Kush Audio REDDI
The clue’s in the name with this one: it’s a big red DI box found with great regularity in pro studios wherever bassists are in need of gorgeous direct tones. Now you can “fatten all things bass” right inside your DAW with this official emulation from Kush. Stick it first in the chain, before EQ or compression, and its “gentle tube shimmer” allows “bass, synths, and guitars to sit in the mix with less processing and fuss.” Crank Level for more saturation, emphasise subby lows with Bass, flip the +20dB Headroom switch to clean it up, and invert polarity with Phase Flip. It’s $49.
URL www.thehouseofkush.com
Sinevibes Droplet
Want to soak tracks in delay? Try this ‘raindrop delay’ from Sinevibes. It uses 24 feedback delay lines configured to create the sound of “drops of rain or small particles falling onto a surface”. This is achieved through variable delay time and frequency damping, as well as ‘chaotic’ panning randomisation. Further features include low-/high-pass feedback filtering, and delay time modulation “with unique phase-flipped routing”. For maximum madness, parameters are randomised every time an instance of Droplet is created – so it never sounds quite the same. Yours for $35.
URL www.sinevibes.com
Ploytec & ISM Mango
Any plugin with a Fruit control has gotta be worth a slot in ’s news pages – so here’s Mango by Ploytec and ISM. This valve/tapestyle harmonic enhancer offers “sweet, creamy and pure fruitiness.” In normal stereo operation, the single Fruit knob increases the effect’s intensity. Switch it to mid/side mode, and you get a Fruit knob per channel, allowing “decent and smooth fine tuning of the stereo base, you won’t get from any other software or hardware.” Best of all is the promise that you can pile on all this sticky-sweet goodness with “no guilt, no regrets.” Available for €69.
URL www.ploytec.com
DMS Ascension
Offering “every synth sound and MIDI pattern you need to make a great dance track,” Ascension aims squarely at purveyors of pumping four-to-the-floor genres. It’s got four FM-capable oscillators, and each can handle subtractive (saw, square, etc), wavetable (1100 waveforms, or draw your own), or ROM (10.5GB sampled library) synthesis/playback. On the MIDI side, 1700 loops are included. Further features include six envelopes; arpeggiator; eight-slot mod matrix; nine filter types; and 850 presets. Ascension is out now for the “hilariously low” price of £149.
www.dancemidisamples.com