Review: Spitfire – BT Phobos

As a music producer, you might be well aware of some of the most popular synth plugins such as Serum, Diva, Massive, Sylenth, etc. Most of the synth plugins today are based on oscillator-based synthesis. Phobos by Spitfire which is designed by electronic music pioneer, BT, drifted away from the usual oscillator-based synthesis and provided a whole new dimension to the process. Down below is our detailed analysis of the plugin.

 

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Features

BT Phobos is a polyconvolution synthesizer. Convolution is an effect where you can impart the tonality of certain spaces & objects on any other signal. This technique leads to some unique results as your sounds will be supplemented by a reverb that comes from another sound. To know more about Convolution you can check out this video here.

There are 4 sound panels & 3 separate convolvers within the plugin. A collection of 2000+ sounds can be used both as a source & as an impulse response. The sounds are all labeled with the category they belong to. This makes it much easier and faster to find exactly the sound you are looking for. With each source patch, you get an ADSR envelope, a High pass filter, Dry & Wet knobs for the convolution reverb. One interesting feature that caught our eye was the triangular matrix right in the center of the plugin. With the help of this matrix, you can convolve any of the 4 source patches with any of the 3 impulse responses. Even just randomly fiddling around with the matrix leads to so many interesting results & unique sounds. You can also adjust the ADSR envelope, pitch & output levels of the impulse responses. All the loops and sounds track the host tempo so you don’t have to worry about making them in tune or sync with the BPM of the track.

Another interesting feature is the key mapping. You can map all 4 sound sources to different parts of the keyboard. So if you want the lower registers to play long sustained bass notes and the higher ones to play drums or leads, it is possible and quite easy to perform as well. You also get the option to map all controllers to multiple LFOs. There are over 650 presets created by 5 different creators to help you explore the complete potential of Phobos. The sounds and the presets are immaculate and are certain to provide your tracks the unique flair you have been searching for.

 

Price

BT Phobos by Spitfire Audio is currently priced at $299.00

Verdict

Phobos aims to provide composers writing epic, cinematic electronic, and hybrid compositions another dimension to synthesis and something unique to play around with. With not many alternatives in the market today, we definitely believe that BT Phobos is something worth checking out.

 

Check out more about BT Phobos in this video down below:

 

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Image Credits: Spitfire