Yes, it’s a reverb, but don’t think of SpaceBlender as a reverb. Soundtoys’ new “imaginary space machine” uses a unique algorithm to produce rich new timbres and deep, cosmic, smeared wormholes of sound and texture. It’s more like a crossbreed of swarm synthesis and reverberation. I’ve been beta testing and talking to the developer; here’s the scoop – and act fast, as it’s free through May 22.
First, let’s talk about what SpaceBlender is and is not. Now, we have plenty of fascinating algorithmic reverbs, and they’re capable of a ton of variety. But this is a different beast. It’s not a feedback delay network, and it’s not an allpass/comb filter structure. There’s no feedback at all. Instead, you get a new algorithm that can be stable across a wide range of parameters, where other reverbs would break. It’s also not a conventional convolution reverb, though the algorithm does generate an impulse response, as seen in the display. What results is a rich texture that you can shape with time and envelope controls.
That gives you far, far more possibilities than you might imagine. Surprises are folded into almost every combination of parameters and source material. You can keep going to extremes, and since there isn’t feedback, you never get caught in a feedback loop.
Surprises are folded into almost every combination of parameters and source material. You can keep going to extremes.
And since you can do all of that, you tend to use SpaceBlender for all kinds of applications, reverb being almost just a bonus. It’s a sound design tool, an extreme stretcher. You can use it to make pads and ambiance. You can reshape percussion, especially with gated options. You can take that same gating and go to 2 bars / a full minute of sound, but again, without feedback causing it to self-resonate or break down. That also means you can get adventurous using SpaceBlender to add atmospheres around other material, even percussive material, without the resonant spikes that tend to cause problems with convolution reverbs.
Here it is in action, using a simple input source from AAS Multiphonics CV-3 (see our review):
Tuning system here is Undecimal Lou Harrison National Steel:
There’s also a lot more in SpaceBlender than you might first recognize. Let’s break it down:
The Visualizer represents both the sound and buffer and the shape envelope for the effect. That display displays incoming signal as it moves through time in purple – animated. You move a cursor X/Y to adjust the amplitude envelope (x-axis) and shaping amount (y-axis). As you move to the right, that gives you long builds and reverses; to the left, you get a quicker fade-in/fade-out. You can use that to produce rhythmic, pulsing effects, too – in combination with sync, but also with manual adjustment of the Cursor. (See me messing around with this in the video for a clearer view, then maybe check Soundtoys’ walkthrough.)
Now the slightly confusing thing here is that time and length are still adjusted via the knobs, not this X/Y. But … all of this is supported by host automation, meaning I’m personally excited to remap these controls to a joystick or game controller to work with it physically, even though the mouse works reasonably well.
The controls:
- Time: 100 ms – 60,000 ms or 1-32 beats (via sync on/off … okay, I assume they tried this, but I am curious what would happen below 100 ms…)
- Warp toggles pitch shifts between values and adds smoothing, as a more conventional reverb might (though I kind of also like the stuttered digital effects here)
- Color controls tone – noon is neutral, and you can brighten or darken the sound by turning to the right or left, respectively
- Texture adjusts density
- Mod is modulation / chorus-style, but again it’s a unique algorithm
And you get freeze, of course, which is also easy to see on that display. With freeze and texture, you’ll sometimes wind up using this the way you would granular effects – another reason to think of this as a textural effect broadly and not a “reverb.”
There are also shortcuts for displaying exact value (right-click), fine-tuning (shift-turn), and locking values between presets (ctrl+opt/ctrl+alt).
Full walkthrough:
And preset examples:
SpaceBlender feels like a starting point – a sign of new things to come based on this approach. (There’s more room even in this UI – it’s not hard to imagine a “tweak” button in a future release.) Soundtoys founder and CEO Ken Bogdanowicz worked on the original Eventide H3000 and created the DSP code for the Black Hole effect on the DSP4000. Sound designer Andrew Schlesinger, also at Soundtoys, worked on the patches. So it’s amazing to talk to Ken about SpaceBlender. I mean, Ken has shaped a lot of what DSP is today, even at the more experimental end of the spectrum. And this isn’t a remake. This is a new idea, a new tool, a new interface.
This isn’t a remake. This is a new idea, a new tool, a new interface – from a DSP legend.
That’s why I almost hesitate to use the term “reverb” with this and some other new effects on the scene. It sounds like we’re just overstuffing a category where we already have too many choices. But when you do alter the DNA behind how the tool works, what you get is a genuinely new effect.
For fans of DSP and experimental reverb use, this is like getting a new symphony from a great. Hell, yes.
PS, as if this weren’t enough of a nerdy gift already, via Ken, enjoy this site on sci-fi type: https://typesetinthefuture.com/page/3/