Signal Processors

Convolving reverbs are coming down in price as more manufacturers make their own. We check out Emagic's new plug-in, which is one of the more affordable ones around, but still allows you to create your own reverbs from favourite spaces.

Can you please tell me how to set up the Korg Kaoss Pad KP2 as an ordinary pitch-bender?

In my hardware-based setup, with my TC electronics Triple*C compressor, is it possible to do the kind of limiting on a full mix where you end up with a waveform that is levelled off at the top and bottom, 'brick wall'-style?

There's already a decent range of products providing digital emulations of vintage guitar amps, but iZotope's Direct X plug-in goes a lot further, offering no fewer than seven processing modules, and is intended to model every kind of distortion you'll ever need.

Native Instruments' flagship modular software synth has now reached version 4, dispensing with the dongle copy-protection that bothered v3 owners, adding many user-friendly features and allowing even greater scope for personalising your patches.

Times change. When announced in 2001, the Chameleon, a reprogrammable DSP unit, looked out of date compared with the software studio concept. But with piracy rife, and software companies being bought out everywhere, the idea of reprogrammable, unhackable hardware now seems quite timely...

TC's plug-in powerhouse is now available as an external Firewire-connected rack unit.

I've heard various 'talking instrument' effects which some people attribute to a processor called a vocoder, while others describe it as a 'talk box'. Are these the same devices?

With high-resolution digital mixers, processors and recorders now standard fare, our recordings can sometimes seem too clean and sterile. As a result, there is quite a demand for devices and plug-ins which add a little distortion or warmth to a recording. This unusual product aims to give you every tube distortion sound you could ever want!

Although delay can be one of the most simple studio effects, software delay plug-ins often provide a bewildering array of options. So we take a look at what all the sliders and switches do, and provide advice on how best to use them.

Reverb is vital for most types of modern music production, so it's no surprise to find that many sequencers provide a variety of reverb plug-ins. But what do all those different parameters do?

TC-Helicon's new rack unit aims to provide you with every conceivable vocal recording tool, including EQ, compression, pitch-correction, double-tracking, intelligent harmony generation and effects.

What advantages are there to variable input impedance? • How can I extract loops from audio sample CDs? • Can I use the True Tape option in Cubase to prevent clipping? • Should I use S/PDIF or AES for long cable runs? • Can you have too much low-frequency absorption? • What's the best way to use the multiple filters on my soft synth?

Five bands of parametric EQ plus useful high-pass and low-pass filters, all for a bargain price.

There are many choices to make when equalising within your sequencer. Which type of EQ is best? How should you set up the different bands? Which controls do you need? We provide some answers...

A combined sub-harmonic synthesizer and high-frequency psychoacoustic enhancer for live and studio use.

Following on from our discussion of compression and limiting last month, let's look at how you can use the related processes of gating and expansion within your DAW.

The latest plug-in for the TC Powercore card allows you to extract frequency responses from commercial tracks and apply them to your own mixes.

TC's flagship reverb processor, based on the System 6000 hardware, combines 16 channels of world-beating processing with flexible and lightning-fast operation.

Behringer have redesigned their popular Composer Pro, adding tube simulation, de-essing and dynamic enhancement.

All of the main MIDI + Audio sequencers now have a bewildering array of compression and limiting plug-ins built in, but many home musicians are unclear about what all those controls and options do. And with so many varieties of each plug-in available, which one should you choose for the job in hand?