Most Innovative Product of the Year Award

1997 Editors' Choice Award - Electronic Musician Magazine

Electronic Musician Magazine, January 1997
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Signal processors are a blessing and a curse, Although they allow engineers to simulate various acoustic environments and mangle an audio signal in many different ways, their effect on the sound is notoriously difficult to conceptualize, thanks to their small displays and cryptic controls. Computer-based signal processors can alleviate this problem to some degree by taking advantage of the computer's large color monitor.

The current state of the art for the Windows platform is embodied in Power Technolgy's DSP·FX system. The package includes a half-length ISA card with unbalanced 1/4-inch, analog I/O and a collection of software modules that provide various effects. Five modules are currently available: Room Reverb, Multi-Tap Delay, Multi-Element Chorus, Analog Tape Flanger, and Full Stereo Pitch Shifter. More modules are planned, including a multiband parametric equalizer.

The coolest aspect of DSP·FX is its user interface. Each software module presents straightforward onscreen controls and a unique visual representation of the control settings. For example, the reverb module displays a rectangular box that represents the simulated room. The size of the box corresponds to the size of the room, and colors on the box's sides indicate "liveness" and high-frequency damping. Other graphic indicators reveal stereo separation, diffusion, and intensity of early and late reflections.

The other modules offer similarly intuitive graphic displays that help you anticipate the sound of the effect before hearing it. You can even manipulate the controls in real time and watch the graphic representation change along with the sound. This provides superb feedback that helps you tailor the sound to your needs.

In addition, the DSP·FX system uses 32-bit, floating-point arithmetic, which uses all 32 bits to represent all signals, instead of 24- or 32-bit, fixed-point calculations. As a result, quantization noise is reduced during low-level signals and headroom is increased for high-level signals. This approach offers better sonic detail and clarity than many pro signal processors.

Of course, the proof is in the output, and DSP·FX sounds great. In fact, Innovative Quality Software has agreed to develop a direct connection between SAW Plus and DSP·FX, and Spectral recommends using DSP·FX with its Prisma digital audio workstation. With this kind of support, this innovation may soon become the standard against which others are judged.

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