Kilohearts Toolbox PROFESSIONAL Snapins Bundle
Featuring every snapin available, this bundle has you covered as far as sound design goes. Creative effects and utility tools in a great mix to get your inspiration going.
As you use more and more snapins the unified form language starts making your life easiers, as you instantly recognize the recurring components and design patterns. Familiar interfaces will help speed up your process, and working exactly the same in every DAW makes these tools indispensible to the hardened professional that has to work across platforms while collaborating with artists and production teams around the globe.
Included Snapins:
3-Band EQ
3-band EQ will get you surprisingly far when it comes to shaping your sound, or your entire song. By dragging the split frequencies around it feels like much more than a standard 3-band equalizer.
Bitcrush
When nostalgia hits, Bitcrush can bring you back to the digital hardware of times past. It simulates the audio being played back using a low quality sampler with limited sample rate and bit depth. Mm, crunchy. The Bitcrush can be used to create distorting effects that sound like that of scraping analog radio, or inherently lo-fi sound sources, like old video games.
Chorus
The Chorus enhances the stereo effect and presence of a sound by mixing it with delayed versions of itself. It's like your own personal choir!
Comb Filter
The Comb Filter hollows out the sound by carving out frequencies at each multiple of the base frequency, like the teeth of a comb. The Comb Filter will mix the signal with a delayed version of itself, creating a filter with repeated troughs and peaks across the spectrum. It's also possible to process left and right differently in a way that not only gives a wide stereo effect, but also collapses right back to the original signal when mixed to mono. Nifty!
Compressor
A compressor will even out the audio volume by lowering the volume when the signal is loud. This helps shape the dynamics of the sound both at the initial attack and the sustain tail. Each compressor has their own flavor, and the kHs Compressor tastes sweet.
Delay
The kHs Delay can be run both free running and tempo synced with various stereo and feedback options. Most notable however is the duck feature, which optionally only lets the echoed sound through when there is no dry input signal. This allows for long and heavy delay while still avoiding clutter over the original sound. Clever!
Distortion
Ever since mankind invented music, there has been a desire to make it heavier. Distortion can take your sound from zero to sword wielding hero in seconds. 5 different distortion shapes are available to add a tinge of edge or rip things apart. In stereo, if that's what you're into.
Dynamics
Dynamics processing featuring upward and downward compression as well as expansion. Thresholds and ratio are controlled by clicking and dragging on the visualization in the upper part of the plugin interface. The visualization shows how input levels are mapped to output levels by the dynamics processing. The current input and output levels are marked in the visualizer by a moving disc.
Ensemble
The Ensemble effect creates the illusion of many voices playing in unison. Much like a chorus, it creates this effect by playing delayed copies of the incoming sound. On top of this, it modulates the phases of each voice to create a silky smooth result without any metallic flanging. The delay times for each voice are also modulated in order to detune each voice slightly.
Filter
Sometimes in life, sound comes with frequencies you don't like. So why not cut them out? kHs Filter is a resonant filter with 7 modes, swiftly getting rid of frequencies you don't like or enhancing frequencies you do. And it's doing it and doing it and doing it good.
Flanger
Flanger Creates a flanging effect by mixing the audio with a slightly delayed version of itself. The length of the delay can be adjusted manually and modulated. Optionally, this effect can also add a phase shift between the dry and wet signals to create an infinite barberpole-style flanging effect upwards or downwards.
Formant Filter
If your music doesn't get enough "Aahs" and "Oohs", maybe you should try putting them into the actual music? Formant Filter shapes the sound in a similar way to how the vocal tract works, leading to vowel-esque sounds. So, channel your inner robo-Tarzan.
Aaaaoooeoeeeoeeeee! The Formant Filter will boost two frequencies to mimic the sounds of different vowels.
Frequency Shifter
Do you ever think to yourself: "Screw harmonics!"? Well, ok, probably not. But let's do it anyway! Frequency shifter will shift all the frequencies in the input signal up or down by a certain amount. This kind of shifting will ruin the harmonic content of the input signal, making it sound dissonant. Mmm... Dissonance...
Gain
Sound loud? Make softer. Sound quiet? Make louder.
Gate
Not all sound is created alike, and sometimes you want to just leave it at the Gate. Quickly cut out low hum and noise from the signal, cut reverb tails short or exaggerate the dynamics in a beat. The possibilities are... maybe not endless, but should cover your gating needs! kHs Gate has simple but powerful controls for tuning in the desired effect, and can easily be driven by an external sidechain signal. The gate can also be flipped around to make a signal duck under another.
