Category: Review

Posted on

Softube Echoes

Software Review

Echoes of a time gone by

Softube already has an excellent tape-echo on its program, but the developers behind the Swedish software are capable of so much more. That’s why we weren’t particularly surprised when late in November they made a sneak release of yet another delay (Echoes), this time only to the subscribers of their newsletter. Of course we jumped at the offer, and ever since then the echoes have just been bouncing around our little music studio. Now it’s available to anyone interested.

Echoes also offers an excellent algorithm-based reverb.

Softube Echoes

Now, of course, we have to step up and try to tell the world about this formidable software. Echoes offers no less than six different delay variants with quite different basic characteristics: Filter, Reverb, BBD, Tape, Pan and Lo-fi.

  • Filter is a normal delay with a slightly filtered feedback part. A perfect echo effect for vocal overdubs.
  • Reverb works great for synths and guitar overdubs, and this algorithmic reverb has been created using the different echo taps.
  • BBD, or Bucket Brigade Device, as it is pronounced, is an analog delay technology that appeared in various delay pedals for us guitarists back in the 70s. Here, that effect has been recreated in digital form, complete with various aliasing effects.
  • Tape is based on the echo devices we’ve heard on countless records – especially on vocals – and here we’ve been given the opportunity to adjust a number of previously unwanted side effects such as distortion (drive), dirt and wobble.
  • Pan widens the stereo image even on mono sources, and can also create a certain movement with static sound sources, such as keyboards with sustain (-pedals).
  • Last, but certainly not least, we have Lo-fi. It is excellent for recreating the effect of generally “crappy” echo effects from, for example, low-budget devices from the past. Here they use bit-crushing in combination with modeled synth 4-pole filtering.
Each delay variant has its own set of adjustable variables. Here we see the BBD delay.

A formidable user interface

Softube has managed to create a user interface that is unlike anything we’ve seen before, but despite this, you have no problem understanding how everything works. Good job there, gentlemen (and ladies) developers!

Here you will find controls for the mix between dry and affected signal, for the delay time – in milliseconds or bars (if you sync to your DAW) – and for feedback. And there we also have a feedback limiter that should protect us against rampant feedback.

There is also a ducking function that allows the delay effect to be kept in check, so that it does not drown out vocals or other solo elements, but only blooms in the silence between solo phrases. The only thing I miss is the ability to lock the wet/dry mix when browsing between different presets.

In the output section, you can widen the stereo image, focus low-frequency tones into a mono image, or filter your echo effect to your liking.

Each individual delay variant has also been endowed with a variety of different setting options for that particular type of delay effect. For example, for Lo-fi we have settings for sampling frequency, bit depth, envelope follower and filter cutoff. For the reverb effect, modulation, diffusion, modulation balance and tone are offered, and for the BBD delay we find settings for waveform, modulation speed and amount, plus filter cutoff. Not bad!

You can also click in the window wherever you want and decide that you want another echo right there. Then you can move it by dragging it to the exact position in the stereo image that you like. Yum!

Echoes also offers a set of Extended Features.

Extended Features…

Softube Echoes also supports what the developers call “Extended Features”. If you click on three different symbols at the top of the Echoes window, a good set of meters for the input signal and side-chain ditto will appear on the left. On the right we find the corresponding ones for the output side and a gain-matching function. Below we find meters for head-room, a high-pass filter and a phase inverter. Thank you very much!

These are functions that you can pull out when you need them, and otherwise just put them away to save space on the screen. Really clever indeed! This feature is now available in a variety of Softube plugins, and it certainly feels useful.

Here’s how to bring up “Extended Features”:

Open Extended Features by clicking on any of the three icons in the menu bar.

Sound images

But what good would all these features be if Echoes didn’t also sound really good? Well, it really does! Here you can play around with the most entertaining, astonishing, or just simply divinely beautiful delay effects imaginable! Before I opened the plug-in, I was a little worried about whether I would be able to appreciate the reverb in Echoes – it rarely sounds very good if you just put in reverb as an after-thought because you think you might need one. But all my doubts were put to shame. The reverb effect in Echoes is a really good and good-sounding algorithm reverb. Clearly useful in a variety of different sound situations.

