SMEAR Review
Lese Audio, the makers of Codec and Glow, have hooked me up with a copy of their latest plugin Smear. Smear is a spectral processor that lets you layer up five instances of 11 different spectral effects engines. As with all Lese plugins, the UI is lovely, a nice simple vector design with soft cold pastel colors for each tab. Each engine is conveniently described beneath the spectrogram for easy reference.
Smear reminds me SpecOps, with it’s “factor band” system that allows you to target each spectral processor towards specified frequency ranges. That said, Smear has a much more subtle curve for this frequency targeting, and a more subtle sound over all. Also, similarly to SpecOps, Smear has a modulation system to add motion to these various spectral engines.
Smear’s effects range from almost transparently subtle to quite noticeably transforming and experimental. There’s a wide range of processing engines that can be utilized for subtle polishing as well as creative sound design. The frequency targeting system is usually used set the effect’s balance, but can sometimes be used to set other parameters based on frequency range. It does also include shelves incase you’d like to process the whole signal. What you wont find in smear is any FFT window size controls, you’re at the discretion of the developers with this one, but it does remove that technical jargon from the UI allowing you to focus on the more creative decisions.
BLUR: a spectral reverb effect that creates a soft cloud of texture from the incoming signal
CONTRAST: smooths or enhances peaks, this one has an incredibly subtle character that feels like it could be used to mix and master
CROSS: this one relies on the side-chain input allowing you to duck or boost bins based on the secondary incoming audio
DELAY: classic spectral delay effect, each bin gets a different delay time based on the frequency curve
FRAGMENT: a granular effect but applied across several bins
GATE: a spectral gate that silences bins above or below the given threshold
HARMONIC: a harmonic enhancer that adds buzzing partials
INTERP: another smoothing effect, but with a smearing quality rather than a reverberated cloud
PULSE: a spectral phaser with five different patterns
RESONATE: a comb filter styled resonator
SHIFT: simple pitch shifter with formant control
WARP: spectral tone warping that can stretch bend and squash your signal’s frequencies
These effects stack together quite nicely, with a few layers, their subtle qualities add up give your audio an interesting glaze. Some of the effects are a bit more on the extreme side, many are very much like applying a light misting of spectral processing. While there were a couple effects I couldn’t find a use for, I really enjoyed the delay and gate which take modulation quite well. The pulse effect also adds some nice subtle motion. Warp is the most fun, great for wilder sound design uses. Smear also has a simple modulation system with four LFOs that can be mapped to any control, each LFO can have a custom “MSEG” style curve, but I do wish there was some form of random modulation or perhaps envelope following. I found it best to apply modulation to the band frequency, and allow the effects to scan through different parts of the incoming signal.
I found Smear to be very pleasant, I think for most it will provide much more utility than typical full on destruction based spectral effects. I really want more effects like this, I love stacking unique processors, applying them to specific frequency ranges, and finally adding motion. The array of unique spectral engines is a lot of fun, I could see this being useful for subtle processing as well as odd sound design. Spectral effects are among some of my favorites, and seeing Lese explore this territory has me waiting to see what they come out with next.
You can pick up SMEAR from Lese’s website here: https://lese.io/plugin/smear/?srsltid=AfmBOooZCt2DfPyhNWICccixmws3KPmJCtTWjecrmZC_fcgzMeb9E1gT