Native Instruments releases Mod Pack – 3 modulation effects at a wonderful price
Native Instruments released a collection of three effects called the MOD PACK. It contains three essential modulation effects – CHORAL (chorus), flanger (FLAIR), and phaser (PHASIS). NI touts these as the best modulation effects ever created, which always makes us kinda sceptical. But all the marketing fluff aside, there’s definitely more to these than meets the eye, and NI tends to walk its talk – so here’s more about each effect.
Choral – Classic Chorus
According to NI, Choral borrows inspiration from some of the best choruses of the last 40 years – and that’s a darn long time! While you probably imagine a bunch of guitar pedals, NI pretty much cleared the whole closet, for several rack-mount and synth-based unison units made the cut, too. Choral is supposedly good for adding width, movement, sheen, and shimmer to anything you throw at it. NI also created a feedback mode called Scatter – it’s designed to avoid the typical unpleasantness of heavy feedback effects in the traditional chorus, introducing a new reverb-like effect. Sounds interesting!
Customization options are rampant within Choral – for example, you can set the number of chorus voices from one to three, alter the sync rate, and adjust modulation rate, chorus amount, mix, delay time, stereo width, and feedback. Pretty epic chorus, all in all – there may be more complex offerings on the market, but Choral is both powerful and rather simple to use, so sign us up!
Flair
Although Flair is said to be recreating those old analog tape and pedal flanging effects with good success, NI’s flanger doesn’t stop there. Flair features a new Voices mode where multiple delay lines are used to create tuned harmonic flanging layers and resonances. On top of that, there are as many as 24 chord settings to experiment with, alongside features like Detune (ofsets flanger pitch), Feedback (thickens flanging with adjustable damping control to roll of high frequencies & soften the effect at high feedback values), and Width (creates stereo flanging). It’s a cool flanger for sure, capable of a great many options.
Phasis
Phasis, the phaser, first appeared last year as a Christmas gift, so many of you probably have this one in your arsenal already. Like other plug-ins in this collection, Phasis is a classic phaser in its roots, but with modern functionality – for example, there’s the Spread control for changing the spacing between the phaser’s notches, or Ultra mode for high-rate modulation and odd FM tones. Up to 12 notches, powerful stereo spread, tempo-sync, and a variety of controls make Phasis into one of the nicer phasers you can own.
Price & availability
NI is selling the Mod Pack for USD 69, with upgrades available for USD 49 if you own Phasis already. Considering each of these plug-ins could easily have cost USD 50 or more, the Mod Pack is a freaking steal!
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