Filter freak pro tools

Cut : One of the more obvious terms, this simply refers to a range of frequencies being lowered in level. Pass : Often confused with boosting, the term pass refers to the frequencies which are left while others are cut. We will start by looking at a low cut filter, also known as a high pass filter. The shape of this kind of filter can be seen below within the in-built 7-band equaliser which comes with Pro Tools, remember however that the slope of the cutoff can be set as sharp of smooth as you like depending on the intended effect.

The audio example above features a white noise sample with a sweeping low cut filter starting at 20Hz and ending at 2KHz. The image below again shows the 7-band equaliser within Pro Tools showing a typical high cut filter shape. The audio example above features a white noise sample with a sweeping high cut filter starting at 20KHz and ending at Hz.

High and low pass filters can also be used together to allow a specific band of frequencies to be left as shown below , you may remember this technique from our telephone sound effect tutorial. If you would like to get this kind of sound yourself, then you can combine the techniques in this tutorial along with our other guides on sidechain compression here , and plug-in automation here.

In my opinion, one of the main issues within a mix can be the low end frequencies, if not addressed correctly they can quickly make the mix sound muddy and weak. Inspired by the Altec a pre-amp. Three essential vocal widening effects. One simple plug-in. FilterFreak Resonant Analog Filter Fat analog sweeps, pounding filter rhythms, big hardware sound — with a dual version for double the analog attitude.

Analog Sound FilterFreak faithfully recreates the sounds of classic analog resonant filters. Rhythm and Groove While tweaking knobs is always fun, FilterFreak also includes rhythm and groove tools that add motion to your tracks automatically. Highlights Capture the sound of classic resonant filters, with extended control and flexibility Funk up guitar, fatten bass, reshape drums, sweep synths and freak out vocals Choose from one filter, or two that can be used in series or parallel Select highpass, lowpass, bandpass and band reject modes with 2 to 8 poles Add synth-like resonant sweeps or classic wah-wah tones to your tracks Create funky auto-wah, envelope follower and sample-and-hold effects Grunge things up with 7 different analog saturation styles Construct intricate rhythmic filter sequences with the Rhythm Editor Design your own LFO shapes with the Shape Editor.

Simply put, it sounds great. Specs Current Version: 5. An internet connection is required at the time of activation. Soundtoys 5 The Ultimate Effects Solution. Effect Rack Rack up 14 essential Soundtoys effects in one powerful plug-in.

Soundtoys 5 Academic The full power of Soundtoys 5 at a special price for students and educators. Decapitator Subtle to extreme hardware-modeled saturation. EchoBoy Decades of echo devices in a single plug-in.

Little AlterBoy Pitch and formant shifting and hard-tuned robot effects for transforming vocals. Little Plate The lush sound of plate reverb — with a modern twist. MicroShift The classic studio trick for super wide vocals — with a powerful new twist. Radiator Vintage vibe, drive, and the magic tone of the a tube mixer. Tremolator Analog guitar tremolo effects and beyond with beat-synced rhythmic chopping. PhaseMistress Rich phase sweeps, deep analog vibe, and tempo-locked modulation.

Crystallizer Pitch Shifting granular reverse echo. PanMan Rhythmic auto-panning with cool classic features, new tricks, and analog color. Devil-Loc Deluxe A crushing, pounding, aggressive compressor for massive drums.

Sie-Q Sie-Q features spacious highs, smooth lows, and great tones fast, bringing a whole new modeled color to your EQ palette.

EchoBoy Jr. This handy piece of information isn't mentioned in the PDF-only manual, either, so owners of low-spec Macs should be careful. Since I was already using my iLok to run several other plug-ins, I opted for the default of only installing the plug-in. However, when I started up Pro Tools, it would get as far as loading up Filter Freak before complaining that some extensions were missing and offering to connect to the Pace web site to download them.

Installing the extensions as well as the plug-in from the Filter Freak CD sorted this problem out, and didn't seem to cause problems with any of my other iLok-protected plug-ins.

The iLok key is authorised in the normal way using a license card supplied in the tin. Filter Freak appears in the Pro Tools plug-in pop-ups in the usual mono, stereo and multi-mono versions, and an off-line Audiosuite version is also installed.

When inserting an instance of Filter Freak into a track, you can choose between single-band or dual-band versions of the plug-in. I was surprised to find that the promised presets were missing on my system, but Sound Toys say no-one else has reported this problem, and they were happy to email them to me.

Provided you understand the basic concepts of filtering and modulation, the interface makes it very easy to tweak the settings to your own requirements in any case.

The cutoff control travels from 20Hz to 20kHz, and there's sufficient resonance available to push the filter into self-oscillation even without an input. There's also a neat graphic display which shows the shape of the filter curve, and which is animated to show the effect that your modulation settings are having on the filter. The two-band version of Filter Freak provides independent filters that can be used in serial or in parallel.

The two-band version, as you'd expect, provides two separate filters which can be used serially or in parallel, with independent but linkable controls. There's still only one modulation source available, but it is possible to apply different degrees of modulation to the cutoff, resonance and output level of each filter. The modulation section is much more sophisticated than it appears to be at first.

A pop-up list provides a choice of six different modulation sources, and the interface changes to provide suitable controls for whichever of these you select. There's an envelope follower, an LFO with choice of wave shapes, a conventional sample and hold option, a 'Step' sample and hold option where a new random value is generated either by manual triggering or when the input exceeds a set level, and a manually or level-triggered ADSR envelope, but the most complex possibilities are provided by the Rhythm option see box overleaf.

The first time I tried Filter Freak out on a track, I wasn't all that impressed; yes, frequencies were clearly being removed, and turning up the resonance produced the expected squelchiness, but the overall sound was a bit cold and harsh, and very easy to drive into clipping distortion.

Fortunately, I soon located the switch labelled Analog Mode, and things took a serious turn for the better. With Analog Mode engaged, ramping up the input or output levels beyond 0dB doesn't lead to clipping distortion. Instead, it generates a variety of compression and distortion effects, depending on which behaviour you select from a pop-up list.

The Fat, Squash and Pump options provide progressively more obvious varieties of compression, while Dirt, Crunch and Shred offer different flavours of distortion. The colourful compression settings sounded particularly good to my ears, and I would happily use Filter Freak on a drum or bass track for this purpose alone, even if no filtering was required.

Inevitably, Analog Mode requires substantially more CPU power than Digital Mode, but makes such a difference that 99 percent of Filter Freak users will probably leave it permanently engaged. Using the Rhythm editor.