Karanyi Sounds Poly Space $49 PC MAC

This latest reverb plugin will take you to outer space, but only has a couple of controls to get you there. Can ‘simple’ really sound ‘great’?

We’re not sure if it’s a ‘trend’ – 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’.

We think this is ‘a good thing’ in the main – especially to those of us too busy (or lazy) to dig deep. But have relative newcomers 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?

Two 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 the scenes is actually 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 ambient swan, then, with all the paddling taking place out of sight.

Big. Then bigger