New Toys

Lexicon PCM Native Effects Plug-In Bundle

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Lexicon's PCM Native Effects plug-in bundle makes available all the sounds of the hardware PCM96 Stereo Reverb/Effects Processor to DAW users of VST, Audio Unit or RTAS-compatible hosts running on PCs or MACs.

I received the bundle and installed it into my Pro Tools HD|9 Accel rig running on my 8-core Westmere Mac. I was immediately overwhelmed (in a good way) by the seven different delay time-based effect plug-ins each using a different algorithm. In the coming months, I will be still discovering them fully and then building my own user preset collection!

The first PCM Native Effects plug-in I tried was Dual Delay. Like all the other six plug-ins, it uses a GUI closely patterned after Lexicon's PCM Native Reverb complete with a real-time graphical display to visualize what each effect is exactly doing. Dual Delay does everything you can do with two delay lines such as tight stereo widening delays, slap-back echo, tape echoes and ping-pong delays. You have complete control over delay time, tempo sync, feedback filtering, wet/dry mix, number of repeats as a percentage and more.

I liked the Random Delay plug-in for vocals because it adds a bit of mysterious echoing with more voices than DD and four LFOs that modulate each voice's delay time with both familiar waveforms (Sine, Saw, Triangle etc.) as well as random waves and constantly changing depth values. All parameters are revealed in Edit mode (like all of these plugs) and you can even customize which faders control which parameters in the GUI.

The Chorus/Flange plug-in is a very smooth effect that broadens out any sound. Cranked it up and you can make the pitch center of an instrument or vocal track totally ambiguous! The flanger goes from extremely subtle old school settings all the way to outer space oddities.

I'm still 'walking around' the Resonant Chords plug-in learning about it completely. I have some ideas for "tuning" it to the song's key and blending it with a Lexicon Native Reverb patch for an overall sustaining ringing effect. It allows multiple delay voices to be tuned to resonate on specified notes.

Pitch Shift is an extremely clean and artifact-free mono or stereo pitch shifter. I sometimes pitch shift tom-toms down to pump up their size and heft. Inserted on a tom track in my mix worked great with zero glitching--I'm not use to that from other pitch shifter plugs.

The Multivoice Pitch Shift plug has six independent pitch shifter voices you can pan across the stereo field. I already built a useful preset for voice thickening. Lastly, Stringbox has 88 virtual strings resonating according to the source audio. Several tuning and panning options are available along with a virtual keyboard and randomizer to create never-before-heard chords, melodies and room sounds.

Quite a massive and deep bundle indeed! For professionals to beginners, the Lexicon PCM Native Effects Plug-In Bundle requires Pace iLok2 authorization and is more than worth the $1,199.95 MSRP.

Check: www.lexiconpro.com/news.php?id=151 for more.



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