Minimal Audio’s tasty Wave Shifter was one of the best upgrades in their Current 2.0 synth. The various stereo shifter/FM/AM/ring modulation tools make a lot of sense as a standalone effect plug-in, too – and now that’s just what we get. Here’s a look.
Wave Shifter is already a great fit for Current 2.0 – see my review – and I was already looking forward to its inevitable standalone release.
What we get is true to Minimal Audio’s approach to their other tools. It has the feel of hardware, with big, accessible knobs, a defined sonic character, and a coherent design with some artistically conceived limitations. But it also feels thoroughly modern – grimy when you need it to be, but not a model of any particular vintage hardware. It’s not another Bode frequency shifter like the excellent Valhalla Freq Echo or Sonic Charge Echobode. Wave Shifter feels and sounds like a new design.
Wave Shifter is a frequency modulation/frequency shifter, ring modulation, and amplitude modulation effect with a ton of options. And it’s not a model of existing hardware.
What you get is a very Minimal Audio-ish combined frequency modulation/frequency shifter, ring modulation, and amplitude modulation effect with a ton of options for how those effects are modulated. Those possibilities unfold as you realize how many different modes are tucked into the interface – again, keeping Minimal Audio’s simple, approachable UI in view. And thank you for adding some depth to the UI but not going crazy with UI chrome.
You can go completely nuts with this as in their demo video below, but here’s a subtler walkthrough of some of the parameters in a quick jam:
Check their product page; they have some especially nice demos with vocals and unique sound design with an 808.
(Given more time, I could do a walkthrough and some presets if that’s of interest.)
Breaking this down section by section, counter-clockwise from top right:
Three modes: frequency shifting, ring modulation, and amp modulation. Each can be set to stereo or mid/side.
Internal modulation routed to the phaser. The LFO section at left includes sync, multiple wave shapes (sine, triangle, downward ramp, square), and free clock or synced time division. The randomization is interesting: it turns the square into a smoothed-off S&H, but sine and triangle become different sort of drunken walk variations, and the saw remains a saw but has randomized amplitude. You can also choose the toggle in center for stereo randomization.
Note that the LFO isn’t reassignable.
FM with multiple modes / external signal support. The FM section has sine, even, and “dirty” modes with ratio. Then there’s a noise mode and the ability to use the input, output, or external (sidechain) signal with a lowpass filter. The FM section alone is almost worth picking up – I loved the FM effect in Native Instruments’ Maschine and wished I had one in other contexts. Wish granted.
Internal oscillator. Set a range to fast (audio rate), tuned (quantized to MIDI pitch), slow (making it into an additional LFO or letting you tune in a low audio rate), or BPM (synced). And don’t miss the soft sync option, which allows a ton of additional metallic harmonic content, especially if you crank the frequency. (That is soft sync as in oscillator sync.)
Feedback and filter, with delay and sync. This is also terrifically useful, and you’ll hear it in those demos – you can feed the signal back and delay (free/synced), with a parametric filter and width controls.
Put it all together, and you have one heck of an effects processor. I have to admit, I often found frequency shifters only semi-useful – they’d cover one bit of sonic territory but not another. This one is a fully balanced breakfast of an effect.
There’s so much to sweep through in beautiful ways, though, that I wish there were an additional or assignable LFO for morphing through something other than just the phaser effect. I wonder if Minimal Audio might want to consider adding assignable modulation to their UI for their effect processors, especially since that facility is already in Current.
That’s a fairly minor complaint, though, because so many hosts now have their own LFOs, which may explain why Minimal Audio left the functionality out and chose a simpler UI instead. I usually just grab one from Manifest Audio in Live, for instance.
Wave Shifter is an instant favorite. It’s available now for $29 intro price ($49 full price), or it’s included in their All Acces subscription.
Wave Shifter product page
Intro pricing is available via Plugin Boutique.
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