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In-depth Feature:  Kurzweil's Rumour + Mangler Effects
Are Kurzweil's latest stunning siblings, or a couple of old duffers?
Albert Potts writes: .


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Introduction
Plugins schmugins, Kurzweil's new Rumour and Mangler effects processors prove the virtues of dedicated hardware. Certainly a bold move to release two new hardware effects processors into a plugin-crazed world, but when it comes to their products Kurzweil has always followed their own muse.

The Rumour and Mangler are low cost effects boxes based on Kurzweil's flagship KSP8 processor. However, the Rumour and Mangler are budget in price only, as the quality of audio and effects rivals that of the KSP8. Kurzweil did a great job of selecting algorithms from the KSP8 and fitting them into simpler and easier to use packages. Each effect features up to 16 editable parameters, so the Rumour and Mangler are certainly not preset-only units. True, the extensive fx routing/chaining and deep edit capabilities of the KSP8 have been greatly reduced, but in my opinion the ease of use has been enhanced. So it's a trade off.

Kurzweil has divided the effects from the KSP8 into two groups, with the Rumour handling the "polite" effects like reverb and the Mangler handling the potentially "less polite" effects like distortion, filters, frequency shifters and more. However, it should be noted that there is a great deal of crossover between the two units. The Mangler includes the Laserverb as a separate bank of presets, but also includes 14 reverbs as part of other effects chains. So while they don't have their own bank or as much editing possibilities as the reverbs on the Rumour, there are plenty of reverbs within the Mangler. Likewise, the Rumour includes delay, flange, chorus along with the reverbs. The variety of effects on each unit should keep most folks happy for quite some time.

More Resources              Articles - full listing
  • Mangler @ Zzounds.com
  • Rumour @ Zzounds.com
  • Rumour/Mangler Algorithm Guide (PDF)
  • Rumour/Mangler param lists(PDF)

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