New Toys: Arturia Modulation Effects

Arturia has released three new modulation effects and although they are not part of the current FX Collection bundle (right now), owners get a discounted price to add these circuit-accurate models of popular and classic effect boxes. I have used the original hardware units myself; many session guitarists and keyboardists came into the studio with them way back in the day!

In 1979, the Roland Dimension-D SDD-320 Analog Stereo Chorus came out and it was instantly popular with guitar players because it made a mono guitar sound stereo in a beautiful and subtle way. Arturia’s Chorus DIMENSION-D has Roland’s original four mode push buttons with button 0 routing the audio through for coloration without chorusing. It does tighten the low frequency on my first listening tests—and that can be very useful here in my mixing work.

In 1974 the Musitronics’ Mu-tron Bi-Phase pedal came out and now Arturia has the Phaser BI-TRON plug-in emulation. Both use two independently controlled, six-stage phase shifters with many ways to connect them together, control each separately, modulate, and mix the effect. There are two LFOs with three shapes and adjustable rate, an envelope follower, and feedback. Arturia added a foot pedal for manually changing the phasing effect.

Arturia’s Flanger BL-20 plug-in is based on the Bel BF-20 Stereo Flanger rack-mount unit that came out in the late 1970s. I especially liked it for very subtle changes but if you want an “inside-out” moment, it does that easily and in full stereo width.

Each of these new Arturia Modulation Effects are $99 each or $199 for a bundle of all three.

arturia.com/products/software-effects/modulations-bundle/overview