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...

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. ...

Bass enhancers I´ve had a bunch of bass enhancers in my toolbox for a while, but never really gave them much thought. These type of processer can however be very useful so I decided to try them all out to se what I´m been missing out on. The line up: Waves RBass Waves MaxxBass Waves Lo-Air PSP Mixbass BX_subsynth I also decided to through in a saturation in the form of  Waves Vitaminic plus a sample using the Cubase stock EQ to see if I could achieve similar results with them. Test setup All the channels were normalized to about the same audio level using a metering plugin, but the perceived loudness, as you´ll see, still varies a lot. I used a small DI bass-loop to test the various plugins, and more or less just called up the default preset on the plugin and tried to push the level until I hit the same audio level as the other plugins (again using metering). I tested them on both electric bass and an electric guitar, see audio samples below. Audio examples are a...