stretching, which can be applied via a graphical interface for maximum flexibility.

The other three plug-ins are new to me, and to the pages of SOS. Tremolator models classic hardware tremolo units, but, like Echo Boy, goes well beyond vintage emulation into new worlds of wibbliness. Phase Mistress applies a similar philosophy to modulation effects such as phasers and flangers, while the most intriguing inclusion is Crystallizer. This is billed as a ‘granular echo synthesizer’, and draws on the Eventide H3000’s widely used ‘Crystal Echoes’ algorithm to create a weird and wonderful array of sounds based on granular resynthesis.

False Dawns

My joyous reunion with Filter Freak got off to a frustrating start. The Native Effects plug-ins appeared to install correctly, but generated an error every time I booted up Pro Tools. The problem turned out to be connected with outdated iLok drivers, and a few email exchanges with Sound Toys’ very helpful tech support sorted it out. They say that it hasn’t affected most users.

Apart from Speed, all the Native Effects plug-ins share a similar interface, with large, retro-style rotary knobs on a black background. The designers have avoided the temptation to take over the entire screen by allowing the main window to contain only the basic controls for each plug-in. More detailed control is available through a number of pop-up menus and additional windows that ‘float’ over the main plug-in GUI. This system allows Sound Toys to pack a lot of control into a small plug-in window, but it can be a bit fiddly, and in the initial Windows versions, the interface is frustratingly slow to respond to user input. Sometimes I also found that graphical elements went missing from the pop-up windows, usually when switching back to Pro Tools from another application. Sound Toys are aware of the GUI issues, and promise that they will be fixed soon. Fortunately, in most real-world situations you can find something that works without venturing too far from the main controls.

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