Savant IM90 revives a quirky late eighties processor as a modern plugin that subtly bends pitch and time into something very usable.
Savant Audio Labs have brought the IM90 back into view, not as a museum piece but as a plugin that revisits one of the more unusual digital effects units from the late eighties. The original hardware sat somewhere between a pitch shifter, a delay and a time bender, the kind of box studios kept around for moments when a sound needed to be pushed in a direction that was hard to define. The plugin carries that attitude into a modern workflow and gives those ideas a cleaner, more workable shape.
IM90 creates a second path for the signal and lets you stretch, shift or bend it in ways the original unit became known for. It can pull something wider, make it feel slightly offset or introduce a bit of gently unstable movement. It is not trying to mimic a famous tape machine or recreate a specific reverb. It leans into the strange blend of digital experimentation the hardware embraced and brings those behaviours into a format that is easier to reach for during a session.
You can guide how the effect sits, shaping the amount of shift or the way time is handled. The adjustments feel calm rather than flashy, which makes it useful when a track needs a bit of movement or presence without demanding a new chain of processors.
The plugin also expands on the hardware by giving you more stability, more headroom and more freedom to push the effect without fighting noise or hardware limits. What once depended on a single rack unit and a lot of careful balancing now arrives in a tool that blends into whatever session you are already building.
Savant IM90 feels like a gentle revival of a processor that never had widespread fame but earned a loyal following for its ability to nudge sounds somewhere more interesting. It brings that spirit forward and makes it simple to try out for yourself. Give these lords of mayhem a visit here.
