HALO from WA Production is a new plugin that aims to nail all your EDM needs in one. At its heart it combines multiple, easy-to-build, fast routes to audio with effects and modulation options, and comes out of the box tailor-made for making the thick, hard-hitting, frequency-jamming EDM sounds of now.
As such its sound banks are laden with huge sounding basses, leads, pads and more and there’s plenty of “immense presets” all set to drop straight into your projects (provided you leave enough frequency room for them) or to serve as inspirational start points for further fine tuning.
It's an EDM triple-threat in three parts:
The extensive filter, modulation and effects options give HALO all the characteristics of a synth, with the level of control to make a sound your own with a few simple clicks.
However, the inclusion of a large bank of ‘raw material’ sounds makes it feel more like a classic, preset-packed ROMpler (ROMplers essentially being samplers that come with all the samples you need already built-in).
HALO then goes one further, making it easy to add your own custom audio sample by sample – be it simple single waves or hits or fuller, whole-track lifts – then set the plugin's synth and effects controls to work making them unrecognisable.
Dialling through the 360 presets and 300 sample banks there’s everything from deep bass, slab-sided synth impacts, and lush liquid pads to bright zinging leads and more, with – we’re promised – future expansions on the way. At their heart is a library of synth tones originally produced in hardware and software layered with HALO’s built-in synth, effects and processing.
Fine-tune your patch then switch between – or even randomly select – a new sample bank from within a preset to try out your effects and filter settings on a whole new body of sound quickly and easily. Add your own samples or dial in the sub and dual oscillator synth, three effects distortion modes, pitch envelope and modulators.
HALO looks like it's got all the EDM ammo you need plus the flexibility to make it your own.
It's currently on sale for $49 (down from the usual $120) for a limited time and you can even grab a free Lite version from the WA Production website.
