PEAKS Review
Bleass Peaks is a creative filter/phaser effect that offers a surprising amount of flexibility. The filter offers up to 32 peaks with three different distribution modes: Log, Harmonic, and Even. A ratio control allows you to warp the frequency distribution while the “bounds” controls sets effected frequency range.
There’s controls for resonance, stereo offset, and gain distribution allowing for a variety of different tones. You can get some really nice watery tones out of Peaks, while it may not seem to offer as much as some alternatives, the motion you can create within the bounds with the ratio control is quite unique. Not to mention the delta signal control which gives you just the altered audio.
My favorite control might just be the peaks offset, which instantly swaps peaks around. This causes peaks to “pop” into existence creating a pleasing yet subtle percussive tone.
The “bounds” settings also offer a couple modes that mirror and warp peaks that are outside of the targeted range back into it. Combine this with different ratios and offsets and you end up with a huge variety of peak distributions and motion.
A sweep section allows for motion to be applied without using the modulation, and the frequency can also be controlled via midi making this a playable resonator. Peaks shares the same modulation system found in some other Bleass effects. You get three LFOs, some envelopes and macros.
Finally Peaks also has the same effects section found in other Bleass products, giving you five effects slots with a few effects to chose from. They’ve loaded up the limiter by default as this thing can get quite loud. I do apreciate being able to add delay and bitcrusher to this effect giving it just enough adde flavor to mix things up.
Peaks kinda reminds me of Shade, just with more emphasis on a single filter type. I do wish there was more of a plateau or notch mode to really carve out sounds. I really enjoy the variety of resonator shapes that you can achieve as well. I do wish Bleass offered a different color scheme, I’m always a bit surprised just how clean the UI looks if you ignore the color choices.
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PEAKS: https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/2-Effects/19-Filter/17076-BLEASS-Peaks?a_aid=61c378ab215d5