Xfer Records is a plugin company founded by composer, producer and plugin designer, Steve Duda. It’s gained a reputation for thinking outside of the box in terms of conception and development, releasing some of the most technically useful and abundantly creative plugins on the market – one look at their innovative Serum synthesizer or their acclaimed LFO Tool and you’ll know exactly what we mean. In addition to their current paid offerings, Xfer Records features a collection of free plugins that embody the same level of quality and attention to sonic detail as their other tools.
Here we’ve compiled the top 5 free Xfer Records plugins among Splice users and created a demonstration project to showcase some of their uses and capabilities. Sign up for Splice to download the free plugins here.
Dimension Expander
Xfer Records Dimension Expander is a fairly unique sounding spatial expander that’s modeled on chorusing effects from the late 80’s. It splits the incoming signal in to four parts, flips the phase of two of them, and then delays them. Simplicity is the name of the game here – you can apply Dimension Expander to nearly any track you’d like to achieve greater stereo spread and enhanced width.
- In Session: “Dimension Expander is perfect for spreading a primary sound out and making it seem huge, but can also be used more subtly on effects tracks and background noises. For this session we used it on the Lazer Sample track to make it echo and splash a bit, automating the WET/DRY control all the way from 0% to 100% as the track progresses.”
OTT
Xfer Records OTT is a re-creation of a popular aggressive multiband upwards/downwards compressor set-up used by many dubstep and electro producers. It features a DEPTH control to scale the amount of compression applied and a TIME control to scale both the attack and release times of all bands. This can be very useful for finalizing an entire mix without the need for much tweaking.
- In Session: “Xfer Records OTT sounds amazing on the master channel strip. We put an instance of it right before the limiter, adjusted the OUT GAIN a bit, and were instantly satisfied by how it made the track pump and growl slightly.”
DJM Filter
Xfer Records DJM Filter provides a DJM-900 filter emulation in a dual LOWPASS/HIGHPASS filter module – all in one slick control that sounds great and can easily be automated through your DAW or mapped to any MIDI controller.
- In Session: “The DJM Filter is just what it sounds like – a sweet recreation of one of the best DJ filters ever. We used it at the very beginning of the track as a lowpass filter to make the track seem like it was coming out of nowhere.”
MIDI Shift Array
Xfer Records MIDI Shift Array can be thought of as an arpeggiator – a device that receives incoming MIDI notes and disperses them, spreading them out and then automatically retriggering them at user-determined intervals. While MIDI Shift Array can certainly achieve this, its real strengths lie in its ability to interject elements of polyphonic randomness in to the process. This is a great way to come up with new ideas or for creating textures that are a bit chaotic.
- In Session: “MIDI Shift Array can do some very interesting things to otherwise static MIDI. Here we routed it to the Piano track – it instantly took a boring melody and shook things up a bit to give it some movement and flavor.”
8-Bit Shaper
Xfer Records 8-Bit Shaper processes the incoming audio signal and reduces it to 8-bits. It then induces a waveshaper stage with optional pre and post filtering to allow for even further coloration of the signal. The WET/DRY control and the free-drawing graph allow you to control the amount of processing that occurs and then blend it back in with the original audio.
- In Session: “Xfer Records 8-Bit Shaper is a beast. We added just a little bit to the Bass track and it instantly gave it mid-range crunch and presence.”
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March 2, 2015
