Sound Effect Box app review: create realistic delay, echo, chorus, and reverb audio effects

Introduction

This app is ideal for musicians who want to experiment with applying various effects to their instrument or vocals in real time; simply adjust the volume accordingly to avoid feedback, start playing, and hear your audio transformed before your very eyes – or ears!

I think Sound Effect Box is a great idea although there are a few minor issues which I think could do with some improvement; the quality of the effects overall is about what you would expect from an iOS app and there are also a few preset effects ‘environments’ to get you started so I’d definitely suggest having a play around with this app to see what you think.

Echo-echo-cho-cho-ho-o-o...

Any musician who has used any kind of instrument or effects pedal with adjustable settings will feel right at home when they first start up this app; you’ll see a menu with separate settings for delay, chorus, and reverb.

If you want to use chorus and reverb you’ll need to pay for those separately from within the app.

Depending on how you use the delay effect, it can of course double up as a virtual echo chamber, but it would have been nice to see echo set as a different effect so that you can use it in conjunction with a more choppy delay effect.

I’m very disappointed to see a lack of recording capabilities in this app; I understand that it is designed for you to hear audio effects in real time but I think that being able to record your sounds would have made this a much more complete resource. Without even a single-track recorder, Sound Effect Box feels somewhat sparse.

Furthermore, I was expecting to be able to plug in my earphones and use their microphone as an input device but unless I’m missing something, this doesn’t seem to be an option.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Add effects to your voice and instruments in real time without having to record them
• Save your favorite effects settings as presets
• Chorus and reverb are available via in-app purchase

Cons

• This is not a recording studio app
• This is not a music recording app
• No earphone microphone compatibility
• Lacking a feeling of completeness in terms of the functionality

Final Words

Overall, I suppose I’m fairly disappointed with this app; as a musician I was pretty excited when I stumbled upon Sound Effect Box because I thought there may be a variety of effects such as a flanger and pitch shifter with perhaps some basic recording features so I could listen back to my tracks with the various effects.

Instead, there is only one effect, delay, included as standard with only two additional features available via in-app purchase, and with a complete lack of recording functionality to boot!

Sound Effect Box has some great potential but the quality of the effects should be improved so that it sounds less like a karaoke machine and there really ought to be some basic recording features so you can listen back to your effects without it being drowned out by your instrument or voice in real time.