Soundtoys teased its latest plugin, SpaceBlender, earlier this year at NAMM. A few months on, and the beloved effects developer has officially launched SpaceBlender, and - much to our surprise, considering it's a fantastic product and an entirely new release - it's giving the plugin away for free.
Described as an "imaginary space machine", SpaceBlender is an experimental reverb that brings together a unique and innovative approach, inspired by the tape looping techniques used by pioneering ambient musicians, with a nod to vintage digital reverbs such as the Lexicon 224, Ursa Major Space Station and Eventide DSP4000.
Unlike many reverb plugins, SpaceBlender isn't based on feedback delay networks or convolution, but a newly-developed algorithm inspired by swarm synthesis. As such, Soundtoys says the plugin is far more than "just another reverb": it's a sound design tool that lets you "create imaginary spaces and effects that don't exist in the real world".
Despite its unconventional approach, SpaceBlender has a simple and intuitive interface, centred around an interactive visualiser. Displaying incoming signals in purple and reverb in blue, the visualizer lets you shape the reverb's envelope by dragging a cursor across the display: the X axis controls the envelope shape, while the Y axis adjusts the amount of envelope shaping applied.
The dial below the visualizer adjusts reverb time, which can stretch from 100ms to an entire minute and sync to your DAW's tempo. Here you'll also find a Warp button, which modulates the pitch and speed of the reverb and introduces classic tape echo-style smoothing when the Time control is tweaked.
The Color knob controls how the tonal balance of the reverb changes over time; turning it clockwise makes the sound grow brighter as the signal passes through the reverb, and vice versa. The Texture dial adjusts reverb density, much like a diffusion control, and the Mod control adjusts the depth of SpaceBlender's lush, chorus-like modulation effect (the shape and rate are set at fixed values).
You'll also find a Freeze button that captures and loops the current sound - ripe for ambient experimentation - and a Mix knob that does what you'd expect it to. SpaceBlender arrives with a healthy selection of presets, and the interface is resizable, something many Soundtoys fans have been requesting for a while.
We've tangled with a fair amount of reverb plugins here at MusicRadar HQ, but nothing being given away for free has impressed us this much since Valhalla's Supermassive.
SpaceBlender is unique, inventive and - despite being relatively light on controls - hugely versatile: it can do expansive ambient spaces, snappy gated reverbs and fun reverse effects, while also handling more conventional applications. It also sounds phenomenal - check out the preset demo video below.
SpaceBlender is compatible with macOS and Windows and available in AAX/VST/VST3/AU formats. The plugin is free until May 22, after which it'll cost you $99, and you'll need to sign up to Soundtoys' mailing list to download a copy.
Find out more on Soundtoys' website.
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