Groove tools

Doubler plugins Double tracking is more or less standard in modern pop and rock music, and while a true double track will always be more realistic, a doubler plugin could be very useful. Maybe you never recorded a double track or perhaps the singer isn't able to perform a solid double track. Doublers to the rescue. A double tracking plugin typically works by duplicating the signal and applying subtle pitch shifting and delay. In the early days this could be achieved by setting up two tape machines where varispeed was used to set modulate the delay. The effect is in fact similar to a chorus. This doesn´t all sounds too complicated, so do you really need more than one doubler? Let´s find out. Test setup I simply used a short vocal take and added the various plugins I tested at the end of the effects chain. Most of the times I started with a basic vocal doubler preset and tweaked until I thought it sounded reasonably realistic. Some of the plugins were capable of going well

Phaser plugins This time around I´m putting phaser plugins to the test. Going into this test I imagined I would roughly be able to get the same sound from all of the contenders, but they were in fact very different beasts.  As always, you´ll find samples below. How I tested This time around I used a guitar and a piano loop, and played these through the plugins while monitoring the output in order to level match them at approximately the same loudness level (the phase peaks did introduce some challenges).  I typically used presets and went for a subtle/standard, slow and fast effect, and sometimes I had to tweak the preset slightly to fit the material. Phasing revisited A phaser is yet another delay based effect, but this time it produces the effect by changing the phase of a signal using an LFO, and mixing it back in which introduces phase cancellation. As the LFO sweeps, notches will appear at different frequencies and adding further stages will introduces even more