Korneff Audio The Wow Thing v1.0.1 [WIN]
A quirky, Lo-Fi spatial effects processor that’s a secret weapon for huge-sounding guitars. It’s also great for enhancing the stereo space of your mixes and creating warmth and bottom.
A little plastic box that made speakers sound bigger
The Original WOW Thing was $20 and made cheap speakers sound more spacious and full. It achieved this effect by using radical equalization and some bizarre psychoacoustic processing using delays and phase. It worked, but it was weird and quirky. Definitely NOT a pro-audio device… until a major rock engineer discovered that it did amazing things to guitars when he recorded one of the most influential and successful metal albums on the planet. The WOW Thing became the secret sauce on many iconic albums.
An industry secret, now a plug-in
Dan Korneff managed to buy a WOW Thing fifteen years ago and it became a staple of his guitar processing. However, he wanted to use it on background vocals and reverbs, and the original boxes are hard to come by. So he recreated it and now it’s available as a plug-in.
Think of WOW Thing as an acoustic hug: anytime you want a sound to stretch beyond the confines of the normal stereo field, the WOW Thing is the thing.
If you’re looking for freaky Lo-Fi mystery, the WOW Thing is your cheap plastic friend, now in convenient plug-in form.
Add space, bass and chaos
Simple controls make it easy to add spaciousness to your stereo tracks: Just turn up the WOW knob.
Any stereo source fed through the WOW Thing moves out beyond the speakers. At extreme settings, the WOW Thing adds so much psychoacoustic movement and confusion that it can actually make you feel motion sick! It’s that extreme an effect.
TrueBass is a low-frequency enhancement that adds depth and rumble to your tracks. Add just a touch to thicken a sound, or crank it up for unique low-end effects.
Beyond the Original
It wouldn’t be a Korneff Audio plug-in if there weren’t extra things to tweak.
Click on the nameplate to “lift off” the cover and access options that weren’t on the original unit.
Choose from two different WOW effects. Select TYPE 1 for the sonics of the original tabletop unit, or TYPE 2 for the enhancement algorithms of the obscure SRS Megawide rackmount unit.
The Korneff Audio WOW Thing also has selectable frequencies for the TrueBass processor. Use this to tailor the low-end response to suit your material and mix. This feature alone makes the Korneff Audio WOW Thing much more versatile.