zplane Elastique Pitch 2 review

German DSP dudes zplane are the masterminds behind the élastique Pro pitchshifting algorithms used in many of today's top DAWs.

Having gained the trust of some of the industry's most demanding developers, the company went on to incorporate the same technology into this lean pitch- and formant-shifting plugin, now at v2.

Elastique Pitch 2 can take real-time control over a signal's pitch and formant, and zplane claim it does so without the artifacts inherent in similar processors. New for version 2 come input Freeze, Delay, Feedback and Dry/Wet controls.

The majority of the interface is taken up by a substantially sized X/Y pad, with the vertical and horizontal axis representing pitch and formants (labelled Timbre) respectively.

These can be run linked or unlinked, and both shifted in either semitone (+/- 12) or percentage (50% to 200%) values by dragging the node across the pad, or by typing in values for each axis manually.

When unlinked, there's a useful Voicing slider used to alter the dominant frequency range, greatly improving results. There's also a Dry/Wet mix parameter, plus a simple delay (which can be set free-running or synced to host tempo) with a Freeze button for holding a delay repeat of the shifted signal.

With its emphasis on hands-on, real-time control, Elastique Pitch 2 makes pitchshifting a fun and immediate process that you can whip out anytime.

In use, the quality of the pitch and formant-shifting is extraordinarily smooth and natural - facilitating either subtle real-time shifts or extreme pitch effects - and the delay's interaction with pitch changes can generate countless creative effects.