And the rest of the delay effects sound just as good as you’ve gotten used to when it comes to plug-in effects from Softube. A top rating is gladly awarded there! Here you can actually find most of what you could possibly need in the way of delay. And the adjustment options are simply brilliant. It’s really as easy as looking for a preset that you think might work, and then tweaking it so it fits exactly where you want it.

Softube Echoes offers a variety of useful presets to start with for your music creation.

Summary

With Echoes, Softube has presented an extremely powerful and good-sounding delay effect. It offers six different delay variants: Filter, Reverb, BBD, Tape, Pan and Lo-FI and a number of extremely useful preset settings to start from. In addition, each individual delay effect has a good set of fine-tuning options. And on top of all this, you have both a ducking function, an output section where you can change the stereo image and, as the icing on the cake, the extra functions under Extended Features.

The sterling interface makes Echoes very easy to work with, it’s easy to set individual delayers/taps so that they sync with your music, and also place them exactly where you want them in the stereo image. You just get that genuinely happy feeling! Thank you Softube for an absolutely wonderful delay plugin!

Link: Watch a walkthrough.

System Requirements

  • Monterey 12, Ventura 13, Sonoma 14
  • Windows 10 (64-bit), Windows 11
  • Softube account
  • iLok account
  • Computer with AU, VST, VST3 and/or AAX compatible DAW software
  • Internet access (to download installations and manage licenses)

PRICE Normally: 1,570 SEK; currently 1,039 SEK

INFO www.softube.com/echoes

PLUS

  • Sounds absolutely great
  • Excellent interface
  • Six different delay variants
  • Lots of great presets/settings
  • Lots of great features

MINUS

  • I would have liked to be able to lock the wet/dry mix
Posted on

iZotope Cascadia

Software Review

In the iZotope Catalyst Series, the developers now present a third program, the delay app Cascadia. We check this up a little extra…

After the success of Aurora and Plasma, iZotope continues on the beaten path and presents Cascadia, an intelligent tape-delay app with what the developers call “adaptive unmasking”, a function that automatically ensures that you experience the sound as both clear and focused.

Cascadia is a very versatile delay. For us users, this is a most welcome addition to our other delay apps. We should perhaps also mention that several of the competitors have developed apps with a similar concept; Swedish Softube just launched their Echoes and from German Hofa Plugins we have now seen Color Delay. We hope to return to both of these, but today it is iZotope Cascadia that is placed on the test bench.

Ducking and Adaptive Unmasking

There is an inherent problem with most reverb and delay apps. The problem is that reverb tails and delays have a tendency to mush the sound, if it is placed on top of fairly dense tracks. You want the effect to come into its own between different vocal or instrumental phrases; not lie as a constant blanket over the entire track. In the past, sound engineers could solve this by sending the signal via a side-chain where they used a gate or a compressor to keep the effect under control when the sound was at its most intense. This is called “ducking”, and the result was that the reverb or delay was kept somewhat at bay during the important phrases and then allowed to bloom, when the vocal phrases temporarily fell silent.

Other delays and reverbs have had similar ducking features, but iZotope has refined the whole process and takes this a few steps further. Not only does it adjust the level of the effect, but it also dynamically filters the effect signal, giving you a very useful effect that is always there without taking attention away from the original signal.

iZotope Cascadia is using iLok for its authorization.

Masking

What is called “masking” occurs when two different signal sources are too close to each other in volume and frequency content. Typical phenomena of this kind occur when a pianist is to accompany a solo singer. If neither the instrumentalist nor the sound engineer are experienced enough, it can be a really boring experience – I have heard this countless times on live TV. The pianist is hammering away in the same frequency range as the singer, and perhaps also trying to drown out the vocals. An experienced producer can control the whole thing by partly arranging the piano accompaniment so that it is not exactly in the spectrum where we find the vocals. Of course, you can also demand that the pianist adopt a slightly more restrained playing style, which could leave room for the important vocals.

