Introduction
Silo is a creative granular reverb effect by Unfiltered Audio in AAX, AU, VST2 and VST3 formats for Mac OS X and Windows.
It is typically priced at £137 from Unfiltered Audio, at the time of writing Silo is currently on sale at PluginBoutique (affiliate link) for £22.50. Note that a Plugin Alliance is required for activation.
An iOS version is also from the app store typically priced at £9.99.
Overview
Unfiltered Audio’s Silo is unlike any other reverb out there. Endlessly tweakable and just begging to be automated, it harnesses the power of granular processing for incredibly rich and even otherworldly reverb sounds you have to hear to believe.
Silo breaks up your incoming sounds into “grains”—incredibly short snippets of audio—which can be processed individually. You’re able to adjust the size, shape, speed, pitch, and spread of these grains, reverse them and process them separately using automated rules to create novel spaces and reverb effects.
You can adjust a half dozen parameters for grain generation and treat them using an array of distinct “movement” algorithms and create width and movement in what feels like a truly three-dimensional space. With modes that function almost like a multi-dimensional autopanner, you’ll hear your sounds swirling around you with depth, intrigue, and spatialization that it’s difficult to get from any other type of tool.
In Use
The interface has a clean and modern look, which you typically find with Unfiltered Audio plugins. At first glance it may appear complicated but it’s really three effects in one that can be independently switched on or off.
The granulator has controls for size, rate, pitch and speed, each of these has a deviation setting to control the amount of randomness and can also operate in different modes. There are a number of grain options – spread, reverse, freeze, window type and shape. You have a mask control that can apply a rhythmic Euclidean mask and you can pause grain generation.
You can also change the buffer size, pause writing to the buffer and clear the buffer.
You set the number of unique, simultaneous locations and there are controls for the velocity and range of movement and if the locations jump or are static. There are 8 movement types and 5 spatialisation types.
The reverb has 10 different tone settings as well as decay, distance (size) and damping controls. The level control has 3 different modes. Whilst it can act as a typical level control, it can also be used to determine the probability of each grain being sent to reverb at a random level or it can act as a mask control to rhythmically modify which grains are sent to reverb. There are also 3 different mix modes.
The filter controls the amount of filtering between the granulator and reverb. There are cutoff and resonance controls as well as invert control. There are a number of different filters, as well as typical HP, LP, BP you can also select ladder, acid, MS and SVF type filters.
The output controls comprise of a compressor and mix control.
There are also a number of other settings including interface size and colour, audio quality, randomisation and workflow.settings.
Silo comes with a number of presets which are a great way to get to hear the type of sounds that it can produce but it’s equally one of those effects that you can dive straight into using and get instant results.
Conclusions
Silo is a unique and very versatile effect. It’s one of my favourites due to the huge range of sounds that it can produce. It can be a very creative reverb, creating unusual and ethereal sounds and the spatializer can add great depth. When you add the granulator, Silo takes on a whole different character. Using automation or manipulating the parameters manually adds superb depth and movement.
I’ve created the video embedded at the top of this post to demonstrate the type of sounds that Silo can produce. I’ve used Harmony Bloom to play a synth sound in BA-1 and Silo is the only effect I’ve used so that you can hear more clearly how it processes sound.
It’s quickly become one of my favourite effects and I’ve used it on a number of tracks including:
