Let’s step into the world Air Music Tech’s latest offering – Ether. As we delve into our in-depth review of Ether, we will uncover its transformative capabilities that transcend the familiar realms of sound processing and venture into hitherto uncharted territories.
Because with so many different plugins hitting the market these days, it can be hard to know which ones are worth the money and space on your production harddrive. So we fired this one up in the studio and used it extensively for the better part of a month to get familiar enough with it to talk openly about everything we liked and didn’t. So let’s dive into it all in this latest review…
Purchase This Plugin Or Try It For Free Right Here
What Is Air Music Tech’s Ether?
Rather than just a typical multi-effects processor, Ether allows for the shaping and manipulation of sound in remarkable ways. At its heart, Ether provides eight distinct space settings, pre-delay, reverb time, and damp controls. However, its standout feature is its post-reverb shaping capabilities. Five fully bypassable modules transform the essential sounds into unique auditory experiences.
Ether includes features such as Pitch, which shapes the reverb’s timbre, and Modulation, which adds motion. The Delay module provides time and feedback controls for additional sonic sculpting, while the Animation section injects more energy into the sound. The Compressor module offers control over the sound’s dynamics. Furthermore, Ether also has an LFO/Envelope section with four modulation modes and a well-organized selection of presets.
Ether runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats, priced initially at $99/£99, and allows for a 10-day trial version.
What I Like Most About Ether
This plugin has a ton going on under its hood, and while all of the benefits and functions and single-use cases would take us to manage pages to cover in-depth, let’s instead focus on the most shining qualities that stood out to us once we were familiar with how this plugin works in the studio.
It’s A Sound-Design Gold Mine
Ether is one of those rare plugins that can completely alter the very nature of the sound or sample you run through. Whether you want to add cascading rhythms, stuttered delays, dense and off-kilter textures, and more to your sounds, this plugin can completely flip a basic and more standard sample into something completely different.
We found a ton of success using this in several different ways.
The first was to find a slow and evolving tonal sample or patch on a synth and run it through one of the texture-based presets of Ether. Doing this would turn a primary four or eight-bar sample loop into a diverse and evolving soundscape that inspires fresh and new ideas in a blank project. The magic was knowing that you cannot expect what your loop or sound will turn into and letting the wild sounds this plugin produced guide the initial steps in the creative process.
Another approach is to assist in crafting ear-pleasing tunes abundant with one-shots and brief phrases. The distinction between a newer producer’s track and a polished production frequently lies in the subtle intricacies and nuances of the track’s background. Introducing quick, snappy sounds and blips into the long delays and pitch-oriented presets enables supplementary riffs to interweave with your primary melodies and leads gracefully, enriching the overall ambiance of the piece.
Its Presets
This plugin is deceptively comprehensive, which can be overwhelming for those looking to dive super deep into everything it can do and get the most out of its offer. Luckily, their sound design team packed out the preset library with many amazing presets that help you hit the ground running when you fire this thing up.
They even took the time to organize them into vastly different buckets depending on what your needs are at the moment. They have categories like Echoes and Long or Short Spaces for more conventional time-based effects, but they also have Motion for more rhythmic delays that mimic Trance Gates and other cool ways to manipulate the sound.
My favorite is the Texture presets, which help wash out and heavily affect the sound into something completely different.
It’s Versatility
When considering the two ideas mentioned earlier, it becomes evident that this plugin is extremely diverse and versatile. Its most impressive feature is its ability to help producers achieve the goal of “more for less” quickly and easily.
How does it work?
For instance, you can take a synth to pluck with a staccato-based sound and add the Ether delay with a 0% Dry/Wet. As the song progresses, you can automate the Dry/Wet feature for specific moments and sections of the song, transforming the once staccato synth pluck into a textured and fluid backdrop during the breakdown. This is just one straightforward way to use the plugin that I found myself repeatedly drawn to. Once you become familiar with all of its capabilities within a single song, it can become a reliable tool in your studio.
What I Wasn’t Crazy About
Will all of the boons and benefits that his plugin brings to the table, there was something that I did note that could cause some pause for some producers. Sure, it’s a small gripe and one that many producers might view as the plugin’s secret sauce, but it’s worth mentioning here in this extensive and honest review.
It Gets Crazy Quickly
This plugin gets a ton of mileage from its simple and streamlined interface, meaning that every parameter does a lot of heavy lifting to affect the result. So if you find a preset that you are digging and want to do a bit of automation on some of the parameters throughout the track, some seemingly small moves on the parameters of the synth might wildly change the sound that’s coming out of the plugin in unpredictable ways.
That makes this plugin so freaking cool – it’s like a software version of the Hologram pedal by Microcosm – but its unpredictability might give some producers a small headache.
Final Thoughts
In wrapping up our assessment of Air Music Tech’s Ether, we can confidently declare it a formidable player in reverb plugins. Its array of versatile features and its ability to morph sounds and textures makes it not just a tool but a partner in the creative process. Ether’s capacity to take a simple sound and elevate it to something uniquely beautiful and complex gives it an edge in an industry rife with ordinary. The depth and breadth of control it offers over sound manipulation and the ability to introduce incredible delay effects make it a highly valuable asset for any music producer.
However, it’s crucial to consider Ether’s unpredictability propensity. While this very characteristic can lead to delightful surprises and encourages experimentation, it can also pose challenges, especially for those who prefer maintaining strict control over their sound design process. Regardless, the undeniable potential and extensive capabilities Ether presents outweigh its minor drawbacks. In the grand scheme of things, Ether is a significant contribution to the realm of audio effect plugins, with its innovative design poised to inspire and facilitate countless hours of musical exploration.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
