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Hatsubai « Solid stereo spreader »
Published on 07/17/11 at 16:48Stereo spreaders used to be all the rage back in the day. Today, they're not utilized nearly as much thanks to you being able to easily do it inside of the DAW with very minimal effort. Most people also agree that two separate panned performances are better, assuming that it's possible. For those who just want to use a plugin to achieve that stereo effect, they have plugins like this here. It has adjustments for input gain, width, rotation, spread, frequency, shape, delay, xfeed, lfspread, fcenter, fdensity, tweak, sweeps, has left and right monitoring and a few other things. To enable this, simply enable it on whatever buss you want to have that stereo effect. I never read the manual, but it shouldn't really be needed. This is a fairly simple plugin to use.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
Waves rules for audio plugins. For one, they're always rock solid and super stable. I've never had a single crash while using any Waves plugin, and the same goes for this. The plugin itself doesn't take up much RAM or processing power, which is a big plus for those who tend to have tons of plugins going on inside of their DAWs. The plugin is also cross platform compatible, so just about anybody can use this without any issues at all. There is one issue that I did experience, and that has to do with the actual coding of the plugin and today's recent OSes/DAWs. The plugin is a 32 bit plugin. However, my DAW and OS are 64 bit OSes. For Logic Pro, my go-to DAW, to utilize this, it needs to run a special bridge application. However, I'm not a huge fan of the way Logic implements that feature. I'm hoping that Waves updates these to 64 bit in the future. I've been using the Waves Mercury bundle for the past half a year or so, and it's been absolutely killer.
OVERALL OPINION
I'm generally not a big user of stereo spreaders like this as my music is almost always at least double tracked, sometimes quad tracked. Vocals tend to have a separate reverb buss with some compression/gain to make them pop. Bass just gets a compressor and maybe a gain plugin. Drums don't really utilize this either. Therefore, I'm only left to using this for very special occasions. When I do use it, it works out nicely. However, half the time, I forget I have it, and I just do it manually inside the DAW since I'm so used to doing it that way.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
Waves rules for audio plugins. For one, they're always rock solid and super stable. I've never had a single crash while using any Waves plugin, and the same goes for this. The plugin itself doesn't take up much RAM or processing power, which is a big plus for those who tend to have tons of plugins going on inside of their DAWs. The plugin is also cross platform compatible, so just about anybody can use this without any issues at all. There is one issue that I did experience, and that has to do with the actual coding of the plugin and today's recent OSes/DAWs. The plugin is a 32 bit plugin. However, my DAW and OS are 64 bit OSes. For Logic Pro, my go-to DAW, to utilize this, it needs to run a special bridge application. However, I'm not a huge fan of the way Logic implements that feature. I'm hoping that Waves updates these to 64 bit in the future. I've been using the Waves Mercury bundle for the past half a year or so, and it's been absolutely killer.
OVERALL OPINION
I'm generally not a big user of stereo spreaders like this as my music is almost always at least double tracked, sometimes quad tracked. Vocals tend to have a separate reverb buss with some compression/gain to make them pop. Bass just gets a compressor and maybe a gain plugin. Drums don't really utilize this either. Therefore, I'm only left to using this for very special occasions. When I do use it, it works out nicely. However, half the time, I forget I have it, and I just do it manually inside the DAW since I'm so used to doing it that way.