This problem also tends to rear its ugly head when adding a delay or reverb signal to an original signal. iZotope has previously introduced several plug-ins – Neutron, Nektar and Neoverb – that offer tools to deal with the masking problem. Neutron 5, for example, offers both Dynamic EQ and an Unmask function, but when it comes to the problem of the delay mucking up the input signal, Cascadia may be the perfect solution.

As a user, you are offered lots of good presets for iZotope Cascadia.

iZotope Cascadia

In Cascadia you don’t have to fiddle with complicated side chains and other things; all settings are accessible directly from within the app. Here you can easily create nicely bouncing delays, tight slapback echoes or other useful effects, without taking the focus off the vocal or instrument that should be in the driver’s seat for a single moment. Muddy mixes are a thing of the past.

The four main advantages of Cascadia are as follows:

  • Adaptive Unmasking Dynamically EQs the delay signal to keep the dry signal present.
  • Flexible Delays You can choose to sync the delay to your DAW, set a custom delay, use ping-pong effects, play the effect backwards, or give it a bit of a vintage pitch shift.
  • Intuitive Controls A very efficient interface with easy-to-understand controls.
  • Lots of useful Presets More than 50 professionally designed presets that include both spatial and more textural sounds.
A wonderfully simple and intuitive interface. The ping pong setting is symbolized by a table tennis racket and a ball. Clever enough!

The User Interface

If we start by looking at the interface itself, most of it fits in one and the same window, which of course can be adjusted in size completely according to your wishes. At the top of the window there are buttons for the Reverse function, for “sunning” the Delay, for Bypass, and for selecting a preset.

Along the left edge you will find settings for syncing to DAW programs and in that case which time signature you want to use. There is also a button for selecting pingpong delay (it is illustrated with a table tennis racket plus ball – just such a thing), a large knob for the delay amount, two sliders for Feedback and stereo width, plus two knobs for modulation (depth and rate).

On the right edge of the image we find a slider for the amount of unmasking, plus settings for Attack Release and Sensitivity. There are also two buttons for Bypass and for listening only to the signal that is “masked” away. The rest of the window shows a combined frequency and level image of the signal, and at the bottom you can set the cutoff frequencies of the Hi- and Lopass filters. Everything feels incredibly intuitive. Just keep in mind that Cascadia is primarily designed to be used as an insert effect. If you want it in a tap (send/return), you should press the Solo Delay button and send it a generous signal.

What does it sound like?

Well, it sounds incredibly good. Neat and tidy, without being disturbed by any effects that crowd in. They are just there and lift and amplify the basic sound in a very exquisite way. Nothing in the delay effects crowd in or wants to be in the foreground. And it is incredibly easy to create a balance between the original signal and all possible effects.

As a user, we also have a rich selection of different effects and masterfully programmed presets to choose from.

I suggest that you click on the link below where the developers show what Cascadia sounds like and how it works.

Summary

iZotope’s Catalyst series contains three powerful effect plugins today. Plasma (saturation), Aurora (reverb) and Cascadia, with different delay effects. Unlike Ozone, Neutron and Nectar, the Catalyst series effects have a significantly simpler and more clear interface. However, this does not mean that they are in any way “simple” as effects. Quite the opposite! They are all three incredibly powerful and capable effects. We hope to be able to come back with tests on the other two in the Catalyst series, today it’s about Cascadia.

With Cascadia you can create delay effects that never get in the way of your most important audio tracks. Thanks to iZotope’s Spectral Unmasking technology, they have the ability to always stay just the right amount in the background. An incredibly intelligent delay effect, in other words.

Whether it’s nice, discreet slapback echoes, large, swelling delay cascades, or just a little bit of reverb, it always sounds clean and nice. No long effect tails are there to interfere with your, or others’, solo efforts. And you also have a lot of really useful preset settings to start from.

