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LITTLE FERRY, NJ, USA: recording technology trailblazer Eventide is proud to announce availability of its ‘everything’ plug-in bundle.

Anthology XI includes all 17 plug-ins from Eventide’s acclaimed Anthology X bundle, but brings six of its latest and greatest hits to the creative collection. With the welcome addition of Blackhole, Fission, Tverb, UltraTap, MangledVerb, and 2016 Stereo Room, that’s 23 timeless tools that inspire, running the gamut from groundbreaking innovations like the TEC Award-nominated Fission — the first product to feature Eventide’s seminal STRUCTURAL EFFECTS method to split sound into its transient and tonal parts — to emulations of the trailblazing company’s legendary rack-mount effects. Everything.

Anthology XI’s 23 plug-ins — available as AAX/AU/VST formats for Mac OS X 10.7+ and Windows 7+ (with no iLok dongle required) — represent a combined value of over $3,500.00 USD if purchased individually. The bundle can be purchased at an introductory price of $899.00 USD. Upgrades from Anthology X and from individual Eventide plug-ins are also available. Sale ends January 11, 2018. MSRP thereafter is $1,799.00 USD. For more in-depth info, upgrade pricing, and a fully-functional 30-day demo version, please visit the Anthology XI webpage

Watch Eventide’s enticing Anthology XI video playlist

Anthology XI comes complete with more than 2,900 presets across the 23 plug-ins, many created by acclaimed artists and engineers like Dave Pensado, George Massenburg, Tony Visconti, Vernon Reid, Richard Devine, Joe Chiccarelli, Roy Hendrickson, Alessandro Cortini, Andrew Scheps, Erin Tonkin, Jonathan Schenke, Robin Finck, Chuck Zwicky, and Suzanne Ciani.

Concludes Eventide Director of Marketing Communications Nalia Sanchez: “For over 45 years, audio pros have turned to Eventide for professional tools that inspire. Now everything — all of our effects — are in one big bundle that includes our latest and greatest hits. For example, there’s an authentic emulation of our H910, pro audio’s first digital effects box whose unique sound inspired all sorts of mischief. We meticulously modeled the analog subtleties, and the plug-in sounds like the original. And, while we’re committed to the authentic recreation of our legendary hardware, we’ll always strive to break new ground. Fission is the latest case in point. It’s nominated for a TEC Award, and, to quote one reviewer, ‘Eventide wants to change how you think about processing audio…’ True enough. Always have, always will.”

Anthology XI accesses all areas of Eventide’s evolution and is a phenomenal collection of effects and studio tools. I have been trying to get the review published in good time whilst the sale is still on but unfortunately there’s only a couple of days left. This is partly because I wanted to do justice to the collection and partly because the further into the review I’ve got, the more I’m realising that this is so much more than an outstanding collection of plugins, it feels like you’re in possession of a slice of history. They range from software versions of the very first ever hardware effects unit to the latest ultra modern effects which retain Eventide’s unique and innovative approach. A good example is the range of reverb effects, there’s a software version of a hardware model from 1981, a highly configurable conventional reverb and three very creative reverb effects. All of which are superb and offer a huge range of creative potential.

There’s such a wealth of effects and accordingly a lot to learn and the presets are definitely a very good way to get an idea of what each effect is capable of. You can explore so much functionality through the thousands of presets and that’s before you start to explore and create your own sounds and patches.

It’s testament to Eventide’s quality and design that the software versions of hardware effects from 40 years ago are still relevant today. When I say this is a slice of history, these are in no way museum pieces, the H910 and H949 still sound awesome and inspire creativity in exactly the same way as more recent effects such as Fission.

FX:

• Fission

A unique and innovative effect that splits the incoming signal into its transient and tonal parts allowing you to apply individual effects to each. Fission uses an algorithm based on the sound source type to obtain the best split and you can focus (rather than mix) between the two effects. You can apply delay, tap delay, dynamics, phaser, reverb and gate + EQ to the transients and delay, compression, pitch, chorus, reverb, tremelo and EQ to the tonal.

It is incredibly versatile and can do a whole range of tasks from cleaning up drum loops and adding more punch and bite, modulation effects and harmony type effects. It can produce subtle or more extreme effects, for example you can add rhythmic and/or melodic elements, add texture and rhythm or create something glitchy or psychedelic. It will happily process any sound source you feed it – drums, guitar, bass, vocals – and is a very creative and inspiring effect.

