Plug-in Folder
This month we test two soft synths: Image Lines Toxic III and Astralis from Homegrown Sounds.
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This month we test two soft synths: Image Lines Toxic III and Astralis from Homegrown Sounds.
More and more material needs to be delivered in surround formats, but what if you dont have the time or the budget for a 5.1 remix? We test the current crop of unwrap plug-ins that can create a surround master from a stereo mix.
Middle & Sides processing offers unique mastering possibilities, such as the ability to de-ess a centrally panned vocal without affecting panned cymbal sounds. Brainworx's new plug-in combines an innovative M&S matrix with mastering-quality EQ and processing.
•Rob Papen Albino 3 •SSL Drumstrip •Starplugs Admiral
If you want other people to hear your surround mixes, you'll need to encode them into a consumer format. Pro Tools users have a choice of software for this purpose. Which should you choose?
• Xponaut Voice Tweaker 4; Waves Maxx Volume • Noveltech Vocal Enhancer
Mastering engineers are notoriously fussy about EQ, and until now, plug-in manufacturers have struggled to compete with the best hardware designs. Can Algorithmix's Red and Blue change hearts and minds?
There are now quite a few plug-ins on the market that have the ability to split audio into hundreds or thousands of bands and treat them separately, paving the way for a variety of weird and wonderful effects. Are you brave enough to enter the frequency zone?
Auto-Tune has been the industry standard pitch-correction tool for many years, and version 5 introduces many new features, but it faces its strongest competition yet from the new plug-in version of Celemony's Melodyne. So which one should you buy?
McDSP's Project Studio Bundle provides an affordable way for Pro Tools users to get their hands on versions of all the company's acclaimed effects and processors.
Line 6 first made their name with the Amp Farm plug-in, but since then they've concentrated on hardware products, and Gearbox Plug-in makes their latest range of amp and effects emulations available in a plug-in for the first time.
Another bunch of enticing plug-ins get the full-blown insert treatment and rough handling to see how they perform.
Which effects and processing plug-ins do the Sound On Sound staff and product reviewers love the best? We asked, they answered...
Giga Virtual Instrument gives you Tascam's Giga sampling engine as a plug-in for the first time.
Can an 8 Megabyte plug-in really compete with the new generation of multi-Gigabyte sampled grand pianos?
Another batch of hot plug-ins get installed and tested.
McDSP's compression and EQ designs offer a huge amount of control with the potential for accurate emulation of vintage devices. Throw in a tape-modelling suite and a powerful multi-band compressor, and you have the Classic Pack.