Gear Review: Wavesfactory Quantum

Every once in a while a product comes across my desk that not only makes my production life easier but actually brings a smile to my face. Quantum by Wavesfactory is just such a tool.

What Quantum does at its most basic, is separate an audio signal into its attack and sustain parts for processing before recombining them. However, with 16 possible effects available to you in the plugin, it’s much more the sum than the parts—Chorus, compression, impulse response loader, delay, enhancer, EQ, flanger, limiter, lofi, phaser, pitch shifter, reverb, saturation, stereo tools, tremolo, and vibrato. Yes, all in one piece of software and they can all be used in combination with each other.

What likely started out as a transient shaper (an audio processor that can increase or reduce the transients or tonal parts of a signal) for drums and percussion, is in fact much more than that and while there are other products on the market that can mangle and reconfigure your sounds, I can’t think of one off the top of my head that combines this many high-quality effects and keeps the CPU load low (Frankly, I can’t think of another product that combines all these elements CPU load or not). I think Wavesfactory should have named this Soundfactory instead. It has that much packed into it.

So of course I tried it on drums first, and whammo, within minutes I had crafted super hefty, banging, meaty, grunge drums by just simply adding a few effects like EQ, compression, saturation, and the exciter in the “pre” left window. But unable to leave a good thing alone, I also added some stereo width in the right “post” window, which brought out the high hat more in the right speaker but without and phasing issues. I also added about 12 percent more middle to feel the kick and snare a bit more before adding limiting in my final slot in the post window. Absolutely incredible. The EQ is not your basic, garden variety either. I found it to be very effective, responsive, and easy to use. In fact, all of the effects sound terrific.

Next, I went for it and used the Quantum on electric guitar, piano, acoustic guitar, and really anything I hadn’t already processed. It turned out to be a time saver as 90 percent of what I could need on a track was available in Quantum. Yes, sure you can get weird sounds with Quantum (REALLY weird sounds if you want to), but what really surprised me was how useful it was in a mix without going over the edge. It’s important to note that the Quantum also has a mix blend so you can add as much or as little of treatment as you like.  Very handy.

The graphical readout at the top of the plug-in screen is super helpful while processing your tracks and the plug-in is also sizable so it can be as large or as small on your screen as works best with your DAW. I have to say that at $149 street price, Wavesfactory Quantum is one of the best and most useful plug-in purchases I’ve ever made, bar none.  Check out some demo videos on YouTube and here.

Want to learn more about the best EQ Plugins? Take a look at our list of the best EQ Plugin.

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