It might get filed under the general category of reverb, but ModeAudio’s Airspace could more accurately be described as a sound‑design tool. This plug‑in, which supports all the common formats for Mac and Windows hosts, comprises two separate, identical IR (Impulse Response) engines with a delay section placed between them. The first IR section is designated Colour, and as that implies it’s normally used to add colour to the sound rather than obvious reverb. The IRs designed for this coloration are generally short recordings of things such as oven door slams, drum machines, synths, string scrapes and so on. There are also guitar amps, found sounds and a huge range of other weird and wonderful things. From here, the signal feeds into the delay section and thence into the Space IR engine. That one would normally be loaded with a more spatial type of IR captured from a real space or a physical reverb device. That’s the intended workflow, but actually both IR sections are identical and have access to the full range of IRs — so you could easily break a few rules in the name of creativity by, for example, chaining two colour IRs or two long reverbs.
The GUI is well organised, with the Colour section to the left, the Delay section in the centre with its modulation panel below, and the Space section to the right. Each section has its own level control and bypass button. The waveform of the IRs loaded into the two sections is displayed on screen, and there’s a manageable number of controls to adjust the IR duration, wet/dry mix, pre‑delay and reverb envelope. Clicking EQ below the waveform display replaces it with a four‑band EQ, which can be activated using the EQ On button. The delay can be set differently in the left and right channels, with many note subdivisions to choose from if you want to lock it to your DAW tempo. The two channels can be linked if needed and there’s also a crossfeed option. The feedback controls in the delay section are linked to the adjustable high‑ and low‑pass filters.
The modulation section offers multiple LFO waveforms including random, with separate sections for Time Mod and Pan Mod. In the centre are controls for Pitch Shift (±2 octaves) and Shift Mix. An overall wet/dry slider is available at the top right of the GUI. In fact, really the only missed trick I can think of is that there’s no option here to reverse the IRs.
The range of effects is extraordinary but most retain the musical integrity of the original, so that you end up with a playable instrument rather than an abstract noise.
What makes Airspace such a powerful sound‑design tool is the sheer number of Colour IRs, which in many cases render the original sound source unidentifiable. For example, a concert grand piano can be transformed into anything from a granular synth pad to a haunting wind chime. If creating ear candy is on your wish list, there are plenty of tools here to achieve your ends. The spatial reverbs also sound good and vary from springs, plates and digital reverb units to real spaces of all sizes. As expected, there are plenty of presets, and these are thoughtfully divided into Ambient, Blur, Cosmos, Reflect, Transform and Warp categories. Exploring these gives a good idea of the creative potential of this plug‑in. The range of effects is extraordinary but most retain the musical integrity of the original sound, so that you end up with a playable instrument rather than an abstract noise. I’m definitely going to have a lot of fun exploring this plug‑in further — there are so many permutations of IRs and control options that there will always be something new to discover, and unique results every time.
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£60 including VAT.
$79