Who needs a fancy interface when the app is so powerful?

Audio effects are a blast to create, but it's not easy to find an affordable equivalent of a Swiss Army knife for doing just that. SFX Machine Pro is a one-stop shop for audio processing at a reasonable price - and it makes sweet sounds.

The app works flawlessly as a plug-in for GarageBand and Ableton Live, with exceptional processing efficiency. Putting SFX Machine Pro to work is a snap - what the interface lacks in looks, it makes up for in intuitiveness. The 300 presets are divided into categories; click a category, and the variations are presented in an adjacent Preset column. When you choose one, the sliders display the controls, which vary for each preset. The controls open up endless possibilities, and what's more, you can save your own custom presets.

SFX Machine Pro has a little bit of everything, from useful to completely crazy. Need the scratchiness of an ancient turntable? How about the stuttering of an old film projector, or the noise of a coughing motor? It's all here, and you can tweak to your heart's content. The Pitch Shifting and Harmonizer effects turn voices into scary robots, and the Phase Shifting and Flanger effects add shimmer to guitar and strings. The Granular effects chop and dice a sound into sonic slivers, rearranging them in ways that would make Trent Reznor proud. The rich, musical Chorus effects work equally well on guitar and keyboard tracks. SFX Machine Pro is also capable of generating sounds from electronic bleeps to EADGBE tones for tuning a guitar. You can program the app to respond to custom MIDI messages, allowing any aspect of it to be driven from a MIDI controller or keyboard, critical for live performance use.

The bottom line. SFX Machine Pro could be the most important tool in your audio arsenal

COMPANY: The Sound Guy
CONTACT: www.sfxmachine.com
PRICE: $149.99
REQUIREMENTS: G3 or faster, Mac OS 10.3.9 or later, 10MB RAM, Audio Units host application
Excellent variety of effects. Easy to use. Low processor overhead. Great sound. Universal binary.
Not the prettiest-looking application.