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Fig 2: Phatter lows.
range of products to eventually make them fully
64-bit compatible. It’s worth checking the Waves
website to see if there are any issues in using
your particular DAW-based 64- to 32-bit plug-in
solution, but the OneKnobs worked flawlessly
for me under Apple’s Logic 9.1.3 and its rather
creaky 32-bit bridge. While running under the
resolutely 32-bit Pro Tools 9, the plug-ins didn’t
falter once – in fact they took whatever I threw
at them without complaint over the test period.
The Knobs In Action
Brighter: Makes things brighter. Enough said.
Waves says that it ‘adds brightness from the
midrange up’ and it certainly seems to do that, but
it also has a little of a feel of an aural exciter too,
adding air and definition to vocals and guitars
without piling on too much harshness or sibilance
– though it will add both to the wrong source, of
course. Fig 1 shows roughly the frequency where
the boost starts to take effect.
Phatter: I wanted to hate this as I usually want
to throw anything that has ‘phat’ in its name out
of the window, but it really does do what it says
on the knob extremely well. It’s a low/low mid
bass frequency booster that tends to distortion if
you add too much. Sonically, it reminds me very
much of Waves' Renaissance Bass plug-in – which
leads me to wonder how much of Waves’ existing
technology underlies these new lean interfaces.
Fig 2 shows whereabouts the low frequency
enhancements start to take effect.
Driver: This is a distortion plug-in, and like
all distortion effects it’s going to be great on
something that it flatters and ear-wrenchingly
horrible on something that it doesn’t. It’s a nice
extra to have, but if it wasn’t part of the suite I
wouldn’t miss it. In my opinion, most DAWs have
better amp/distortion effects these days and
the best use I found was in conjunction with a
telephone EQ effect on vocals – and it was okay
when using a small amount on some parallel
drum bussing. I wasn’t enamoured with Driver,
though your mileage may vary.
Wetter: This had me flummoxed for a while
(RTFM!) but it’s actually quite a clever idea –
the different knob positions add various
combinations of types and depths of ambience.
Just find one that suits your audio and you’re
done. Wetter won’t work in every situation, but if
you find an audio and knob position combination
that sounds right, it’ll sound really nice.
I’ve always been a fan of Waves’ Ambience plugins
since Truverb, and Wetter doesn’t disappoint in
quality either.
Louder: This again does what it says on the
virtual tin – makes things louder when you turn
up the knob via a combination of peak limiting,
compression, and automatic gain compensation.
I wouldn’t use this in the same way I’d use the
L1 – for maximising when mastering – as it’s too
coloured for that, but the pumping you get as
you turn up the knob really adds energy to audio.
It was really nice on electric guitar, drums, and
vocals, and it adds up to 24dB of gain too – which
is pretty useful in these ‘record everything at
-20dB at 24-bit’ days.
Pressure: Pressure is like Louder’s evil, bigger,
smellier twin. It’s the first of the suite to deviate
from the single knob paradigm in that there’s a
toggle that switches through Pad, Unity, or Boost
settings to help match the gain of the input
source. You just turn it up for more compression,
more pumping, more energy. This was my
favourite plug-in – everything sounded better
when I instanced Pressure and it was so CPU light
I was tempted to use it on every Track. Even string
quartets.
Filter: Filter again has a toggle button, but this
one swaps between several resonance settings.
This poses a problem though, as you can’t use
automation to sweep the resonance as you could
with a more traditional filter plug-in, making it
really more akin to a nice sounding EQ. And it
does sound really good and smooth, allowing
you to completely remove the audio by using only
the knob on its lowest setting. I can see it getting
a lot of use in dance and electronic music – a
decade ago you’d have paid an arm and a leg for
a filter that sounds like this. It’d be better with a
continuous resonance control though!
Knobby Issues
The latter two plug-ins, with their extra toggle
controls, pose the question as to why others in
the suite don’t also feature some extra parameters.
Perhaps Driver could have a filter? Or Brighter
a cut-off? Or Wetter an effect balance knob?
Or maybe they could all have several more
controls for more flexibility – no, wait, that's
feature-creep. Therein lies the conundrum that
must have faced the team developing OneKnob;
several of the plug-ins would definitely be
improved by extra controls – though this would,
of course, destroy the elegance and simplicity of
the interface. But then again, having toggles on
Filter and Pressure already means that these are
moving the plug-ins away from the intended ‘one
control’ simplicity, so why stop there? Only Waves
truly knows.
I’ll be interested to see what updates Waves
brings in after users have been using the plug-ins
for a while. Personally, I’d have also liked to see a
tape saturation type of plug-in – which would
perfectly suit the OneKnob ‘turn it up for more
effect’ paradigm.
Conclusion
I do wonder whether the word ‘knob’ has exactly
the same connotations in the US as it does in
the UK? But on mentioning that I was reviewing
this package to my colleagues, the expected and
predictable double entendres and innuendoes
came flying in fast and thick. It’s possible that the
name, coupled with the simple interface, could
cause casual observers to wonder how serious a
product the OneKnob bundle is. Then they might
also then baulk at the price of the package, for
those very reasons. This would be a pity, as what
the company has created here is an extremely
useful suite of tools that gets several jobs done
in an unfussy fashion, at high fidelity, and at low
CPU cost.
So why would you use these instead of your
‘to go’ plug-ins? Well, apart from their obvious
ergonomic advantages (especially in a live/
recording situation) they also have a ‘sound’ – and
a very nice one at that. None of these plug-ins
will make your audio sound worse and, if used
in the right context, will usually make it sound
considerably better. ∫
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INFORMATION
£ US$320.00 (exc.tax) – OneKnob Series Native
A Waves Inc.
T +1 865 909 9200
W www.waves.com
A UK Distributor: Sonic Distribution
T +44 (0)845 500 2 500
W www.sonic-distribution.com
AUDIO MEDIA MAY 2011 45