I prefer not to use the phrase “sound design” in my music production, as it feels more like a term our colleagues in post-production use. But what I do like are plug-ins that can take a sound and completely morph it into something else. This native plug-in, FutzVerb, is based on McDSP's FutzBox ("a distortion and noise generator plug-in for creating low-fidelity versions of audio signals"). It mucks with the signal via Synthetic Impulse Models (SIMs), making your track sound like it came through a cell phone, fax machine (what?), or other such, then sends it into a reverb, with maybe some pitch altering, filtering, and distortion added. Like a mini modular synth, the GUI has panels feeding the signal left-to-right with a lot of controls – too many to list! Basically, (in order) we are filtering, distorting, pre-delaying, Futz-ing, reverbing, gating or ducking, and then blending the signal. It's fun. Try the presets to begin. The “Messed Up” preset hooked me right away, as it could turn a drum track into the sound of people rolling barrels around in an empty warehouse. "Crunchy Beat" on kick drum was nutty and made some cool boing-y distorted tones that I could see using to weird effect. The Pre-Delay can actually be set to make the reverb appear before the source – using it on a weird, detuned voice works wonders for separation of the sound from the original. The "Backwards Beats" preset for drums sounded amazing on vocals, with the Pre-Delay pushing the reverse-ish effect ahead of the singer.
On sessions, FutzVerb shined on weird tracks. A child's voice turned demonic with some pitch changes. Casio keyboards became washes of harmony and noise. Drum machines crunched and splattered to good use. I've spent a lot of my life putting EQs, compressors, and more before and after reverbs and delays, and it's nice to have units like this where I can see what’s going on and dial in something unique that I can save and will use frequently. These reverb effects are way cool, with a lot of deep placement of sounds via both width and front to back. What would I change? It'd be cool if the Pre-Filter, Distortion, and other panels could be shuffled around. More distortion on the reverb return? Heck yes. Also, a 100 percent wet Mix lock button would be great when using on an aux track and trying out presets. But these are requests we can put out there and see what McDSP does! With this much capability of changing the texture and spatiality of a track, FutzVerb is truly a tool I will take advantage of. If this is what sound design is, sign me up!