Published on October 28th, 2008.
Author: Richard.Hunter
Category: Virtual Effects.

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(9 votes, average: 4.22 out of 5)  Loading ...

A review of Voxengo Crunchessor 2.3, Elephant 3.1, and Varisaturator 1.4

The good news regarding the latest releases of Voxengo’s Crunchessor, Elephant, and Varisaturator compressor, limiter, and saturation (respectively) plugins is that they sound very, very good, offer plenty of flexibility in routing for applications like sidechaining, are easy on the host CPU, and are very reasonably priced for the high quality they offer. The bad news where Crunchessor is concerned is that its operator interface is neither typical, self-explanatory, nor well-documented in the user manuals, and so may confuse many people who might otherwise find the exceptionally good sound and price of this plugin irresistible. That would be a shame, because there are few  compressor plugins that sound as good or do so many things at anything near the price.

Elephant 3.1

Latest version: 3.1 – User Guide (PDF) – Primary User Guide (PDF) - Forum: Elephant
Let’s start with Elephant, a piece of kit that ranks very high on the value for money scale.  Voxengo’s website proclaims that “Voxengo Elephant is a mastering limiter plug-in for professional music production applications.  The most remarkable feature of this signal limiter is its ultimate transparency.”  I beg to differ: the terrific transparency of this limiter is apparent as soon as you push it hard, but even more remarkable is the wealth of voicing options on tap.  Compared to Ozone 3’s limiter, a very capable tool with which I am thoroughly familiar, Elephant simply offers a lot more options for shaping the character, not just the volume, of a track.

 

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Everyone from novices to skilled engineers will find plenty to work with here. There are 9 different limiting modes available, along with 2 types of dithering, DC offset removal, 5 types of metering, and tools for editing such details as release time, channel linking, transient time and shape, and knee.  Voxengo has also included a set of presets that address a range of common limiting applications, and these make Elephant immediately useful even for a novice, right out of the box.  Users of simple tools such as Cakewalk’s Boost 11 will find Elephant to be a very reasonably priced upgrade that expands their mastering options and quality enormously with a very short learning curve; pros seeking a more powerful tool will not be disappointed.

 

In short, Elephant is simply an outstanding mastering tool, and a great value at the asking price of $US 90.  For anyone seeking a pro-grade mastering limiter plugin that’s both flexible and as easy to use as you want it to be, Elephant should be near the top of the short list.

 

Crunchessor 2.3

Latest version: 2.3 - User Guide (PDF) - Primary User Guide (PDF) - Forum: Crunchessor
Crunchessor shares its user interface conventions with the rest of Voxengo’s line, and like Elephant, it offers both very good sound and a range of voicing options. Few compressors in this modest price range (about $US 50) can take on so many varied characters; options include 13 different “modes” (including clean and various “crisp” and “valve” setting) and 9 different “styles” (such as warm, punchy, neutral, smooth, etc.).  The variety is not just window-dressing either; all of these options produce notably different results, they all sound very good, and they’re named in ways that clearly identify what they sound like. It’s very gratifying to experiment with these options to find exactly the right sound for a track, and Voxengo provides a useful set of presets for starting points, again clearly named in ways that indicate exactly how to use them.  Especially considering its ability to sidechain, for many productions, Crunchessor is all that’s needed to handle compression for every track in the mix.  In other words, this plugin, like Elephant, represents great value for money.

 

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However, there’s a fly in this ointment, and that’s Crunchessor’s somewhat idiosyncratic and not-nearly-well-enough documented user interface. For example, sidechaining works very well, but figuring out how to set up the routing is far from obvious, and the manual contains neither a simple step-by-step description nor a clearly marked illustration. I had to search two user forums to find out how to do it; it’s puzzling that it’s not in the manual, especially given that the manual is the easiest thing for a developer to change.  While we’re discussing the manual, let me note that Voxengo’s products ship with two PDF files, one of which describes interface conventions common to all Voxengo’s products, the other the particular product you’ve purchased.