Haas
Panning sound is key in mixing and sound placement, but amplitude is only part of how humans determine the direction of sound. The Haas effect targets another mechanism that detects small differences in time between left and right to position sound. The HAAS effect will widen the stereo of the audio by delaying the left or the right channel slightly. Bottom line, it brings stereo width to sounds where there previously was none. Simple as that.
Ladder Filter
When you're looking for a bit of that vintage feel, Ladder filter will twist your basses into squelching retro-licks akin to those of the Moog or the 303. Crank the drive up an extra notch and it will even function as a warm distortion. Mmm, smooth. The Ladder Filter simulates low pass filters found in classic hardware synths.
Limiter
Whether you want to crank the last drops of gain out of your track or just want to control a few loud peaks, a Limiter can be the weapon of choice.
Non-Linear Filter
Do you know how Jimi Hendrix got his signature guitar sound?
Nonlinear Filter. Or that screechy lead in Block Rockin' Beats, by The Chemical Brothers?
Nonlinear Filter.
How about the synth melody in Madonna's Like a Virgin? Believe it or not, Nonlinear Filter. Alright, maybe not THIS Nonlinear Filter. But if you are looking to add some vintage analog twang to your sound, we have you covered. Nonlinear Filter offers basic filtering with a variety of flavors to it, ranging from classic analog sounding filtering to more outlandish modes the further down the list you go.
Phase Distortion
Traditionally, most distortion units overdrive and shape the amplitude of a signal in various ways to generate a rougher sound. Phase Distortion instead lets the signal modulate the phase of itself, essentially resulting in something similar to feedback FM. This way you can add that FM touch to any sound, to get a sweet 80's vibe or a filthy dubstep bass. Will you use your newfound power for good or for evil?
Phaser
Beam me up, Scotty! No matter if you set the knob to stun or kill, Phaser can spice up your life with twirly frequency sweeps. The Phaser will filter the input signal, creating a series of moving peaks and troughs in the audio spectrum. Pretty much all the bad things with signal phase issues, but turned into an effect and labeled "cool".
Pitch Shifter
Are you out of tune? Do you want to be? Either way, Pitch Shifter uses grain delay to bring the pitch where you want it to be. Or at least somewhere else from where it already is. The Pitch Shifter will adjust the pitch of the input signal up or down.
Resonator
Found a frequency that you really really like? Want it to hang in there for just a little bit longer? Let it ring in the new year with Resonator. Specific frequency harmonics in the input sound are enhanced and propagated, giving you fine control over the sustain of a tone.
Reverb
Reverbs, simulating the millions of tiny echoes that naturally bounce off the walls in a room, play a central part in glueing together sounds in a song. There are likely few tracks today that don't contain reverb in any form.
Reverser
Remember in The Ring when Samara kind of walks backwards but still towards you and it's all scary and weird? This is not really like that. However, kHs Reverser does delay and reverse sections of the input sound resulting in anything from hauntingly eerie textures to reverse percussion hits.
Ring Mod
A ring modulator gets its name from the way the original analog schematic used a ring of diodes to multiply two signals together. Honestly the schematics is more of a square, but who cares when you can trash your sound beyond recognition in both pleasant and horrible ways? The kHs Ring Mod uses either an internal sine/noise generator or a secondary input as the second signal in the modulation, and allows for versatile transformation of the modulating signal.
Stereo
The Stereo snapin can adjust the stereo width and panning. It also displays the current balance and channel correlation visually.
Tape Stop
At about the same time as dinosaurs roamed the earth, magnetic tape was the hottest way to store recorded audio. Naturally, cave men discovered that starting and stopping the tape while playing back would lead to interesting effects. kHs Tape Stop simulates this arcane technology in a simple way, allowing you to get great spindown/speedup sounds quickly with the push of a button. What's next? Harnessing the power of fire?
Trance Gate
What if ___ _____ easily chop up ____ __ the sound __ _ rhythmical pattern? Well now you can! Trance Gate is a gate sequencer which quickly adds a rhythm to a pad or lead, chops up a beat or adds more staccato to an arpeggio. The world of anthem trance lies at your feet!
Transient Shaper
When you want to carefully tweak the punch of your snare, the ricki-ticki-ticking of your hi-hats or the snappiness of a synth line, Transient Shaper is the right tool for the job. Using a compressor is the most common way of adjusting the dynamics of a sound, but sometimes this can be a bit cumbersome. This is where Transient Shaper shines, giving you very direct control over the character of both the attack and sustaining sections of the sound in a way that's simple to understand and tweak.
