Native Instruments Replika – Double Take
Welcome back to StudioWise. We’re looking at Replika this week, a slimmed-down freebie gift version of the Replika XT plugin offered by Native Instruments this Christmas.
Ho Ho Ho
So Native Instruments are playing Santa again this year by throwing out candy to all the boys and girls on their website. Unlike some of the rather lacklustre freebies offered previously, Replika is in fact quite an excellent little device and well worth the download.
While there’s nothing groundbreaking here, Replika does the basics very well. You get three choices of delay type – Modern, Vintage Digital (??) and Diffusion. The first two sound the same, the difference being the saturation or quality controls on each. The saturation control adds very mild distortion to the echo with a heap of gain. I’m not overly convinced it’s actually saturating much, just making it louder mostly. But there’s some colour there, albeit subtle.
The quality control on the vintage digital mode is again quite subtle. It slightly crushes the bit rate, but it’s not so obvious unless you totally mix in the delay signal of more than 50%.
The diffusion setting is by far the most impressive. Sort of a reverb, but with modulating elements the result is very dizzying, or almost seasickness-like – really cool stuff. Applied in suitable amounts really brings character to the delay line and adds tons of width, it’s a brilliant effect I’ve not heard before on delay processors.
Also included is a phaser that’s fairly meh, and a sweeping filter that’s pretty much just an oscillator.
You have the choice between Normal, Wide and Ping-Pong modes, feedback control and a large centre delay rate knob.
So all in all, pretty basic affair with some usable, if not subtle effects. Strangely enough though as a total package Replika is extremely useful in most situations. Delay is a strong effect for all but the most extreme music mixes, so the included effects add the right amount of colour so as to not overcook the total delay effect. It’s quite clever.
I can see Replika becoming a go-to effect due to its simple controls and balanced results, whereas other plugins might bog you down with options.
So merry Xmas and enjoy this quite a sweet offering from Native Instruments. I know we’ll be frequenting it often heading into the next year. Hurry over there now and secure your copy, I heard it’s going to be $50 next year.
