5 ADVENTUROUS EFFECTS

Soundtoys Effect Rack 1

The Effect Rack bundles up 14 of Soundtoys’ top tier effects such as EchoBoy, Decapitator and FilterFreak into a powerful multi-effect rack used to make endless combos of processing, ideal for all kinds of creative sound design tasks. Once you’ve created your own custom rack of processing, it’s simple to change the order of your plugins when experimenting, whilst the built-in wet/dry control and option to sync plugins individually or collectively to your DAW’s MIDI clock turns the Effect Rack into a beefy single effect processor. You can also save your Effect Rack presets, and use them in any other DAW. Ideal for anything from making distorted vocal delay lines or modulated drum effects, through to turning pretty much any sound into a full-on ambient noise bed.

Antares Auto-Tune Pro 3

Antares’ powerful vocal processor can adjust the tuning of an incoming signal in real time, with adjustable levels of subtlety. While you can get a relatively natural sound when tuning vocals, you can make the tuning work really quickly for a Migos or Kanye West-style vocal sound, giving the obviously robotic tone that Auto-Tune is famous for. Another great tip for Auto-Tune is to mix the dry vocal into the tuned one; this will add thickness and depth, similar to detuning one oscillator in a multi oscillator synth patch.

Native Instruments Guitar Rig 6 2

Not only is Guitar Rig 6 a superb bit of kit for the guitar shredders amongst us, but it’s also a top tool for sound design and effect work too. There’s a huge selection of modules on board, covering different guitar amp heads and cabinets, staple effects like chorus, reverb and EQ, as well as a selection of DJ-focused effects taken from Traktor.

One of the best features of Guitar Rig however is the built-in modulation tools, which allows you to modulate several effects at once using the same LFO or envelope, resulting in a powerful sound design tool that’s great for adding cool movement to synth basses, creating powerful vocal effects... or just sounding like Eddie Van Halen.

XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color 4

Like retro equipment? You’ll love RC-20 Retro Color! There are six effect modules in the chain, for adding varying levels of noise, distortion, wow/flutter and bitcrushing, before shaping using the on-board high/low-pass filters and Magnitude control, which acts like a wet/dry slider. Retro Color is ideal for giving vocals a VHS tape-like effect for a bridge, adding a vintage vinyl feel to sterile soft synth leads, or even making a sample sound like it was done on a 12-bit sampler. Try it on your master bus too, for aged-sounding breakdown edits.

iZotope Trash 2 5

Want extreme distortion? Trash 2 is your friend. There are 60 distortion or saturation algorithms, to apply to multiple frequency bands, letting you add mad distortion to drum cymbals without touching the kick, for example. You can then shape the tone with pre and post distortion

EQ, a convolution tool that emulates various spaces, and a useful built-in delay line. Ideal for hard neurofunk synth bass tones, adding character to lead lines, or creating powerful vocal edit effects, with the on-board dynamics and limiting helping to keep things in check.