Waves OneKnob Pumpe

Dada Life Endless Smile
$39
The sequel to Sausage Fattener is ready to rock with one
big knob, one mode selector and one cartoon character
that symbolically represents the death of technique at
the hands of pre-programmed euphoria. Endless Smile
is eminently automatable from 0 to 110%. This clever
plugin contains a number of processing modes that
lend themselves to electronic music build-ups. There’s
filtering, reverb, delay, endlessly-rising and falling parallel
resonant filter networks, and plenty of combos of all of
them as you surf the seven modes from Soft to Extreme.
The idea is to pop Endless Smile over a group of tracks,
choose your poison, and then automate the single control
towards its maximum before bringing it back down again
when the music hits. Hence the one-knob design. There’s
not much more to it, and the result is a set of incredibly
usable (if not a little clichéd) effects, ready-rolled to work
the dancefloor. Some more combinations would have
probably been useful to avoid sounding like everyone
else, but then again, the effect is highly dependent on
the sounds you’re putting through it.
dadalife.com
VERDICT 9.1
including some triplets, which is
probably enough for most
circumstances but by no means
exhaustive; and 0, 90, 180 and -90
(degrees) for the offset selectors.
There’s no way to change the
pump shape in this one, but it’s a
very nuanced tweak to make to begin
with anyway. One assumes that
Waves have modelled some of the
most epic, generic and Platonic
pumps in the history of dance music
in order to arrive at their ideal,
sacrificing tailoring power for the
perfect, quick-as-a-flash
sidechaining sound. Even so, it feels
like slightly too much has been
sacrificed to conform to the rest of
Waves’ OneKnob series (more rates,
better offset programming, and
maybe some different curve shape
choices would’ve been nice), but if
you just want instant gratification,
this will see you right.
waves.com
VERDICT 8.3
Softube Saturation Knob
FREE
Straight out of the Swedish
modelling boutique and offering a
three-way switch, Softube’s
Saturation Knob plugin is a great
analogue-style processor with but a
single knob and a rocker switch.
Said knob gets cranked to increase
the flavoursome saturation, with the
‘restrained and reasonable’ range
occurring over the first two fifths of
its range (crank it until the yellow
light is flickering to get things
warmed up). After this, there’s
audible distortion, which can be
useful for signal-smashing, but the
real benefit of Saturation Knob is in
its subtlest uses, gelling tracks,
bringing out the bass on smaller
speakers, and re-emphasising the
effect using the Keep High switch,
allowing that little extra grunt.
Saturation Knob is a great saturator,
a potential alternative to distortion,
and a great, free taster for the range.
softube.com
VERDICT 8.6
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One- and two-knob plugins | Roundup
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FMU350.rev_roundup.indd 97 02/10/2019 13:23