Karanyi Sounds Poly Space review

Karanyi Sounds Poly Space: What is it?

We’re not sure if it’s a 'trend' – but we’ll help make it so, if not – but plugins do seem to be moving away from complexity in favour of easy controls and just sounding great. 

Companies like Baby Audio are eschewing some often deeper routing and programming options to just let you get on with the job of music making. Some are even renaming traditional (and more obscure) functions to make them more obvious and 'real world'. 

This is 'a good thing' in the main – especially to those of us too busy  (or lazy) to dig deep – but has relative newcomer Karanyi Sounds taken it too far with Poly Space? This ‘out of space reverb’ takes ease of use to another world but does its sound go with it on the journey? 

Too easy?

Yes, Poly Space is, on the face of it, ridiculously simple in operation. It has a couple of main controls, a Random switch, in and out level controls and a mix option. That’s it. 

And while the processing going on behind is a lot more than you might think – there are reverb algorithms, delays, convolution processing and more than 50 impulse responses based on classic studio hardware – Poly Space is designed with ease of use and elegance in mind. 

Like some kind of like an ambient swan, then, with all the padding done out of sight. 

Karanyi Sounds Poly Space: Performance and verdict

The two main controls are where the action is with the Magnitude rotary dialling in more girth to your reverb sound. Think of it as increasing your room size right up to something epically large, and it certainly goes as big as you’ll need. 

Longitude increases the length of the reverb, and while Magnitude also does this in a way – bigger reverbs take longer to die away – Longitude can be used effectively drier, just to increase the sustain and release time of a note, not to mention the overall smoothness.

There’s a drop-down menu to change the actual impulse response (or “space combination”) used at the core of the reverb and another with the actual presets (choose from 30). 

The only slightly unnerving thing is that both change the sound so dramatically that you can get them confused at first. Both could be sets of presets but the upper set of actual presets can be added to easily with your own efforts, and that Random button is a great way to do this fast. 

What is surprising is that, despite there being cloudy animations and a general ambient feel, the resulting sounds can be reasonably varied, although those producers of a floaty nature will certainly be most at home here. 

So, yes you can create dry(ish) delays should you wish, but the washing ambience, so easily made huge with the Magnitude control, then even longer and smoother with Longitude and almost overwhelming with the mix dial definitely screams ‘dreamy’. 

Poly Space therefore won’t appeal to everyone, nor is there much to tweak beneath its misty surface, but there’s still a huge audience of dream poppers, chill wavers and, frankly, stoners that will love it. Simple, beautifully elegant, a timeless sound and all at a great price.

MusicRadar verdict: If you want to get to amazing reverb sounds very quickly there’s probably no faster route than with Poly Space.

Karanyi Sounds Poly Space: Hands-on demos

Simulation Beats

Arsiney Music

White Noise Studio

Karanyi Sounds Poly Space: Audio demos

Karanyi Sounds Poly Space: Specifications

• 30+ Factory & Artist presets
• Focusing on unreal, superlush spaces
• 50+ Algorithms custom-made for this reverb
• Streamlined interface with just 2 main controls
• Smart Random button on board for instant inspiration
• Dry/Wet and In-Out knobs for ease of use in mixing situation.
• Supports major DAWs, including Ableton Live, FL Studio, Logic Pro, Cubase, Reason, Studio One, BitWig, Reaper, etc.
• CONTACT: Karanyi Sounds