Soundtoys 5
Price: $249 [£190] (50% education discount)
Audio effects are an essential component of modern recording production, especially in commercial pop and rock, and listeners now expect to hear these effects. In fact, modern commercial music without heavy effects processing would sound very tame to contemporary listeners and therefore be unlikely to succeed.
While looking for new effects, I discovered Soundtoys 5 – I had been searching for a good quality echo effect for some music I was working on. My hunt revealed that Soundtoys EchoBoy was one of the best-rated products available. I also discovered that the company offered a generous 30-day full trial so, naturally, I tested it out only to find that this trial download also included access to all 21 effects in the Soundtoys 5 bundle. After testing EchoBoy, I found myself liking it immensely. I went on to test a few other Soundtoys effects in the bundle and found that I liked these equally well. So, I therefore decided to purchase the whole bundle. At this point I also discovered that Soundtoys offers a 50% discount for students and educators, which means that the product could potentially be a good choice for school music tech suites.
What is Soundtoys 5?
This is a collection of 21 audio effects within one powerful bundle which is compatible with all the major DAW recording programs for Mac and PC. While any of the effects can be loaded individually, they also include the Soundtoys Effects Rack, which you can load any number of the effects into at once. This is very convenient because it allows you to customise your own effects chains and save them for future use.
Soundtoys effects are widely used in the music industry because they sound excellent and are easy to understand and operate. Soundtoys has painstakingly developed its effects collection over a long period and many are based on classic hardware effects units from the 80s and 90s. Its aim was to recreate the vintage analogue sound of these classic effects because it's a sound which today's musicians and producers still desire.
The effects in action
As with most modern effects there are numerous good quality presets and this is the quickest way to achieve the sound you require. If you select the preset closest to your desired sound you can then further tweak it and save your modification for future recall. The controls are all laid out in a logical way so referring to the user manual should not be required too often. I was quickly hooked in by the sounds effects possible using EchoBoy and I am sure to use it frequently from now on. PhaseMistress (based on the famous Electric Mistress from ElectroHarmonix) can easily create a variety of wonderful phase effects beloved by guitarists and keyboards players; it is great fun to click through the presets and choose a favourite.
One of the most interesting effects is Little AltarBoy, which is a tool for changing the tone of vocal parts in a dramatic fashion. For example, it can change a male into a female vocal and vice versa. It can also achieve a vocoder-style effect and then control the vocal melody from a MIDI keyboard.
There are some more unusual plugins in the bundle. Crystalizer is another powerful effect that combines pitch shifting and reversed echo with a granulator. Granulation is a process that chops and samples incoming audio into tiny pieces which can then be played back in any order with all manner of changes. This means you can completely alter the nature of, say, a guitar part and then transform it into a huge soundscape.
In summary
One nice bonus feature is that the user guide includes fascinating background information about the development of hardware effects, which inspired the effects and the evolution from analogue tape to modern digital sound. Without going into every single one of the 21 effects within the Soundtoys 5 bundle, it contains a brilliant array of effects within one collection. They are of a consistently high quality throughout and utilising these effects can totally transform your audio production. While there is a great deal of sophistication within these effects they are all user-friendly in operation and the controls are logically laid out.
The full Soundtoys 5 effects collection:
- Crystalizer
- Decapitator
- Devil-Loc
- Devil Loc Deluxe
- EchoBoy
- EchoBoy Jr
- Effect Rack
- Filter Freak 1
- Filter Freak 2
- Little Alter Boy
- Little MicroShift
- Little Plate
- Little Primal Tap
- Little Radiator
- MicroShift
- PanMan
- PhaseMistress
- PrimalTap
- Radiator
- Sie-Q
- Tremolator
