The new SoundToys Effects bundle is now available. V4 includes all the previous plug-ins, as well as two new ones – PanMan and Decapitator. Both PanMan and Decapitator has been known and talked about for some time now and I know quite a few happy Decapitator beta testers as well. Haven’t tried any of them myself though.
Seeing that saturation and distortion is all the rage this year as well, I bet most people will give Decapitator most attention. Personally I think PanMan looks pretty cool. I’m not sure how often I would fire up such a device, but I would definitely like to give it a go and find out. Heck, you know I’m a distortion/saturation/grit&shit junkie so I’ll probably dig Decapitator too.
More on PanMan and Decapitator.
And more on The Effects V4 bundle TDM and Native.
PanMan does look cool but TL AutoPan is freeware and seems to have (after a quick glance) many of the same features as PanMan (trigger, dynamics/envelope, shape, rhythmic subdivisions…). TL Autopan will also do this in surround. Nice.
TL Autopan is cool, but of course it’s PT only… I realise this is a pretty PT-centric site but even I as a PT user actually prefer working in Nuendo, so the PanMan is going to be pretty cool for me in that sense.
Decap is something I’ve replied about in the comments here before – the thing is phat.
When the beta hit we were speculating about price, and the assumption was this would be a higher-dollar plugin. Well, maybe the crap world economy brings some small favors – it’s $179, well under the glamorous sounding Twin Tube.
The beta was pretty intense, only the first few clicks of the drive knob were generally useable, and then all hell breaks loose – and that’s without hitting the “punish” button. Does the big & warm thing like nobody’s business and I frequently found it to be a great substitute for EQ – you can do an awful lot with that simple tone section. It does have some sparkle, too.
I think at $179 it’s something to take a serious look at – the Beta had some strangeness that seemed to come from the fact that this thing will compress – sounded like some specific things going on in the lower bands, not always “right” – but it can really, really do some “holy sh*t” stuff to your tracks – if we tend to describe what analog grit does to the low end as “wooly”, Decapitator goes right up to “hirsute”, “testosterone”, and “gorilla crotch”. And I mean that in a good way – nothing quite like it out there, and if you like to really hear your plugins doin’ something… yeah, you will.
Good point about PanMan/TL Autopan. Hadn’t really compared the features.
terminal3: I too think it’s a huge plus if plug-ins aren’t RTAS only. I often work in other hosts.
MC: Thanks for the review!
[...] is on a roll, following Decapitator and PanMan (previous post) here comes Juice, described as a more subtle saturator than the more brutal [...]