PSP Audioware is on a tear, rolling out major upgrades to its line of effects processors. Hot on the heels of the PSP 85, covered here last month, comes N2O. PSP promises that Nitrous Oxide will increase your appreciation of your dentist and make your party rock.
Beyond personal benefits, it offers a bevy of new effects, enhanced modulation with more flexible routing and a new step sequencer, and a redesigned plug-in engine. You'll also find separate, larger, and clearer LCD-style displays for the modulators, operators, and routing/browsing. So, in addition to being a much more powerful effects processor, N2O is a bit easier to use than Nitro. At present, documentation is limited to a series of online videos, but a full manual is being considered.
For Effect
Comparing the operator menus, it appears that N2O has one more effect than Nitro, but on closer examination you'll notice that Nitro's 11 filters are listed separately, whereas N2O lists three filter types—Biquad, SVF, and Moog. You choose the mode of the first two types on their control panels (the highpass and bandpass modes of the 4-pole Moog ladder filter have gone missing). The new effects in N2O are the formant filter, pitch shifter, stereo delay (replacing Nitro's Glide), reverb, EQ, stereo enhancement, compressor-expander, phase inverter, rectifier, and sidechain mixer. The first three are welcome additions to the sound-design toolkit, and the rest come in handy when you need to tweak the sound before using the other N2O effects.
Sidechain input and a latency-matching delay for the dry signal are new. The mid-side routing has been moved to a special configuration window, where you can toggle mid-side conversion separately for the input and output of each operator as well as phase-invert the operator's output. You might, for example, elect mid-side conversion before using a couple of operators to rebalance and apply stereo-modulated filtering, and then convert back to stereo at the output of the second operator.
In Motion
N20's 16-row modulation matrix lets you route the eight assignable front-panel knobs along the bottom; they have red centers and custom labels when assigned. The modulation matrix is also where you route the built-in LFO, ADSR envelope, envelope detector, and stereo step-sequencer, as well as any MIDI message. And you can use several rows for the same source, thereby letting that source control multiple parameters with different amounts and polarities. Conversely, you can map several sources to the same parameter to build very complex modulation patterns. A switch at the bottom of the matrix lets you decide whether the modulation is reflected in the graphics displays, which is often useful for setup but confusing for complex routings.
Modulation targets include all the operator (effects) and modulator settings, the main input and output levels, and the dry/wet mix. Moreover, you can target all the levels in the routing matrix and all the modulation amounts in the modulation matrix. That lets you redesign the entire N2O structure in real-time, using MIDI and the internal modulators, to produce a mind-bending array of possibilities (including uncontrolled feedback and absolute silence). Fortunately, the setup for the things that come most readily to mind is quick and easy. In a nice touch, when you click a destination slot in the modulation matrix, available target parameters turn red in the Modulator and Operator displays, and you can simply click the desired parameter instead of locating it in the menu tree.
Their Way
If you're developing a headache at this point, rest assured that PSP has you covered. N2O ships with three banks of 64 factory presets that, with a little tweaking, pretty well cover the bases. (It's handy to save all three factory banks before tweaking so you can go back without reinstantiating the plug-in.) With names like "Rotten Rhodes" and "Laryngitis" you can expect some serious destruction. Others such as Nanosphere and Two-band Phaser take your tracks just a little over the edge. One of my favorites, Octasub, uses parallel comb filters to simulate a flanger and couples that with an octave pitch-shift down. The assignable knobs are typically used judiciously in the factory presets; Octasub has just three knob assignments: flanging motion and depth along with the sub-octave balance.
You've probably surmised from the list of operators that resonant filtering plays a prominent roll in N2O's sounds. First you have the comb filter, which you can configure with steep notches or peaks as well as modulate its number of bands. The formant filter lets you morph between any two vowels. Beyond that, the Biquad and SV (state-variable) filters each have two settings between which you can morph.
The LFO is a flexible source of modulation for any of these settings. As mentioned you can phase-offset its right and left outputs. You can also tilt the waveform to vary its shape or invoke the sample-and-hold option for random step-modulation. For predictable stepping, use the step-sequencer, which also features independent right and left outputs. A third useful source is the envelope detector. Set that to follow a percussion track in the sidechain input to make your other tracks dance along.
The best way to judge whether N2O is for you is to try it out. . Run through the presets on some of your favorite tracks, and I'm betting you'll be hooked. Ridiculously flexible routing and modulation scheme. Excellent array of factory presets. Top-notch audio quality. From Gearwire.com