For want of a better title we were talking the other day about certain pieces of studio gear that we swear by but don't get the attention they deserve. Sometimes overshadowed by siblings in the same family, or just not regarded as very cool, here’s some stuff that you may want to check out, in no particular order.
DMG Audio Plug-ins
DMG has been around for years. The British based company, who live just down the road from our editor Julian, make some very cool plug-ins.
DMG has a great collection of very powerful tools to EQ, compress, gate, and do many of the EQ and dynamic heavy lifting tasks. Plenty of professionals swear by plug-in like EQuilibrium, EQuality, and COMPassion. There’s even some free stuff.
LiquidSonics Tai Chi
It’s rare to find a mix done by a professional that doesn’t have either Seventh Heaven or Cinematic Rooms, two plug-ins that warrant the term ‘Industry Standard.’
However, if there was any piece of gear that lives in the shadows of its siblings, then it’s Tai Chi, the Ensemble Reverb in the pack. Tai Chi offers a ton of features and is a reverb powerhouse in the hands of synth users and sound designers, especially when using the ingenious multipliers. Ignore it at your peril.
Klanghelm’s MJUC compressor
It’s hard to walk down the street without tripping over a hardware compressor clone plug-in. Klanghelm’s MJUC compressor is one you may have missed.
One of our team William Wittman says this about it; “In a lot of cases it just makes things ‘sound better’ in a way similar to the way some hardware compressors just do that even when barely, or not, compressing.”
Accentize SpectralBalance
Accentize stormed the post world in the last 12 months with their dialogue clean-up plugin dxRevive, suddenly a small software developer was taking on the big names… and in many cases winning. However, one clever plug-in that isn’t spoken about as much is Spectral Balance.
Put simply, it takes a bunch of different sounding microphones and makes them all sound the same… in real time! Post mixers often use it on a dialogue bus, create a target profile and then just let it do its magic. Huge timesaver.
Blue Cat Axiom
There’s some big names in the world of amp simulation, but another one you shouldn’t ignore from a small developer is Axiom from Blue Cat. In their words; “Meet Blue Cat's Axiom: your versatile and open multi effects and amp simulation software for guitar and bass. Derived from the acclaimed Destructor plug-in for amp simulations, Axiom offers an infinite number of exceptional tones to enhance your musical expression with your axe.” In our words, Blue Cat Axiom is a powerhouse of guitar and bass tone you shouldn’t overlook.
Newfangled Audio Elevate
There’s a lot of plug-ins designed to help the mastering purpose. Newfangled Audio describe Elevate as; “The most advanced mastering plug-in ever created. This unique multi-band limiter, human-ear EQ and powerful audio maximizer will increase the loudness of your mix while maintaining or improving its dynamic perception. It uses intelligent, adaptive technology that responds in real time to your music; creating not only the loudest, but the best sounding master.”
That’s a bold claim, especially with some big names in the industry, however contributor Eli Krantzberg says; “I hate to sound like a broken record, but I have to keep singing the praises of Elevate from Newfangled Audio. It is pure magic.” Worth checking out.
Brainworx bx_dynEQ V2
With a veritable Alladin’s Cave of plug-ins, it’s easy to miss something in the Plugin Alliance catalogue. One you may have missed is bx_dynEQ V2. It might be because bx_dynEQ V2 is hard to describe, clearly seen by the product page struggling to do so; “Is a Dynamic Equalizer (dynEQ) an EQ or a Compressor? The answer is: Yes, and more.” Confused?
However, professional mastering engineer and contributor Mike Thorne says this about it; “bx_dynEQ V2 is great. I use it a lot when mastering on the m/s setting. Brilliant for tucking in harsh edges on vocals and cymbals.” Mike is a man of few words, so it’s worth listening when he suggests something.
Avid Vari-fi
One of the team loved to use one particular plugin, and that was Vari-Fi from Avid. There was a time when he was perhaps overusing it a little, as it became a signature for him. To the extent that people knew that if they had heard it in a music documentary, there was a very good chance he would have made it. “It’s great at what it does, slowdowns and start-ups, and used sparingly, it is an excellent punctuation tool.
Metric Halo
It’s all been software so far, so it would be somewhat ironic to overlook hardware in this article. One brand that emerges time and again as one of the best, but often overlooked is Metric Halo. Owned and loved by several members of the Experts team there’s many reasons to check them out.
They have sound and features that are as good, if not better, than the usual suspects. They make amazing gear, but in a world that thinks filling up landfill with old gear is a good idea, Metric Halo bucks the trend with this; technically, anyone who has purchased a Metric Halo interface in the last 23 years can upgrade their unit to 3d.’
What about you? Are there pieces of gear that you love that don’t seem to get the attention they deserve?
