Phoenix: Mirage

Mirage libraries are loaded from a side panel

What is Mirage?

Mirage is our sample-based synthesis engine. It is a VST/AU synthesiser plugin that features a powerful set of controls for processing our custom sample libraries, such as Phoenix or Wraith (currently libraries can only be made with our internal tools). Mirage is designed for rapid, flexible sound design and ease-of-use.

What does powered-by-Mirage mean?

Products which are powered-by-Mirage run as libraries inside Mirage. Mirage is not an additional cost to a powered-by-Mirage product – it comes in the installer. This means that any powered-by-Mirage product features everything you need for full sonic customisation and sound design. It also means that if you own multiple powered-by-Mirage products, they are controlled with the same interface.

Access to free updates

We intend to improve and grow Mirage over time. Many more libraries will be released for Mirage. By purchasing this product, or any powered-by-Mirage product, you gain access to updates with new features and improvements. These will almost always be completely free. We will ensure these updates never break backwards compatibility. This means as the capability of Mirage expands, your old DAW projects or presets will not break.

Three independent sound layers can be layered together

Designed for sound layering

As sound designers and foley artists know well, layering is an excellent way of creating new sounds using existing samples. Mirage allows for up to three different sounds to be controlled separately and layered together. The layers in Mirage have the following controls unique to them: pitch, volume and pan, filter, volume envelope, LFO, EQ, sample loop settings and MIDI settings. These controls facilitate an incredible amount of manipulation over the original sound source.

Nine effects can be used to shape the sound

A rack of built-in Effects

Another technique that sound designers use to shape the character of sounds is by applying effects. Mirage features a rack of such effects for this purpose. Built-in effects such as distortion, bit-crush, chorus and stereo widener can be used to enhance the sound with extra harmonics or extra simulated width. The compressor can be used to control dynamics or add punch, and the filter can be used to isolate just the frequencies you need. Mirage also has reverb and delay effects for real space simulation. These are great for sound design too. One of the reverb effects is a convolution reverb; this is typically used to add a real-sounding reverberation effect to the signal by using samples of real spaces (impulse responses). However, by substituting the sample of a real space with an abstract sample, interesting effects can be produced. Mirage features both realistic impulse responses and abstract ones for creative sound design.

Designed to be played

For compelling and dynamic performances, you often want to control the parameters of the sound as you play. We naturally do this in real life. For example, when singing a melody, we make some parts louder and vary the tremolo intensity. Mirage helps with enabling this type of modulation too. The volume at both the layer level and the master level can be controlled with MIDI velocity. Sustain pedal (MIDI CC 64) is also fully supported, enabling you to hold notes using a foot pedal. On top of that, any parameter in Mirage can be controlled by knobs or sliders on your physical MIDI controller. This is simply a matter of right-clicking the parameter, selecting ‘MIDI learn’ and then moving your controller. And of course, Mirage can also be automated by your DAW.

Minimum friction from your mind to your DAW

Mirage is designed to not get in your way. It is fast to load up and is CPU efficient. It has a vector-based GUI that can be resized so that it will work on any size screen. The controls are laid out intuitively, and a full description of what each control does can be viewed by hovering the mouse over it for a moment. Mirage also comes with a PDF user manual with all of the nitty-gritty details covered.

Presets can be quickly loaded and saved

Use presets or create your own sounds

Mirage helps you with finding the right sound quickly. In a recent free update, Mirage received a proper preset browser. This is a panel that can be opened up via a button at the top of the interface. On it are all the presets in an easy-to-browse list. On top of that, you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate. As well as the browser panel, there are a couple of important features that make finding the right sound easy.

Firstly, there are simple arrow buttons at the top of the GUI that can be used to navigate through the presets. And secondly, there is a multi-mode button to load a random preset. This button is brilliant for finding quick inspiration. It can be set to work in one of three ways. It can load any random preset at all – even of different libraries. Or it can load a random preset that is of the same library that you currently have loaded. Or lastly, it can load a random preset in the current preset folder (the folder might contain all bass presets for example).

There are also randomisation buttons for loading sounds. Each of the three sound layers can load a random sound at the click of a button. This is great for sound design as it makes trying a different source incredibly easy. There is also a button at the top of the GUI that performs this action for all three of the layers simultaneously.