Your mixes will sound so much better with Cascadia in place among the effects plug-ins, and the soloists you’ve recorded – whether they’re vocal or instrumental – will be forever grateful that they can now shine in all their glory. Please send the developers at iZotope a thank you note when you receive rave reviews for your mixes in the future! I certainly will.

Links

Here we can read a little more about what “frequency masking” means:

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/what-is-frequency-masking.html

And here the developers show how to work with Cascadia:

https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/cascadia-delay-plugin.html

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

OS Versions

●  Mac: macOS Ventura 13.6.x, macOS Sonoma 14.4.x, macOS Sequoia 15.0; Compatible with both Intel and Apple silicon M-series Macs (native & Rosetta)

●  Win: Windows 10 (22H2), Windows 11 (23H2)

Plugin Formats

● AAX, AU, VST3. All plugins 64-bit only.

Note: VST2 format is no longer supported.

Plugin Hosts

● Logic Pro 10.8–11, Pro Tools 2024, Ableton Live 12, Cubase 13, Nuendo 13, Studio One 6, REAPER 7, FL Studio 21, Reason 12.5, Maschine 2, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Audition CC 2024, Premiere Pro CC 2024

PRICE

Cascadia plugin for Mac and PC: 55 euros

Catalyst Series Holiday Bundle (From Nov 26–Jan 05)

Bundle with the other Catalyst Series plugins: 139 euros (includes Cascadia, Aurora, Plasma)

Posted on

Sonuscore’s Chroma – Upright Piano

Software Review

A TRULY SPECIAL PIANO

Once in a while you find this very special instrument. It might even be so special that you wonder why no one told you about it before. 

Chroma Upright Piano is just such an instrument.

Chroma – Upright Piano stands out a little bit extra, not just because it has such a rich history, or because it has been magnificently restored, but more for its unique character and the emotions it can convey.

It all started in a small studio where Sonuscore’s team was going to sample a grand piano. Be that as it may, someone happened to see another and much less conspicuous piano – a regular so-called “upright”, or Joanna as they used to say. When you played a few notes on this piano, you discovered that it sounded absolutely magnificent – although perhaps a little out of tune. However, it was convincing enough to decide to give it a major facelift in the form of a thorough restoration and tuning. This piano just had to be sampled and shared with the world.

Würzburger Pianohaus

The piano came from a small manufacturer, Wilhelm Diemer, who had a workshop in Würzburg, Germany. Diemer pianos were known for their brilliant quality and distinctive sound. This particular copy was approx: 100 years old and after the careful restoration it turned out to have all the acoustic properties that had been hoped for, and now it is available in sampled form as Chroma – Upright Piano.

In fact, Jonas Hausotter, one of the engineers behind the sampling of Chroma, found out that the studio that originally housed Chroma – Upright was going to close, and so he was given the opportunity to purchase the old treasure. The piano is now with Hausotter in Mainz.

The recording

Recording an upright piano may sound straightforward, but truly capturing its acoustic soul requires a sensitive approach. Jonas reveals the diverse array of microphones used to ensure every nuance could be preserved:

“We used a whole set of different microphones – many more than on a grand piano. In front of the piano we had two Coles 4038s really close to the strings and another ribbon mic in the middle to fill out the stereo image. Above, we placed a pair of Neumann km140 at a distance, somewhere between 0.5 and 1 meter from the piano, and a pair of Schoeps mk5 even higher to capture the whole instrument.

Below we had a pair of Gefell m930s under the keyboard and a pair of Sennheiser mkh8020s behind the piano. And let’s not forget the RUMBLE position – a single LOM Audio Geophone attached to the metal chassis, providing a unique depth of sound.”

This detailed microphone placement allows the Chroma – Upright Piano to offer a rich, multidimensional soundstage. Whether you want the intimate closeness of the ‘Front’ position or the wider perspective from ‘Above’, each microphone captures a different aspect of this piano’s character.

The articulations: The source of creative expression

What really sets Chroma – Upright Piano apart from other piano libraries is the Chroma method: the articulations. They didn’t just record the standard tones; they pushed the boundaries and included both felt, muted, plucked, flageolet and string articulations. Each one offers a unique texture and emotional depth, which can provide a large palette to paint your musical stories.

