PRISM - Multiband Spatial EFX Drum Plug-In

Split your drums like light. PRISM turns multiband processing into optics. Your full kit enters the glass as white light and leaves as four colors: Sub, Body, Crack and Air. Each band gets its own saturation, punch, tempo-synced echo, place in the stereo field and send to a shared room. Widening the cymbals while the kick stays mono, or throwing echoes off the snare's crack while everything else stays dry, takes five seconds, not five plug-ins.

How it works

1. Put it on your drums. A loop, a drum bus, a single snare, or the whole kit.
2. Split the light. PRISM divides your signal into four bands. The crossovers start around 110 Hz, 870 Hz and 5 kHz, and you can drag them anywhere on the live spectrum. They're phase-matched, so the bands split and recombine cleanly.
3. Shape each color. Every band runs its own chain: Glow (Warm, Tape or Fold saturation plus a tone tilt), Punch (attack and sustain), Echo and Space. Switch any stage off to hear the band without it.
4. Fan it out with DISPERSION. One control spreads the bands across the stereo field while the Sub stays locked dead center, so your low end never smears.
5. Bend it with REFRACT. Violet light bends more than red, and REFRACT does the same to time. Each band arrives a little later than the one below it, up to 24 ms in total, turning a single hit into a spectral flam.
6. Glue it back together. A gentle bus compressor after the bands, echoes and room pulls everything back into one kit.

What's inside

• 200 presets in ten categories: Polish, Wide, Punch, Glow, Spectral Flam, Echo Trails, Dub, Space, Isolate and Lo-Fi. All level-matched, so stepping through them compares sounds, not loudness.
• Save your own: keep any sound as a user preset. They're files on your computer, shared by every DAW, easy to back up or pass to a friend.
• Four echoes: a tempo-synced delay on every band, from 1/32 to 1/2 note with dotted and triplet values, plus feedback, damping, ducking, ping-pong and a tape-style drift.
• One shared room: send each band into the same space by its own amount, with size, decay and tone.
• Width and pan per band: 0 to 200% width on Body, Crack and Air. The Sub is always mono.
• See where the energy lives: a live spectrum colored by band, and a prism whose rays light up with each band's level.
• Built for sessions: every control is automatable and MIDI-mappable from your DAW, with A/B compare, undo, Link Bands and zero latency.
• Audition loops built in: ten starter loops from Vault drummers like Nate Smith, Eric Harland and Joey Waronker, the whole Vault catalog to preview, or drop in your own.
• Licensing that stays out of the way: saves with your DAW project, works fully offline after activation, use on up to 3 machines.

Free for Vault members

Have a Vault membership? PRISM is included. Just sign in inside the plugin. Pair it with the Vault catalog and you can split a session drummer's real performance into light and send each color somewhere new.

Compatibility

• Formats: AU, VST3, AAX and Standalone (Logic Pro, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, and more)
• Platform: macOS 11+ (Apple Silicon & Intel) and Windows 10+ (64-bit)
• Use it on: a drum bus, a single drum, a loop, or a full mix

FAQ

Can I try it first? Yes, and there's no clock on it. The free download is the complete plugin running on your own drums, every preset included. The output mutes briefly every 45 seconds until you activate.

Is this a sample pack? No. PRISM is an effect. It works on the drums you already have, whether that's a live kit, a loop, or a programmed pattern.

I've never used a multiband plug-in. Is this for me? That's exactly who it's for. Start from a preset, then reach for DISPERSION and REFRACT. The per-band controls are there when you want to go deeper.

Will it wreck my low end? No. The Sub band stays mono at all times, so your kick and bass stay solid in the center however wide the rest of the kit gets.

Does it add latency? No. PRISM runs at zero latency, so it's safe on tracks you're recording through.

Does it work offline? Yes. Activate once and PRISM never needs the internet to run. No dongles, no iLok.

How many machines? Three, with self-serve deactivation.

Do I need a Vault membership? No. The $49 license is yours forever. Membership includes the plugin along with the whole catalog.

Manual

The complete PRISM guide, covering installation, activation, the four bands, Glow, Punch, Echo and Space, DISPERSION, REFRACT and Glue, and the presets: read the PRISM Manual.

Have any feedback, suggestions, questions or bugs to report? Please contact us here and we'll follow up with you ASAP!