One of my first purchases from Tone2, what got me interested in it was reading the long list of filter types on their website. Of course, fancy filter shapes mean not a lick without the right sound quality, so that was the clincher. These filters do exactly what is hoped of them, whether that be silky tone control, violent morphing, sci-fi weirdness, distorted nastiness, or a simple resonant filter sweep.
CPU hit is almost non existant, even on my slightly outdated computer, so I often load this as a channel insert for eq, highpass for rumble suppression and DC offset correction (included are very effective 'brick wall' lowpass and highpass filters), or multiple instances in series which is a fast track to weird sounds. This thing will even do strange creepy echoes and reverbs, phasing, FM and AM with synthesizer waveforms, chorus type sounds, and quality distortion duties. So it's not just a pretty filter...
Speaking of distortion, there is a dedicated distortion section with a handful of very usable algos, these are extremely musical in my opinion, and can be placed before or after the filter stage, which extends the tonal possibilities of the countless filter types considerably, often making it sound like a completely new filter type. Brilliant!
The GUI is very solid and inspires confidence, and the 'filter graph' display is a nice touch, even if occasionally it glitches out and/or shows the wrong curve or a bad estimate sometimes (though only for the more exotic and unpredictable filters. It's very good with the more normal filters, in all fairness).
What you get for your money is an extremely usable and versatile, not to mention great sounding multi purpose effects unit, capable of everything from synthesis applications to effects, to EQ, to creative filtering, with crystal clear sound quality, parameter smoothness and resonance.Read Review
