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Author: n9 on February 14 2007

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People who enjoyed reading this: PAWEL, mlbot, bleen, LogicFray, ignatius, electrodan, Roshi, yghartsyrt, cbit, VC, jdg, mapmap, bodo, BadWolf, tmns, Hikikomori, bbwax, DrexonField, SenorFrio, deltasleep, Kassen, Praveen

--> Potentially pointless ramblings about how the new generation of filter models are pretty good, actually, and in many cases outperform their pure analog brethern when it comes to processing guitar.

So I've been changing my guitar setup around again, venturing into what is by my count the 5th-gen plugins that are available. This was mainly as a result of my old powerbook dying and my new powerbook being an Intel model. I couldn't use my trusty PSP Nitro / Vintagewarmer combo for a long while... although both those are out in the UB format now.... but to the point:

To get my required filtering and delaying going on (listen to some stuff if you want to know my style) I needed new code and I had a little bit of money to spend so I tried out everything that I could get my hands on. The result? I bought Fabfilter's Timeless delay and Volcano Filter plugs.

Here's the poop on these: Fabfilter (as you might have guessed) is a company that is more than a little happy about the algorithms that they use to emulate analog filters, and if filters are what you like you are very likely going to like theirs. I'd first run across them when they released the FilterOne 1-osc VA synth a while back. I liked it, but I can't play synths for crap so I wasn't that interested. But I remember that filter.... it was quite nice and I wanted it as a plug the instant I heard it. Now I have it.

A few words about me and filters. I like them a lot. I've had a lot of them in my day, too: Sherman Filterbank, Lovetone Meatball, Quadfromage and Nitro, just to name my faves. I've been using Volcano for about four months now and I'm happy to say that, sound-wise, it is my favorite by a weide margin.

I like lowpass filters. I like to assign them to knobs and sweep them delicately over my guitars. I like to adjust the resonance. I like to drive them quite a bit, but I don't want any breaking up: I want the overdrive to stay under the cover of that black velvety lowpass filter, and then I want to sweep the cutoff frequency slowly up and have that overdrive funk out the transients in my guitar loops like crazy... but I want that high-mid madness to stay smooth, too... like my old sherman did things, but without the shortwave noise orchestra noise floor that the sherman always seems to have. And, oh, yeah without the world-destroying speaker shredding sound that it would occasionally make all on it's own that was like, 4billion db louder than the dulcet tones I was working on at the time. That sucked.

But back to the point: the filters on these plugs sound great mainly, I think, because of how they are set up so that you can drive the filter models with signal via input gain controls... the results are wonderful... so wonderful, in fact that they sound better to my ears than my Sherman did, not "as good" or "passable in a mix" but better. Caveat: I play guitars through these things, not drums, and I like much cleaner tones than most make with the Shermans out there.... in the realm of controlled overdriven tones the sounds that these two plugs make is quite extraordinary.

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Comments

1 | 2

02/14/07 + electrodan

The MoreCowbell VST is the hottest thing on the market right now.

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02/14/07 + n9

Masz w głowie g�wno krowie.

Recent blogs: Bootleg of first My Bloody Valentine show in 16 years., i'm back + two new tracks, new plugins that are awesome

02/14/07 + bleen

robb, have you tried urs' filterscape? if so, how do you think it compares to the fabfilter stuff?

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edited: Feb 14 2007 + n9

I demoed filterscape and I liked it. And I *really* like Urs. I didn't get along with it -- it had a ton of what I didn't need and not very much of what I did. I like *solid* filters that have good overdrive characteristics and a certain sound. Filterscape was, in my mind, light in this department when compared to Nitro or Quadfromage. Filterscape does, however, have an astounding array of modulation abilities. Many, many options in that regard, none of which I would ever, every use. the only mods I ever use are slow, shallow LFOs and a little bit of envelope follower... but my application is unusual: I only play guitars and loops of guitars through these things and for that Filterscape's sound was not as good, imo.

My faves:

Volcano (smooth, well done GUI, stunning subtlety in the overdrive tones)
Nitro (fantastic high resonance sounds, incredibly accurate to analog, allows complex patching and feedback, envelope follower is first-rate)
QuadFromage (I still really like this plugin, great sounds, great modulation abilities, great beat matched multistage envelopes, etc.)
Sherman Filterbank (the way you can link the cutoff frequencies and lock in a freq offset on the second filter is so amazing and musical.)

Recent blogs: Bootleg of first My Bloody Valentine show in 16 years., i'm back + two new tracks, new plugins that are awesome

02/14/07 + ignatius

i 2nd filterscape. it sounds incredible and you can do soooo much with it. the interface is great. so much fun.. but the sound is just fantastic. also, it comes w/a pretty nice EQ and also a nice synth. pretty awesome value for the $. the mod routings are endless on filterscape too.

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02/14/07 + n9

Well, I don't want to come out as being against filterscape, but try the demo for volcano and drive the filter with the input gain control, then check out the different filter modules. The sounds you can get with a harmonically rich source are pretty mind bending, and trump all the other digital filters I've heard.

Recent blogs: Bootleg of first My Bloody Valentine show in 16 years., i'm back + two new tracks, new plugins that are awesome

02/14/07 + monkvolcano

fabfilter stuff is awesome.. some of my fav soft stuff as well.

best part is, if you buy a CM mag you get fabfilter one free.

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02/14/07 + yghartsyrt

i love the timeless delay. it's just amazing, what you can do with these filters and a little too hot input signal. it's really great to use. sounds amazing, it's really not expensive and it's really light on the cpu.

but i really need to demo the urs stuff aswell.

played with that new delay machine beta was great.

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02/14/07 + bleen

thanks for the detailed answer re:your take on filterscape. i'm off to check out the demo of the fabfilter stuff!