moogbadger's Reviews

Lovely shimmer FX

Lovely boutique pedal which can either be a straight reverb or, alternatively, a harmonically-sympathetic 'shimmer' effect (produced using pitchshifting and delays) can be added for that instant 'shoegaze' vibe. The tail of the reverb can be set to 'infinity'. It does tend to dominate in a mix, but this is a gorgeous-sounding pedal, almost as good as the Strymon Big/Blue Sky sound.

Great little tranny amp

Such a big, natural clean sound for a transistor amp...the reverb is ok and the tremolo is great too.

Great granular synth plug

Great granular synthesis tool. Just upload any audio file and watch as Granite transforms it into a glitchy stuttering pad. Good effects - distortion, lo-fi, reverb - good enveloping, grain length and density, control over MIDI...and you can easily select which part of the waveform it will use to weave its magic.

Chiptune heaven

Sound more like Crystal Castles than Crystal Castles with this plug. It's all here - the SID, the Speccy, the Atari, the Nintendo...

Secret Weapon

Metasynth does magic things. That's all I'm saying. Those in the know know what I mean!

Amazing

Quite simply the best-sounding algorithmic reverb I've ever heard in software.

Reassuringly expensive

Ridiculously expensive, but it will make 12 bit percussion sounds like nothing else. It sounds unique - really distinctive.

Getting on a bit now...

Released in the early Noughties, this is one of the first analogue modelling synths. As such, it's getting old now, but where it scores over the MicroKorg (which this is, essentially) is in its sheer real-time tweakability - very little is hidden away from the user, it's pretty much one knob-per-function. Plus, apart from the flimsy knobs, it's built like a tank. It sounds pretty 'digital' though - don't expect it to sound like an MS 20.

Novation Ultranova in a smaller box

Good, modern bread-and-butter subtractive modelling synth with loads of waveforms, filters and modulation possibilities. Lots of performance controls for live use. Novation also supply sounds for the synth on their website, so you can turn it into a Supernova if you wish. The arpeggiator really brings it to life when you're tweaking. It sounds deep and good for bass. It does organs and electric pianos passably well, but its strength lies in evolving pads, chunky bass, sequenced bleeps and distinctive leads. Not many onboard FX, but lots of routing options. Integrates with your DAW like a plug-in for fast editing too.

Cool!

A very wide, warm and rich flange/chorus sound which can do anything from Robert Smith to the Smiths to Siouxsie to...

It can go really fast and warbly, or it can be subtle and shimmery. Below a certain 'rate', you can manipulate its comb filter for manual jet flanging, old-school goth style. Cool.

A word of warning though; this sounds very different to the deluxe Electric Mistress, which is a pure Flanger/matrix thing. A lot of people do prefer that one, and if you're after, say, the Gilmour sound circa 'Animals', that's the one to get, not this one. This is more of a dual-purpose chorus and flanger for all-round modulation duties. It's not the best chorus or flanger sound in isolation, but combined they're lovely.

Great stuff

Combine this with the Streetly Expansion packs and you've got access to just about every sound the mighty mellotron ever made. Really well-crafted ROMpler; beautifully sampled.

Limited, but fast and very fun plug-in...

So, here's the deal. You get three sound-making tools: a loop slicer which automatically slices ANY piece of audio into tempo-matched chunks with envelope shaping; a TB-303-esque bass synth with a choice of filters which can do slides and legato; and a basic XoX-style drum sequencer with a choice of pre-made 'kits' like 'modular synth', 'vintage' and so on. There are lots of cool features like he ability to randomise everything with a single click (like direction and pitch and order of loop slices). The drums can be mixed and matched within a single kit and pitched to taste. The bass synth sounds good although it's limited to square and sawtooth waves. Patterns can be chained together into song-length sequences. All three instruments can be put through a sort of 'mini effectrix' effects patch on which any one effect (reverb, delay, comb filter, sample reduction, delay, tape stop etc.) can be applied on a per-step basis. The beauty of this plug in is the sheer speed with which ideas can be put together. On its own it's a bit limited, but used as the basis of a track it's got real potential, and the interface is very user-friendly.

Good piece of 'vintage' DSP

It sounds NOTHING like a real Jupiter 8. But it sounds very good in its own way. Using too many instances of it in the same track is not recommended as one layer of it tends to obscure another.