 

Naturally, there’s no way to know which manual contains the specific information you’re searching for until you’ve read through both.  Further, the manuals seem to be written largely for users who are expert in matters technical, not (oddly enough) for the novices who are the clear beneficiaries of the well-designed-and-labeled presets.

 

And in some cases, neither manual has the goods.  For example, Crunchessor’s interface handles input, compression, and output level displays in unique ways, and the meaning of a particular graphical item can vary from meter to meter, e.g. a red line apparently means something different in the input and output meters as opposed to the gain reduction meter.  I say “apparently” because the meaning of a red line for a particular meter isn’t explained in either manual that ships with Crunchessor. To further complicate matters, each meter has two level indicators–a moving set of bars, and a white (or red) line that shifts occasionally in apparent relation to the moving bars, though exactly what the relationship is I can’t say.

 

The manual does explain the rather unique way that Crunchessor displays gain reduction; suffice it to say that there’s nothing as straightforward as, say, an indicator that tells you what the maximum gain reduction is that’s being applied to your track.  What you get instead is a display that shows gain reduction changes relative to the average of the last two seconds.  I for one do not find that to be very useful information, since I set gain makeup for the track based on peak levels, not on the last two seconds of activity. The net effect is to force the user to rely on his or her ears, as opposed to a numeric readout of what the compressor is doing.  That’s not a bad thing, I suppose, but it’s not how a lot of users work nowadays, and it’s definitely not what’s conveyed in a typical user interface.

On the plus side, Voxengo’s head developer Aleksey Vaneev is extremely responsive to user inquires, as a glance at their forum shows.  So if you’re baffled by the user interface, you can head to the forum for an answer.  I do think that it wouldbe helpful to all involved if the company were to put the effort into the next draft of the user manual instead.  In the meantime, Crunchessor’s exceptionally good sound, low price, plentiful presets, sidechaining capability, and general ease of use (user interface notwithstanding) should help put it on the short list for anyone looking for a general purpose single-band compressor.

 

VariSaturator 1.4

Latest version: 1.4 - User Guide (PDF) - Primary User Guide (PDF) - Forum: VariSaturator
Varisaturator is in some ways the most subtle of the plugins reviewed here.  Voxengo’s website says that “VariSaturator can be used both to boost the loudness of the audio tracks without increasing their peak levels proportionally, and to apply subtle harmonic coloration that makes tracks sound more pronounced and polished.”  To put it another way, varisturator adds depth and color to tracks by applying subtle distortion, both digital and valve-style.  Voxengo recommends applying it as the last stage before the peak limiter.

 

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As per the other Voxengo plugins reviewed here, Varisturator includes lots of controls for precise shaping of sound–such as high and low frequency input gain and FX levels for valve and digital saturation, frequency crossover settings, high and low frequncy output gain, and dry/wet signal mix–plus a useful set of presets for immediate application. Like PSP Audioware’s very similar Mixsaturator, Varisaturator is best used to add moderate amounts of color to a track, not to slather it with distortion. I find that it’s particularly useful for adding depth, color, and excitement to otherwise flat-sounding digital synth tracks, and it’s also found its way onto a number of my recent drum tracks. The valve and digital saturation effects both add unique flavor to a track, and the ability to apply different levels of both distortions to high and low frequency content makes it very easy to fatten up a track in exactly the right places.

 

Varisaturator’s direct competition includes the aforementioned PSP MixSaturator, which sells only as part of PSP’s MixPack2 bundle for $200.  The asking price of $US 70 for Varisaturator alone isn’t directly comparable, of course, but in general Varisaturator, like other Voxengo products, represents very good value for money.

 

Nearly fully-functional demo versions of all the plugins described in this review can be downloaded from voxengo.com, along with a number of free plugins (such as voxengo Span, a frequency analysis plugin that makes mixing a whole lot easier, TempoDelay, TubeAmp, and other good-sounding and useful freebies) that are well worth owning.  Purchase for all plugins is via download.  The license validation process is simple and does not require an online connection, which is a relief for those of us who choose to keep our DAWs disconnected from the cesspool of malicious actors that is the modern Internet.

Summary:

very good stuff, very well priced, highly recommended.

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