Plug-ins

A couple of years ago, the bass player in my band announced proudly that he'd bought himself a Markbass combo. I wasn't very...

Most of us cannot afford to have Tony Maserati mix our tracks — but thanks to Waves, we can now use his personal effects and processing chains in our own mixes.

Auto-Tune has been the industry-standard pitch-correction tool ever since its 1997 release. Does the latest Evo version keep the competition at bay?

Working with a mouse and keyboard neednt compromise real-time control, as Sugar Bytes clever interface design demonstrates.

Pod Farm, which replaces Line 6's earlier Gearbox software, is a VST, RTAS and AU plug‑in for Mac and PC that offers Line 6's...

• Stillwell Audio BadBussMojo • Abbey Road Brilliance Pack • Cableguys Filtershaper

• Overloud Breverb • TC Tube-Tech CL1B

Digidesign get into the 'virtual guitar amp' game with a plug-in that emulates a selection of classic amplifiers and cabinets in impressive detail.

Intrusive sibilants can ruin an otherwise good-sounding vocal track, and conventional de-essers are often of limited use. Can Eiosis's radical new design do any better?

Unique Recording Software have modelled a vast array of vintage compressors and EQs and presented the results in a single plug-in.

New plug-ins continue to emerge from Universal Audio HQ at a scary rate, and their DSP-based effects and processors are now available to laptop users for the first time.

This month we test two soft synths: Image Lines Toxic III and Astralis from Homegrown Sounds.

More and more material needs to be delivered in surround formats, but what if you dont have the time or the budget for a 5.1 remix? We test the current crop of unwrap plug-ins that can create a surround master from a stereo mix.

Middle & Sides processing offers unique mastering possibilities, such as the ability to de-ess a centrally panned vocal without affecting panned cymbal sounds. Brainworx's new plug-in combines an innovative M&S matrix with mastering-quality EQ and processing.

•Rob Papen Albino 3 •SSL Drumstrip •Starplugs Admiral

If you want other people to hear your surround mixes, you'll need to encode them into a consumer format. Pro Tools users have a choice of software for this purpose. Which should you choose?

• Xponaut Voice Tweaker 4; Waves Maxx Volume • Noveltech Vocal Enhancer

Mastering engineers are notoriously fussy about EQ, and until now, plug-in manufacturers have struggled to compete with the best hardware designs. Can Algorithmix's Red and Blue change hearts and minds?

There are now quite a few plug-ins on the market that have the ability to split audio into hundreds or thousands of bands and treat them separately, paving the way for a variety of weird and wonderful effects. Are you brave enough to enter the frequency zone?

Auto-Tune has been the industry standard pitch-correction tool for many years, and version 5 introduces many new features, but it faces its strongest competition yet from the new plug-in version of Celemony's Melodyne. So which one should you buy?

McDSP's Project Studio Bundle provides an affordable way for Pro Tools users to get their hands on versions of all the company's acclaimed effects and processors.