• UltraTap

I’ve previously reviewed Ultratap which you can read here, it is a superb multi-tap delay effect capable of everything from rhythmic delays, glitchy delays and swells. It has a few cool features – ‘slurm’ reduces attack and definition giving a ‘smeared’ sound; ‘chop’ allows you to add a chopping tremelo for swells and gated effects, it also has an auto-volume setting. You can assign multiple parameter settings to the ribbon which is the blue ‘lightning streak’ towards the bottom of the display and as you move this left and right you can adjust them in real time like a hardware controller. The hotswitch function allows you to switch between two different presets. .

• H3000 Factory

If there is a Holy Grail of effects, this is it. Ever since I heard Joe Satriani use one on ‘Flying in a Blue Dream’ I was in awe and wanted one, although quickly realised I could never afford a hardware unit. The software unit is a faithful replication of the hardware unit containing the same reverb, delay, pitch and modulation effects. It comes loaded with hundreds of presets, including some of the hardware originals.

The presets are definitely a good way to get to hear what this can do. It’s incredible. From lush reverbs and delays, to harmonising to lo-fi and glitchy effects it’s superb. You can create your own programs by patching effects and assigning modulation and there are function and expert tabs that allow you full control over effect settings and ranges. You can also assign parameters to the four soft keys and change the values dynamically using the large control knob.

Considering this unit is about 30 years, the effects still sound brilliant today. Some of the vocal delays and pitch shift effects sound phenomenal. The patching towards the bottom of the display wasn’t part of the original hardware unit but certainly adds great usability.

• H3000 Band Delays

This is a delay effect that splits the signal into 8 frequency bands and allows you to apply filter settings and delay effects to each individual band. The effect is based on some of the algorithms in the H3000 unit so the GUI has a similar look and feel including the same expert and function tabs for precise control of effect settings.

The 8 bands are shown in the bottom left, when you click on a band the current filter and delay settings are shown. The beat grid visualises delay times allowing you to create interesting and complex rhythms and there’s a 3d display to the right.

The global parameters above allow you to control parameters with modulation although you can also use the softkeys and dial or use midi.

It’s a brilliant, very creative delay effect producing an excellent range of sounds from ambiences, sweeps and modulations from subtle to much more extreme.

• Octavox

The Octavox is an 8 voice pitch shifter with individual level, pan, delay and pitch controls for each voice. The notation grid is a very useful visual way of setting the pitch value by moving the note up and down and the delay setting by moving the note left and right.

Octavox intelligently harmonises notes according to the chosen key and scale so you need to make sure you set these for your chosen sound or vocals. You can choose up to 8 voices enabling you to harmonise specific chords as required. The delay function enables you to create a natural sounding vocal harmony or create complex, rhythmic patterns from a simple bassline. It also has a loop function so that you can repeat patterns.

What I love about this effect is that it’s capable of producing complex sounds but it is incredibly easy to use. It’s brilliant for vocals, can make interesting rhythmic patterns from a couple of notes and can also make a mono synth note sound orchestrally massive.

• Quadravox

An identical effect to the Octavox but has four voices for lower CPU usage.

Reverb:

• Blackhole

This is a superb reverb effect that is quite unusual and produces stunning results. Whilst having the typical mix, size, pre-delay, low, high, tempo sync and modulation parameters, it also has a gravity control which is a different take on decay time. This control produces a range from dense decays to long and smooth decays with an inverse mode to produce reverse delays.

The modulation depth and rate of the reverb tail can be used to produce subtle effects. Feedback is for the entire reverberation sound and can produce massive sounds. You can also control the resonance of the low and high filters.

Blackhole also has the ribbon control for changing parameter values like a hardware controller and also the hotswitch function to switch between two presets. There’s also a handy freeze function to freeze the reverb sound and you can adjust parameters. The kill switch stops the incoming signal.

It’s ideal for live performance and dynamically changing sounds during a recording. I find it especially useful for creating dense ambient drones and huge reverbs for impacts.

• Tverb

TVerb is a very interesting reverb effect which isn’t trying to emulate a specific hardware model, it’s more about the process than trying to recreate the sound of a certain space. It is based on the method used by Tony Visconti for recording vocals for the David Bowie song ‘Heroes’.

You place three microphones in the virtual room and select the type of microphone and use a high or low cut if required. The first microphone is the main one and microphones 2 and 3 are linked by using noise gates so that they start recording when the volume increases. You can mix levels between the microphones, adjust gate settings, mute and adjust room effects.

It sounds superb with a great range of sounds from subtle ambiences to small spaces, drum rooms to larger halls. Because it is more about the recording process, it also allows you to create gated effects, big, dark spaces and unusual reverb effects such as replicate the effect of sounds recorded in another room.

