For many producers, Cableguys’ ‘Shaper’ effects have become secret creative weapons over the past few years, and the company has now packed new versions of five of them into a single plugin: ShaperBox 2.
The effects in question - TimeShaper 2, VolumeShaper 6, FilterShaper Core 2, PanShaper 3, and WidthShaper 2 - all take a visual approach to control, enabling you to draw the required modulation shapes using the editable LFOs. There are new Pens for drawing lines, arcs and S-curves, while the Filter, Pan and Width Shapers can now respond to the dynamics of your beats, loops and melodies.
Other enhancements include a British-inspired visual compressor inside VolumeShaper 6, eight phaser modes in FilterShaper Core 2, tape/vinyl ‘wow’ and custom flanger/chorus with TimeShaper 2’s Fine Mode, and psychoacoustic Haas panning in PanShaper 3.
If you want to take a shortcut to various staple production effects, you can do so via the 1-click Quick Presets that pop up on ShaperBox 2’s startup screen.
ShaperBox 2 is already in the hands of several pro producers, with David Guetta calling it “a box of many must-have, well organised tools for sound design and even for mixing.”
You can purchase the ShaperBox 2 processors individually, but the best value offering is the ShaperBox 2 Bundle, which contains all of them and costs $99/€89. It runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU formats.
Find out more on the Cableguys website, where you can also download a demo.
