MusicRadar

Philta XL offers numerous fantastic dance-flavoured presets.

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• Review

Filters are one of the most fundamental studio effects. Whether used for obvious sweeps, synth patches, sound design or simple mix-sculpting, they are near ubiquitous in the studio.

When we heard that Vengeance-Sound - those purveyors of innovative and powerful dance-centric effects - had released a filter plug-in as part of their Vengeance Producer Suite, we had no idea what to expect. But it's here now and with a name Philta XL, it'd better be pretty damned phat.

The overall design is pretty straightforward. The front panel shows the frequency spectrum in the main window, with two separate but linkable filters: one low-pass and one high-pass. Each can be set to a classic analogue 12dB per octave slope, a powerful 24, a fairly surgical 48 or even an insanely precise 96, as with the recently reviewed Vengeance-Sound Multiband Compressor.

"In terms of sound, Philta is excellent: it offers a great level of crunch and bite, with bags of character."

Each filter band offers a cutoff frequency control and another dual-purpose control with Width on the outer ring and Resonance on the inner. Though clearly interconnected, we still find having both of these controls on one dial a little cumbersome from time to time, and would have preferred a different system.

By default, Philta works in a band-pass arrangement, passing frequencies that fall between the high-pass and low-pass filters. However, enable the Notch option and the high-pass becomes a low-pass (and vice versa), so chopping out the middle frequencies instead.

Give it some bite

Topping off the obvious front panel features are main input and output controls and some far-too-oft-overlooked input and output meters. Beyond that, you're going to have to check out the pop-up sub-menus.

First are the envelope and LFO controls, which offer far too much power to cover fully in one review. Despite their power, they're very intuitive, and if you're concerned about overlooking some of their possibilities, the carefully grouped presets are on hand to show you how it's done.

Next up comes the ring modulator section. Again, this is best heard in action, but one of our favourite features here is the Mix control. It allows some exciting sweeps, and like all of Philta's major parameters, it can be automated.

Ring modulators seem to have cropped up more and more on plug-ins in recent years, but after trying it out on a variety of sources, we can vouch that this one is no mere nod to fashion. It can take straight-up filtering and turn it into a sound-mangler's dream, or simply add a little bite and character to help sculpt a mix.

The distortion effect comes next, and this is fit for anything from all-out sonic decimation to helping sounds cut through a mix. On a more creative tip, there's a sample rate reducer that can be linked to the low-pass cutoff, which, as we have already established, can be modulated with an LFO. We can assure you that this is well worth trying.