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 ...

Delay plugins If you´re anything like me you probably have at least 10+ delay plugins in your plugin folder. A delay is a very simple concept so do we really need more than a few? Today I´m trying a bunch of different delays to try to answer the eternal question. How many delays does a man really need? How I tested I took a guitar solo snippet a put it through a bunch of different delays, and then normalized the output volume. The purpose was to see if there´s any real difference, so I used whatever tone shaping features available to subtly tweak the tone without going into a special FX territory. Check out the audio examples and my findings at the end of this post. Delay features revisited I´ll be mentioning these features throughout the test, so I just thought I´d go over these quickly to avoid repetition Auto ducking Auto ducking allows you to "duck" the wet delay signal whenever the dry audio is playing, This will clear up your dry signal from av avoid muddy...

Saturation plugins You can never have enough saturation plugins, or can you? Today I´m  testing a few of them just to see how much variety we can expect and if we really need all of them.  I took all of the plugin on a spin for both guitar and bass, and you´ll find the related playlist at the end of this post.  Saturator X  IK-Multimedia makes the excellent T-racks range of plugins, which includes  Saturator X . This plugin is versatile overall and covers a lot of ground. My only issue with the GUI would be the omission of a mix button, but it has an auto-gain feature which is great. Saturation can add to the overall volume, which makes it difficult to compare before/after results so an auto-gain feature is very handy. The results were quite subtle when driven lightly, but quickly turned into a more distorted and brighter sound when pushed hard. This isn't a bad thing though and I can see this one becoming a go-to when I´m going for some edge. ...