An update on ShapeShifter. Version 1.1 is now available which adds features to the preset manager, and for anyone who wants to try before you buy, a demo version is now available! The demo is fully featured, but has a brief (< 1 sec) sound drop-out every 45 seconds and cannot save custom user presets. Now back to the review...
Aberrant DSP introduced SketchCassette about a year ago, a wonderful lo-fi processor that emulates some “defects” of the venerable cassette tape recorder. It evolved from a university senior design project and impressed me with its capability, flexibility and humorous, yet functional GUI. Now the designers, Ben and Dan, have released ShapeShifter, a unique take on the compressor, which goes even further from a skeuomorphic GUI than SketchCassette yet retains a very user friendly, easy to use interface. And as with their first processor, they are practically giving it away.
Pros
- Fabulous FX from subtle analogue treatment to far-out trashy.
- Excellent preset system with loads of factory examples.
- Dual-mono capability as well as balanced left-right compression.
- Unique downward and upward compression mode with relative level control.
- Great on full mixes, drum buses, bass, vocals, guitars and other instrument tracks and buses.
- Low cpu requirements and zero latency.
- Easy installation and authorization.
- Very convenient one-click access to the pdf user manual.
- Very low cost. Like v-e-r-y low. Extremely high value for money.
Cons
- Nothing to really complain about. Although one might wish for a loudness compensating bypass, I didn’t find this a problem in use as described earlier.
Read the full review at Gearspace.com
