Sonitex STX-1260

This multi-effect unit is pretty much the last word on getting lo-fi grit into your recordings, apart from cutting the wax yourself and dropping it on a turntable or loading up that 12-bit sampler with drum loops. It modifies audio in rather unsubtle ways, but does so with a keen eye to character that makes its sound very musical. This, and the fact that it covers just about every method you would want to grunge up things, gives the STX-1260 a leg up on all its lo-fi competition.

The effect is split into six sections, each of which can be enabled and disabled. In a rather smart move (and one of my favorite features), each section has its own "sub-presets" making it extremely easy to quickly dial in the sound you want. The MIX section deals with the typical wet/dry mix plus dynamics. I haven't fiddled with the compressor too much, so I can't comment on its sound. DISTORTION allows you to drop tape sat or a number of other distortions. The distortions are warm and subtle to my ears, making them perfect for adding just a touch of color without getting out of hand. The VINYL section gives you control over vinyl effects like warble and silibence. The silibence control here is particularly outstanding -- it's basically a harmonic exciter that just nails that "hissy" quality to vocals on vinyl. The TONE section gives you a colorful hig/low pass EQ, which, by itself might not be spectacular, but sound just right in the context of this plug. NOISE gives you the typical vinyl pops, clicks, and noise. Again, otiumFX gets it right with a very musical character of the grit, much moreso than iZotope's Vinyl. It also introduces interesting artifacting at high levels of noise, which can get pretty wild. Finally is the SAMPLING section, which is a bit-depth reducer with major teeth. The STX-1260's reduction sounds much more like "hardware" than any other reducer I've played with.

The plugin itself is solid, I've never had it force a crash. I have had trouble dropping it into a track while audio is play in both my sequencer and multitrack.

Overall, the VFM of this plug is excellent. It provides top notch grit with a nice entry level analog/warming functionality.Read Review