New Music Gear Monday: Waves Space Rider Effects Plugin

If you look at mix templates from any good mixer you’ll always find a few modulators, delays and reverbs, but the real magic happens when all three are combined. This takes some routing to do, and the setup isn’t always straightforward, which is why it’s all committed to a template so you don’t have to go through the setup pain again. We’re now seeing a new generation of effects plugins where you find all three types of effects combined to make that easy, and the new Space Rider from Waves is a shining example of how good a plugin like this can be.

Basic Controls

Space Rider contains a chorus, delay and reverb in one nicely integrated packaged, complete with all the control you’ll ever need over each. Each section receives the dry input signal, but there’s also the ability to combine the Chorus with the Delay and the Delay with the Reverb with separate controls.

The Chorus section has an Input control, Intensity control, a Width control, and two types of chorus to choose from. Type 1 chorus is more of a double, while Type 2 is more of the traditional chorus sound that we’re used to. To Delay controls the level of the Chorus section output that is sent to the Delay section. When used in conjunction with the Dry Input, it controls the wet/dry mix of the section.

The Delay section features an Input control, Time control (with sync to tempo ability), Feedback, and a low and high pass Filter, which is after the processing. What’s unique here is that there’s also a built-in modulation just for the delay, where Depth controls the amount of delay modulation applied and Rate sets the modulation LFO cycle rate. There’s also something called Modulation Offset, where the L/R Offset increases the right-side delay, and Mod Offset shifts the phase between left and right modulation.

Like the other two sections, the Reverb section also has an Input control along with a Decay control that adjusts the reverb time out to 10 seconds. There are two reverb types: Space and Plate, with Space modeled after a hall. There are also post-processing high and low-pass Filter, Predelay, a Damp control that adjusts the absorption of high frequencies in the reverb tail, and a Width control that adjusts the apparent size of the reverb within the stereo field.

Then There’s This

What makes Space Rider totally unique is the Rider feature, which is an envelope shaper that responds dynamically to the incoming signal. That’s a great feature to have because it’s like an automated gain control, but there’s also a morphing part to it that allows the smooth transition from one preset to another by virtue of the Alpha and Beta selections, and the Sensitivity, Attack and Release controls. This allows you to have complex effects changes that would take forever to automate, yet can be done in a flash in Space Rider.

Waves Space rider is available for Apple Silicon and in all plugin formats. It also operates at any sample rate up to 192kHz.

The best part is that it’s currently on sale for just $49.99 (normally $99.99). You can find out more here, or check out the video below to hear it in action.