Featuring an ‘intelligent’ Single Vocal detection algorithm, it strips any stray sibilance out of your vocals with ease.
Pro DS is next up, a de-essing plug-in with less of a varied use than most of the other plug-ins here, but what it sets out to do it does very well.
The Punch one adds just that, great impact for drums, bass or anything else you might need weight for indeed there is a type for anything, plus presets a plenty for instruments, vocals, drums and more.
Fortunately, it also sounds as good as the desktop version, with the eight compressor types, making it great for everything from precise and clean mastering compression to pumping dance effects. You can therefore instantly see what you are doing to the signal as it flows from right to left.Īside from the fact that you are controlling it by touch, Pro-C 2 appears to be close in operation and features to the desktop version, so you get eight different compression styles (Clean, Classic, Opto, Vocal, Mastering, Bus, Punch and Pumping) plus a sidechain section and EQ section, with HP and LP filters. What’s really great about it – and indeed many of FabFilter’s plug-ins – is that a meter reveals a moving waveform ‘behind’ the compressor (which becomes semi-transparent) and changes as you make changes to the controls, as do the shapes of the gain peaks representing the notes. Starting with Pro-C 2, this compressor features larger dials for Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Decay, and smaller ones for Gain and Dry. They take up most of the bottom half of the iPad screen – but are expandable to fill the screen should you wish – and vary in looks from those with ‘classic’ FabFilter dials to those with draggable pointers across the frequency range. Fabfilter’s suite will appear under the latter click launch and you are away.Įach one looks stunning, I have to say. Simply select either an audio or MIDI track, add an effect in the channel (as an insert effect) and you’ll get a set of effect type categories as a drop down menu, including IAA, Cubasis’s internal effects and Audio Units. I’m also using the plug-ins with Steinberg’s Cubasis (now at v2.8) although as AUv3 plug-ins, they will also run with other DAWs like Auria, GarageBand, and n-Track Pro.Ĭubasis has matured well into an iOS DAW and it’s easy to get the plug-ins up and running after downloading them.
Out of the window goes my old fourth generation machine and a much newer 7th gen model is drafted in for the test. They are iPad-only I’m afraid, and you’ll need – as I quickly discover – a newer 64-bit model of Apple’s finest. I’ve got seven of the new plug-ins up and running on my iPad.
Now FabFilter has released a complete set of these plug-ins in the AUv3 format, so does that quality transfer over to the iOS domain? Let’s find out. It’s fair to say then that a) we like them and b) they’re pretty good! The Pro-C 2 compressor scored the same again (“a future classic”), as did the Pro-Q 2 EQ (“absolutely brilliant”) and the Pro MB Dynamic plug-in made it an unprecedented fourth 10/10 for the company. Its Pro-L 2 limiter achieved the highest MusicTech accolade with a 10/10 Excellence Award last year (we called it “an incredible achievement”). Audio Units in particular – now at version 3 as AUv3 – seems to be the one that has solidified iOS as a proper music-making format, and more companies are developing apps and plug-ins for it.įabFilter is one such company, a developer of some of the best desktop plug-ins around. Want to run some instruments and effects developed by third parties in your iOS DAW? No problem.