United Plugins has announced JMG Sound’s Mirror as the world’s first reverse negative delay plug-in, capable of applying effects, reversing audio, and playing back audio before the event begins.
Readily replicating classic reversed snare sounds – presently popular with EDM and also evident in the likes of ‘Panic Station’ by Muse (released in 2013 from their sixth studio album The 2nd Law).
Not limited to working with snares, Mirror it can be applied to a wide variety of sounds, including creating interesting rhythms with drum loops, spicing up arpeggios and leads, and transforming vocals and pads.
As a reverse negative delay plug-in, Mirror records the audio played into a buffer and then plays it back in reverse. It plays this reversed audio back before the original audio plays, however, by reporting a ‘fake’ latency to the host DAW, which then compensates, aligning the end of the effect with the start of the original sound.
Several straightforward controls are visible via the plug-in’s photorealistic GUI, which can be resized using the arrow at the bottom-right corner. Of its parameters, Wet controls the level of the added signal; Dry controls the level of the original signal; Trim controls how much of the end of the reversed audio will be trimmed off (in milliseconds); Verb controls the dry/wet mix of the reversed reverb (applied to the audio before the reversing, so the result is a reversed reverb sound); and Blur controls the dry/wet mix of a short reverb (diffusing the audio, so suited to softening any transients that might be too dynamic for the reversed effect).
High- and low-pass filtering offer further control in the form of a 20Hz to 2kHz high-pass and 200Hz to 20kHz low-pass. All are easy to use, and allow Mirror users to soften, trim, filter, extend the reverse effect to seamlessly transition from wet to dry, duly smooth out transients, remove bass punch, reduce harsh attacks, or lower high-end frequencies; all work to make the effect act as a supporting role while the original sound stays centre stage, which is the way it should be.
The plug-in uses internal 64-bit audio processing, as well as being able to handle any sampling rate up to 192kHz (or higher) and also intelligently detects whether it makes sense to perform any processing at all – if not, it temporarily turns on sleep mode, meaning it requires virtually no CPU power.
Mirror is available to purchase for €69 as an AAX, AU, VST and VST3-compatible plug-in (using internal 64-bit audio processing capable of handling any sample rate) directly from United Plugins.
