All the files of the Sample part are very good quality (between 16bit/44.1kHz and 24bit/48kHz) and have an appreciable duration, thus avoiding the sensation of a loop playing again and again. For instance, the ambience Heli Star Fly Land lasts 6.30 minutes...

The Sample Bay is divided into five columns, and each one can be loaded with 12 samples (a Sample Pack). These samples can be triggered by the mouse, via host MIDI automation or by a MIDI keyboard. They can even be played all together.

There’s 45 factory Sample Packs, classified into 10 categories. The volume of each sample can be adjusted by moving the horizontal fader, and each column of samples can be assigned pre- or post-effect. Too bad that mousewheel recognition isn’t implemented in order to adjust volume, because the horizontal cursor is so tiny that you will often click outside of it, launching (or stopping) another sample.

Audio Ease added two great options : you can import your own samples (just drag’n’drop them in a column) and you can export Speakerphone’s (Alt-click and drag’n’drop). The ambiences and noises are either looped or one-shot.

As the selection is wide, you can hardly find missing ambiences. If you want to mix a dialog between two people in a stadium by the seaside with their neighbor listening to some music on his iPod, mixed with an announcement on the stadium PA system, with some sirens and a helicopter in the distance and the crowd reacting to the match, it will definitely be an extreme situation (I pity the mix engineer!), but it’s possible.

As you can see, there’s almost every option to produce every background. And if each effect taken separately isn’t the best in its category, it’s the mix of each module that makes the Speakerphone sound, and what a sound! Let’s hear some examples. We’ll use this speakerin voice and place it in various situations. First, let’s choose a speaker in the Megaphones category, a Jensen Hypex. Then select a reverb, the Station Hall, and reduce a bit the Decay, and increase the Dry level. Then we’ll add a delay, in order to simulate the several speakers of a station hall, and an announce ringtone from the Sirens Sample Pack. We’ll end by adding crowd, footsteps and music, all coming from the sample library, and by adjusting the respective levels..

With the same voice, we can do something completely different (the text isn’t appropriate anymore, but it doesn’t matter). Such as an announcement broadcasted on the car radio of a car traveling at night under a storm, hence some interferences , or make it a call in the headphones of a helicopter pilot . Speakerphone does the job perfectly, and the import/export functions allow a great number of mix and sound design possibilities. For example, you can compensate for the lack of integrated Pan. One of the best uses of Speakerphone is to insert it on a Bus, which allows you to send several audio files in the same environment, while keeping precise control over their volume and pan.

Speakerphone is also amazing regarding its guitar and bass amp IRs. Here we have a very basic guitar riff (thanks to Mathias Desmier). We played it through a 1963 Vox AC30 IR, and a 1966 Sears Silvertone.. If time-based, and mod effects aren’t as good as dedicated plugs can be, the association of the Distortion module, the amp IRs and the convolution reverbs probably give the best amp simulations I’ve heard.