Exponential Audio Excalibur Multi-Effects Plug-in

The Swiss-Army Knife of effects plug-ins.

Excalibur is the most powerful and flexible effects plug-in you can find. Four independent voices, with Solo control for quick checks. It features a beautiful dynamic interface, with metering that shows you everything thats going on with audio and controls.

Two inputs per voice (plus a feedback path). Inputs may be chosen from a wide range of sources, including left/right/mono inputs as well as signals from several points in the audio path of other voices. You can easily route one voice into another. There are even built-in noise sources.

Long delay (2.5 sec) available for each voice. Delay time may be directly selected or tied to tempo. Tempo may be read from the session itself or tapped in.

Flexible EQ (Lowpass 6dB/12db, Highpass 6dB/12dB, Bandpass or Notch with variable Q. EQ is available on voice output as well as in the feedback path.

Popover control window for each EQ shows a live display of EQ curve and audio signal. EQ modulation is also displayed in real time.

Variable diffusion available on each voice. Good for smoothing a signal and creating a more analog sound.

What you need most is right there on a single page. Deep editing is enabled with quick popover menus

Excalibur Voice Effects Control

Not only are there four voices in Excalibur to create great sounding delay based effects, Exponential Audio added voice effects in each engine that can be routed and modulated in every way imaginable. We suppose you could call it a multi-multi-multi-effects unit!

Available Voice Effects include:

• Chorus - a classic effect that's found its way to voice, guitar and all sorts of tracks
• Flanger - no stomp box needed for this popular sweeping effect
• Phaser - a subtle effect that can add life to many sources
• Ring Modulator - from robot voices to squawk boxes
• Resonators (four different configurations) - sympathetic resonance can add ghosting to all sorts of material
• Distortion - several modes. From subtle warming to hard saturation. With a twist.
• Resonant Filter - a classic 70's effect that still useful. Whether an automatic wah or something else entirely
• Glide - an all-purpose toolkit for modeling years gone by. Bit-reduction down to 4-bit (with optional precompression). Subtle (or extreme) pitch modulation. Brickwall filtering.
• Vintage Shifter - the 80's are back with this dual shifter. Whether doubling voices or creating spiraling effects. You know this sound
• Reverb - a simple verb that sounds great in a flanger. Whether simple rooms or pulsating spaces. You need this.

Post Effects

Most of the voice effects can be optionally followed by Chorus, Flanger or Phaser. All in a single voice.

Modulation in Excalibur

Modulation means change. In the case of Excalibur, it means changing all sorts of parameter by automatic means. There's a huge list of modulation sources.

There is a long list of modulation sources. There are LFOs of course, as well as signal levels, random values, soft controls and combinations.

LFOs can be driven by any of four frequency sources (Gens). Different waveforms can be driven from a single Gen and those waveforms can be offset from one another by any desired phase. This means that complex effects can be easily phase-locked. And of course the frequency of the Gen can itself be modulated. There's also a smoothing filter for each modulator.

The depth of the modulation effect can be specified individually for any modulated parameter. And that can also be moderated by the soft controls shown below.

There are two special controls on the GUI, the Soft Knob and the Soft Switch. They can be modulation sources, just like a Low Frequency Oscillator. The difference is that they're under your control. A soft control can be used to subtly change some part of a preset. Or it can be used to make radical changes. The choice is completely up to the preset developer. That's you.

The output EQ of Voice 1 is being modulated by input level (in this case, it's L+R). The base frequency of the filter is set to 450Hz (top center of window). The frequency can be modulated upward by as much as 1300Hz at maximum input level. The modulator source is being smoothed.

Because the modulation source has "+ Knob", this maximum modulation amount is also controlled by the knob. If the knob is at less than maximum, input level will have less of an effect. The modulation effect could also be gated by the soft switch.

Plug-in Formats

Mac and Windows. 32/64 bit. AAX, AU, VST, VST3, RTAS. Supports sample rates from 44.1k to 384K.

System Specifications

Any Intel computer running at 2GHz or above. Multiple cores strongly recommended. Display of at least 1024 x 768. You'll also need at least 1GB of RAM. These are minimal requirements. Most computers of the last five years have been much more powerful than this.

Excalibur is quite efficient and even gives you ways to control the processor load. It automatically stops processing when it's not doing anything--in any workstation.

ILok2 is also required.