• MangledVerb

I’ve previously reviewed Mangledverb which you can read here, it is an excellent reverb effect with a twist, It’s a reverb and distortion effect that can produce a huge range of reverb effects from subtle ambience, huge ambience, large spaces, distortions, metallic sounding, subtle movement to more swirling effects. It has the same ribbon and hotswitch features as Ultratap and is part of the same H9 signature series of effects. .

• 2016 Stereo Room

Eventide introduced the SP2016 effects processor unit in 1981 and this effect is based on the original effect ROM. It has up to a massive 30 second decay time and a unique position control which adjusts the position of the listener from front to rear. This remodels the complex delay network to simulate movement and is the reason the hardware unit is still revered and used by some producers today.

The software version sounds great and has low CPU usage.

• UltraReverb

Unlike Tverb, MangledVerb and Blackhole, this is more of a conventional reverb with 4 effects – reverb, EQ (for reverb, pre- and post- EQ and delay), delay (pre- or post-) and compressor (pre- or post-). It is highly configurable and sounds brilliant.

Clockworks Legacy:

• H910 — original Harmonizer® and first digital effects processor

The H910 was the first ever digital effects processor introduced in 1975. It was so revolutionary because it wasn’t possible to produce these effects before it was released. You can tell how awesome its introduction must have been by the fact that producers such as Tony Visconti and Shelly Yakus used it on records by artists such as John Lennon, Patti Smith Group, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Suzanne Vega, AC/DC and many, many more.

When you start using this effect you see exactly why it was so revered. It can thicken and double any input source such as vocals, synths and guitars as well as adding ambience and a subtle delay. Things get more interesting when you use some of the pitch shifting, you can microshift up and down in cents which is brilliant for fine tuning as well as using note intervals such as 2nds, 3rds, 4ths and fifths both up and down. I have to say that using the ‘min7 down’ preset on a drumloop is a revelation. Throw in some modulation and things can get crazy – wobbles, glitches, risers and drops there are some very psychedelic effects possible when you dynamically alter the pitch, envelope and feedback settings.

• H910 Dual

Studios would often use two H910s in parallel and the H910 Dual replicates this configuration to give even more creative possibilities.

• H949

Built on the legacy of the H910, the H949 introduced de-glitching, micropitch, reverse and random delays and reverse pitch shifting. This is an excellent evolution, it does everything the H910 can do plus a lot more, the reverse sweeps, random delay and flange create some very cool and interesting effects. It has a kind of sample and hold function where you can change settings ready for when you release and dynamically changing controls gives some amazing time mangling effects.

• H949 Dual

As with the H910, these were often used in parallel in studios and the dual version replicates this configuration and similarly offers even more creativity.

• Omnipressor

This compressor / expander / gate was introduced in the early 1970s. It’s a very versatile effect, capable of subtle compression, expansion and gating. However, it can also be brutal, squeezing the life out of drums, producing glitchy and lo-fi sounds as well as acting as a dynamic reverse gate and also producing very loud sounds.

• Instant Phaser

This was the world’s first studio phaser and it sounds excellent. It can handle subtle, slow to more intense sounds.

• Instant Flanger

The first faithful simulation of a tape flanger, this can handle slow, subtle and more intense flange effects and again sounds superb. Using it in conjunction with the H910 ‘min 7 down’ preset on a dub drum loop produces a very cool trippy effect.

• Utilities:

• UltraChannel

This is a very capable and excellent sounding channel strip effect comprising a gate, compressor, o-pressor (which is a sort of junior version of the omnipressor), 5 band EQ, micro pitch shift and delay.

It can handle many tasks such as cleaning and tightening up drums, adding body and presence as well as widening effects by using the microshift effect.

It has 8 modules – input, gate, compressor, o-pressor, 5 band EQ, micro pitch shift, delay and output. You can rearrange the order of the gate, compressor, o-pressor and EQ for increased flexibility although the position of the micro pitch shift and delay are fixed in the effect chain.

There are some cool signal routing possibilities, for instance if you don’t use the EQ in the main effects you can send the feedback from the delay to the EQ.

• EChannel

This is a stripped down version of ultrachannel containing the gate, compressor and 5 band EQ.

• Precision Time Align

This is a very handy utility for multitracking a single instrument and compensation for phasing issues when using multiple microphones. You can adjust timing to microsecond accuracy.

• EQ45

This is a 48 bit double precision, 4 band parametric EQ. It’s a great sounding EQ that can easily handle mastering tasks, quickly and easily allowing you to sculpt your sound.

• EQ65

This is a 48 bit double precision vintage filter set with low filter EQ, a peak / notch filter for low frequencies and one for mid / high frequencies and a high frequency cut-off. It is a brilliant at removing unwanted frequencies with surgical precision.