After only five years in business, the three-member team at PSPaudioware of Jozefoslaw, Poland (near Warsaw), have released a total of 19 software plug-ins. The line's universal appeal stems from the products' dependable, good sound and clever, intuitive GUIs. The software supports 44.1 to 192 kHz, and comes in HTDM, DirectX, VST, AudioUnits and RTAS formats for Mac OS 9/X and PC operating systems.
INSTALL AND GO
I installed the VST version of the PSP 608 into an AMD 4400 X2 (Dual Core) with 4 GB of RAM, overclocked at 2.5 GHz and running Nuendo 3.2. Installation went flawlessly. On my PC, set to 128 samples (3 ms) of latency. The 608 MultiDelay, fully maxed out, registered close to 20 percent of CPU.
PSP 608
The 608 is a multidelay processor with eight delays feeding a stereo bus. A must-have processor for any sound designer, the 608 is the ultimate delay for music mixing. It offers up to eight seconds of time for each delay, along with mix level, panning, feedback and a choice of a lowpass, highpass, bandpass, shelving or peaking filter. The filter is modulated by an LFO, envelope or another delay's output.
The processor offers two modes: MultiDelay, where each delay line has its own feedback, and MultiTap, where a master feedback operates on a single tap. Each delay has its own reverb with a choice of a plate or spring, both with adjustable decay. A tape-saturation simulator is based on PSP's algorithm used in its mastering processors.
The 608's GUI is dominated by a large, virtual LCD with a clever feature: Mouse over any control, and the display indicates the name of the control and its parameter value. All parameters are programmable via host or MIDI automation.
The display is divided into three sections: Multidisplay includes buttons, level meters, MIDI information and parameter readouts for supervising different elements of the 608; Tap Params lets you view and edit delay tap setup for all eight delay lines on an intuitive bar graph; and the Modulation section controls the LFO and Envelope Follower. There is also a Graph mode sub-menu that covers the LCD (except for the Mod section), showing all eight delay taps on a timeline, although you cannot adjust them on this page — too bad, I like this view.
DELAY ACTION
I put the 608 to work providing timed delays for a syncopated guitar part. While adjusting distortion, delay times, feedbacks, filter settings and modulation schemes, my guitar part evolved from a flat, sterile and vibeless part to a funky R&B motif. Later, after more tweaking, it became a dance-floor confection and finally, after still more tweaking, it evolved into a techno trademark with radical filter sweeps and feedback howling. Along the way, I saved each iteration as a preset so I could recall them if I went over “tweaker's cliff.”
PLENTY OF BANG
As is true of all great plug-ins, there is much more to discover than I have room for here. The 608 MultiDelay is excellent, top-notch and valuable processors. I found the 608 daunting at first, but after reading the excellent manual, I became an expert. You can lock to session tempo and adjust delays in quarter, eighth, 16th notes, etc., use milliseconds or the large Tap pad. From http://mixonline.com
