Performance-wise, Thump2 is stable and CPU usage is very low. The provided dry/wet knob is essentially important when using the plugin as an insert effect. Of course, Thump2 can also be used for a range of more creative purposes, such as generating basslines and comb filter style background textures.
When used on complex material such as a full drum mix, it is advisable to load the plugin on a send channel, so that you can isolate the frequency range on the input with an equalizer.
The factory presets are a good way to get familiar with Thump2’s controls, along with the well-written user manual in PDF format that is included with the download.Īs a mix tool, Thump2 works best for beefing up the low end of acoustic drums, sampled drums and similar percussive material where you don’t have direct control over the pitch. It also features a built-in preset browser with twelve factory patches.
The user interface looks nice and comes in three different sizes that can be switched between on the fly (the GUI size control is located in the upper-left corner of the interface). The plugin also provides detailed metering of both oscillators, making it easier to understand how the envelope followers respond to the signal on the input. It is possible to control the attack and sustain of the amplitude and pitch envelopes, as well as to mix the processed and dry signal on the output. Thump2 is basically a sub bass generator/enhancer effect powered by a couple of envelope driven oscillators that respond independently to the audio signal on the input.
The CPU usage (or lack thereof, to be precise) is another good reason to add OSL Chorus to your plugin arsenal. There’s nothing technically wrong with the GUI, though, and it’s a joy to use. I’d prefer to see those classic Juno blue and yellow highlights, simply for the nostalgia effect. The interface looks nice and clean, with a color scheme which only ever so slightly resembles the synthesizer that inspired it. It’s also worth mentioning the the plugin can process both stereo and mono audio sources, meaning that it can be used for adding width to your mono recordings. This makes OSL Chorus a reasonably flexible chorus unit, much more so than its hardware counterpart. The LFO controls can take OSL Chorus anywhere from a very subtle chorus effect to a rather aggressive modulation effect, whereas the filter cutoff dial works well for shaping the tone of the effect. It features LFO rate, modulation depth, and offset parameters, along with a filter cutoff control and dry/wet signal volume adjustments. The plugin’s control scheme isn’t super-complex or anything like that, but it provides enough versatility to cover a wide range of chorusing flavors. This also makes OSL Chorus an interesting, slightly more advanced alternative to Togu Audio Line’s excellent (and also free) TAL-Chorus-LX effect.
However, in contrast to the original unit which offered only two presets, Oblivion Sound Lab’s freeware emulation provides a range of parameters for customizing its sound. OSL Chorus was designed to sound as close as possible to the original Juno 60 chorus out of the box. OSL Chorus, a freeware VST/AU plugin which emulates the chorus module found in the Roland Juno 60 hardware synthesizer. Of course, you’d still need to export the edited audio and combine it with the original video file in a separate application. This is pretty useful for fixing a bad sounding clip quickly using advanced audio effects that aren’t available in some video editing applications. I also liked the fact that, since VidPlayVST is loaded as a VST plugin, the loaded file’s audio output is treated as any other audio source, meaning that it can be processed using the effects available inside the DAW. Looping a specified section of the clip is also supported, although it needs to be activated in the options menu first.Īnother neat possibility is to trigger the clip via a C note, so that you can sync different clips to different parts of the project, or cue the clip to a particular section of the project’s timeline. From the options menu, the video can be played in full-screen mode, synced to tempo changes (a very cool feature), or muted so that it doesn’t interfere with the rest of the audio.
The two buttons in the upper-left corner of the UI are used for loading the desired video file and adjusting the playback settings. The user interface is simple, easy to use, and fully resizable which is great.