As someone who started his audio journey in the 90s I have a very soft spot for multi effects processors, largely fuelled by my early experiences of an Alesis Quadraverb. The ability to access EQ, delay, pitch effects and reverb all from the same unit, hence the ‘Quad’ in Quadraverb, was amazing in itself but the thing I really loved about that box was the fact that you could recall patches which featured combinations of all four effects at the touch of a button, allowing complete transformations of the sound. Transformations which could be inspirational, sending productions in unexpected directions.

It’s difficult to convey how exciting this was to someone who has only ever known DAW workflows with complete recall of sessions, but considering how much power we have available in a DAW and all the methods we have available to us to recall complete FX chains, in my experience few products capture the feeling of preset-cruising a multi FX processor. However, here’s a few that in our opinion come close.

Valhalla SuperMassive

Time based effects like delay, reverb and modulation are important here and for a free plugin which excels in this territory I’ll have to call out Supermassive from Valhalla. While this isn’t a multi-effects plugin, it’s included here because it has the same ability to transform. It slides so effortlessly between delay, reverb and modulation that the distinctions between these categories becomes increasingly meaningless.

One of the best things about Supermassive, and all the other Valhalla reverbs and delays, is the fact that they don’t suffer zipper noise when changing delay parameters. This means that enormous fun lies ahead for anyone with a decent control surface, taking me back to my earliest experiments with delay courtesy of a bright blue Frontline analog delay pedal back in my teens. And of course it’s free…

Baby Audio Magic Dice

It might be a misplaced work ethic but don’t we all put more value on something if we’ve carefully crafted it rather than just finding a cool thing someone else made? I certainly do, but the listener doesn’t care and isn’t the real skill spotting the good stuff when it happens, however that might be?

Magic Dice is the plugin equivalent of hitting shuffle on your biggest Spotify playlist. Hit the dice, hear a random combination of crystalline reverbs with a wealth of modulation options and a 16-step delay sequencer. It deliberately lacks any controls beyond a mix control. Just roll the dice and see what you get. Often nonsense but occasionally inspirational. And this one is free too!

UJAM Finisher Series

If you like the idea of auditioning multi effects presets, passing over the inappropriate until you find something interesting, but you want a degree of tweak available when you find something you like, then instead of Magic Dice you need one of UJAM’s Finishers. They are multi effects plugins which combine multiple effects modules together into chains. They don’t offer direct control over the choice of order of modules but do offer control over selected parameters, or macros controlling multiple parameters, to keep the experience quick and creative. If you like it, use it, if you don’t, keep moving and try something else.

There is a range of Finishers to choose from but if you want to try the workflow then there is a free version. Micro Finisher offers 25 presets and a single adjustment marked ‘amount’.

Eventide H3000 Factory

When thinking of hardware multi effects, back in the day while we were peering at the tiny displays of our Quadraverbs, the pros were peering at the tiny displays of their Eventide H3000s! When it was released in 1986, the H3000 represented the state of the art in modern, programmable delay, pitch shifting and more.

The H3000 Factory is a plugin version of the original hardware and ships with over 450 presets, 100 of which are from the hardware. Programmable, and with a semi modular design, really bewildering effects can be built. Multiple taps with modulations and filtering make this a plugin you can get properly creative with, for period sounds and much more. 

Unfiltered Audio Byome

Although the Eventide H3000 is semi-modular, if you want an ultimate modular patchable audio playground then Unfiltered Audio’s Byome is enormous fun. Byome stands for Build You Own Multi Effects and with a clean interface and simple CV style patching system it is easy to set up multiple complex modulation paths. Modulation of modulators all automated via multiple macros? You name it, you can probably do it in Byome.

Audiomodern Loopmix

The great thing about cruising presets on a multi effects plugin is that it can throw up something unexpected which can spark new ideas. However, traditional effects plugins can’t fundamentally change the performance. If you want something which really throws things up in the air then what about a plugin like Audiomodern’s Loopmix? What this plugin does is cut up up audio loops into slices which can then be rearranged and played back in new and potentially interesting ways, even being controlled in real time from a MIDI controller.

I first came across this idea in Loopmash, a Cubase VI which offers an alternative take on this idea. I liked it, but not enough for this Pro Tools user to start using Cubase. Audiomodern’s Loopmix makes it fun and easy to instantly remix and rearrange your audio loops. It offers up an array of devices and processors that slice, dice, rearrange, pitch, reverse and remix loops in innovative and unpredictable ways. In Loopmix you can load up to 6 loops and let Loopmix generate infinite variations. For instant gratification, which is after all the common theme of this list, use its randomization algorithms to inject some fresh inspiration in to your arrangement.

Do you use any multi effects plugins in your workflow? If so, do you use presets to throw in some uncertainty into your arrangements? Share your thoughts in the comments below.