There are input level, output level and wet/dry mix controls, as well as a global Recycle parameter that allows you to feed the output of your chain back into its input. Each plug-in within the Effect Rack has a button providing access to its own presets, and it’s also possible to save and load presets which capture an entire Effects Rack. It couldn’t be easier to use: you simply drag and drop miniature versions of the individual plug-in interfaces from a browser on the right-hand side, and start playing. Effect Rack is, in a nutshell, a plug-in ‘chainer’, which allows multiple Soundtoys effects to be combined in a single-window environment. The first of the three newcomers is purely a utility plug-in that makes no sound of its own. It also sees Soundtoys support the computer-based form of iLok licence management for the first time, so if you don’t want to use a hardware dongle, you can instead choose to authorise two computers directly. The Soundtoys 5 bundle, available for all the usual native platforms on Mac OS and Windows, includes not one but three new plug-ins. In December, however, Soundtoys unleashed a bigger update on the world. So, for instance, their Radiator and Devil-Loc brought to the software world the grungy qualities of an old Altec mixer preamp and Shure compressor respectively, while 2014’s MicroShift focused on the stereo widening techniques for which Eventide and AMS pitch-shifters are widely used. Many of their recent releases have been inspired by vintage hardware, often of the ‘cult classic’ variety, and always with a twist of Soundtoys’ devising. The Soundtoys range has grown relatively slowly and organically, with the company typically adding only one or two new plug-ins to their collection every year. Their USP is not only the results you can get, but the speed with which you can dial in those results. Effects like the Crystallizer granular delay, Decapitator distortion and Filter Freak filter bank don’t just sound great they also present just the right about of user adjustment, inviting you to dive in and start meddling with the controls, yet never appearing intimidating or overwhelming. Foremost among these are Soundtoys, and this is not an accident: Soundtoys plug-ins really are that good. Regular readers of our Inside Track series will have noticed that top-flight mix engineers gravitate towards a handful of plug-in developers.

Where one Soundtoys plug-in isn’t enough, you can now create custom chains, with a new emulation of a classic delay on offer too.

Note how the Tweak panel is folded out from the bottom of the Primal Tap interface rather than floated above it as in previous SoundToys generations. The new Primal Tap plug-in running in Sound Toys’ Effect Rack.

Soundtoys 5 for mac