“The felt sounds really good! We also recorded muted notes because we loved them so much on the grand piano we sampled earlier. Picked notes – probably my least favorite because it was killing my fingers – and flageolets, which sound really cool with their harmonic content. And this time we used a real violin bow instead of an E-bow,” explains Jonas.

In NI’s Kontakt, these articulations can be mixed and played in parallel, allowing you to explore a wide range of emotions and textures, from the soft, intimate whisper of felt notes to the incredibly beautiful overtones of flageolets and literally everything in between. It’s a playground for creativity, offering you the tools to create deeply expressive and unique compositions.

Round Robins bring your music to life

Round Robins are an often overlooked feature, but they play a critical role in bringing a sampled instrument to life. Chroma – Upright Piano has eight different Round Robins that alternate, and they also sampled 27 touch layers for the standard and felt articulations, even more than they did for Croma – Grand Piano. This makes every note you play feel organic and dynamic, capturing the subtle nuances that make real pianos so captivating.

“It makes the instrument more alive because you capture so many small nuances with the small differences in touch,” notes Jonas. This attention to detail means Chroma – Upright Piano responds to your touch just like a physical piano, adding depth and realism to your playing.

Is Chroma – Upright Piano a better piano then?

Yes, it is in any case very different with its whole set-up; sampled with lots of different microphones, its many different articulations – and the possibility to mix these, 91 different factory settings (preset) and 27 different touch levels for a very nuanced and dynamic sound.

And yes, I probably also think it sounds better than most upright pianos I’ve listened to. There is a warmth in the sound that you rarely find in the sampled world. And the feeling when playing the Chroma – Upright Piano is also very special. You get extremely close to the feeling you can experience when you play a really good physical piano.

Chroma – Upright Piano is a very useful piano for both quiet piano ballads in the singer/songwriting tradition, for composing film scores, for traditional pop music and everything in between.

It’s also an excellent complement to Sonuscore’s Chroma – Grand Piano, if, against all odds, you think a grand piano takes up a bit too much space in the mix – we’re of course also talking about the sampled version.

In addition to the possibility of mixing different articulations, you also have the possibility to vary the amount of mechanical sound that normally occurs when pedaling and hammering on keys.

Conclusion

With Chroma – Upright Piano, Sonuscore presents a very useful and good-sounding alternative to all sampled full-size grand pianos that can be encountered in the music world. It has a warm, soft and full character and lots of different articulations that you can control in real time with modulation wheels, or other control devices via NKS. I was especially fond of the felt-muffled articulation and the flageolet variant, but also the plucked articulation felt both exciting and useful at the same time.

Chroma – Upright Piano has been sampled with no less than 27 different pitch levels and this naturally contributes to the truly realistic feeling you get when playing the piano. This one comes highly recommended!

System requirements

• Works with the free version of KONTAKT PLAYER

• KONTAKT Version 7.10.4 or later

• macOS 10.15 or later

• Windows 10 or later

• 8GB RAM (more recommended)

• At least 17 GB of free hard disk space. SSD is recommended

• Some of the presets for CHROMA – UPRIGHT PIANO need a powerful CPU to run smoothly; an Intel i7 processor or better is recommended.

Facts

Sampled upright piano

INFO & DEVELOPMENT Sonuscore, www.sonuscore.co,

PRICE Chroma Upright: 149 euros; crossgrade from Chroma Grand Piano to Chroma Upright: 99 Euro; Chroma Upright + Chroma Grand Bundle: 239 Euros

PLUS 

  • Sounds absolutely beautiful
  • NKS compatible
  • Works with the free Kontakt Player version
  • 27 velocity layers
  • About 90 different presets
  • You can mix different articulations
  • Four different microphone positions

MINUS

  • Why hasn’t anyone told me about Chroma – Upright Piano before?

Links

INFO https://www.sonuscore.com/shop/chroma-upright-piano/

Here you can listen to some of the presets that Chroma – Upright Piano offers: