Nov 23, 20212 min read

REVIEW: TONSTURM - FRQ Shift

In this review we will be taking a look at FRQ Shift, a new frequency shifting plugin from German sound design company TORNSTURM.

Company: TONSTURM

Product: FRQ Shift

Price: $89

Our Rating: 4.8/5

SONIC CLARITY

FRQ Shift contains a powerful dual-frequency shifting engine and is capable of producing some truly stunning effects. This plugin offers everything from subtle modulation and stereo enhancement to more extreme and chaotic effects. FRQ Shift is extremely clean sounding, allowing you to completely warp and mangle sounds without the introduction of sonic artifacts or any unwanted glitchiness. FRQ Shift also preserves the transients of your source audio meaning you can get extreme without losing punch or presence.

FRQ Shift offers the user up to four feedback effects that can be introduced into the Frequency Shifter´s feedback path, in the form of shifters, delay, resonators, and filters. There are also modulators that can be assigned in a similar way to macro controls on a synthesizer. These modulators can be stacked for complex modulation, as well as a randomiser setting for when the preset options aren't doing it for you. This product comes with a fairly large pre-set bank, which is categorised into voice effects, synth, risers, rhythm and groove effects and spacial enhancement. Everything is laid out very efficiently from a visual standpoint, which makes finding your desired effect very simple.

Endless Creative Options

The sonic quality of the plugin is sublime, and it really rewards experimentation. You can tell that the designers have gone out of their way to give users the most amount of creative options, which is something that you don't always see in similar products.

FRQ Shift is perfect for creating robotic voice effects or adding some sci-fi essence to a sound. What's really impressive is the subtlety of the effects and the fine degree of control you have over all of the parameters. You can get truly forensic in your frequency shifting. Of course, if you want to throw subtlety out the window and go full Optimus-Prime then FRQ Shift excels for that kind of thing as well.

This plugin is also an excellent tool for electronic music production, as it gives producers a huge amount of creative options when it comes to adding movement to a sound, or creating crazy build-ups and drop effects.

We see ourselves using this to enhance voice effects, to create electronic sounds from every-day sources, and to create highly detailed, evolving sound design sequences.

The Bottom Line

FRQ Shift is an outstanding plugin and for the price of $89 its difficult to think of another tool that can rival its features. The combination of dual-frequency shifting, with all of the in-built effects and modulators gives users a huge amount of options for shaping sounds. This is an extremely useful tool for both sound designers and music creators.