IK MULTIMEDIA MIXBOX: THE HOLY GRAIL

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A BRIEF WORD

Ten years ago, EverythingRecording launched with our first ever review. The product? IK Multimedia’s “T-Racks” software. In the decade since, we’ve continued to enjoy IK, especially with their dedication to creating great software for the professional but priced for the working musician. Now break us off a slice of that birthday cake while we tell you about their latest…

ANALOG ENVY

As the proud owner of not one, but two, completely full 10-slot 500-racks, many a co-conspirator and client have ohh’d and ahh’d at my garden of boutique preamps, EQ’s and compressors. Being able to go from an actual, analog API to a Neve to an SSL with a single click – routing instruments, tracks and busses through all that gooey old-school circuitry can give an otherworldly punch, crush or snap to an otherwise ho-hum signal.

Mind you, the wayback machine is not without its flaws, namely recallability. Even if you print the results to a new track and take a picture of the settings, it occasionally happens that trying to get the exact parameter back later is never exact (manufacturers without detented pots, I’m looking at you). And given their modular nature, sometimes units get moved, sold or rerouted – leaving you in a pickle when pulling up a session before reconfiguring.

While the “is it real, or is it a plug-in” debate continues to rage on, the DAW has effectively closed the gap to the point that even the most uptight cork-sniffing analog die-hard can’t reliably tell the difference in a blind shootout. And with IK Multimedia now stepping up with a virtual 500-rack of sorts, the temptation to stay all of the way in-the-box is bigger than ever.

The 500 Rack Of Your Dreams. Too bad it’ll run you about $50g to make the hardware version

MEET THE MIXBOX

IK Multimedia’s MixBox is a self-contained single plug-in that allows the user to virtually install and mix up to eight slots worth of virtual processors – either as a plug-in (VST, AAX, AU) or a standalone application. How many processors? Seventy. Right, not seven-teen. Seven-tee. As in ten times seven. As in, “holy crap on a pita, that is a lot of modules.” We’ve all seen virtual amp packages that give you dozens of amp models, complete with matching graphics within the interface, but this is taking things to a stratospheric echelon for the mix engineer.

You can combine up to any eight of these “plug-ins within the plug-in” in series and intuitively drag them to try different chains. Everything from guitar preamp modeling, vintage and modern-inspired EQ’s and compressors to pitch and time modulation, tape and transformer saturation and beyond. To list and review every single slot would be the final nail in my carpal tunnel coffin so let’s just put this another way:

This is the single most comprehensive mixing plug-in ever offered from anyone, anywhere.

I hear some of you out there – at a retail price of $299 ($199 for a limited time), one could cross their arms and proclaim “this is sooooo gimmicky”. After all, pro audio’s previous generation of engineering luminaries said that about the DAW all of the way until they were forced into retirement. At $4.25 per effect, you’d be well within your right to question how well these actually sound. But let’s remember, this is just as much a new release as it is a culmination of IK Multimedia’s twenty-plus years of acoustic and analog-modeling. T-Racks. AmpliTube. SampleTank. They’ve been at this for a long enough to really perfect the process…. And perfect it, I believe they have.

GET AMPED

You want amp modeling? MixBox has amp modeling. Seven (+ a cabinet simulator) to be exact.

It’s no surprise that IK Multimedia have added a vast collection of their amplifier models and distortion pedals. Even if you have no intention of using MixBox on an actual guitar, distorion effects do find a lot of use on sources that need a dash (or a splash) of hot sauce. Drum overheads, synths and vocals have all been given the guitar pedal treatment to interesting and surprisingly usable results (and all that impedance-matching and mono-only nature of using pedals is a bit limiting). With a solid grip of amplifier heads old and new and a cabinet simulator, these are a great jumping off point for adding some hiss and heat to whatever you care to throw at it. Also of note, there are a handful of modules that are clearly inspired by actual pedals (one “Chorus” effect is accurate in sound, PANTONE color and fontography to the Boss CE-2 pedal).

SWIMMING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

From dedicated EQ’s and compressors to full channel strips, MixBox has over a dozen different options for your tone-shaping and frequency-carving adventures. Want to do the classic “double pump” vocal technique? The LA-2A and 1176-fashioned modules await your word. Wish you could put a Neve (-inspired) EQ into an SSL 4K(ahem, again… “-inspired”) compressor with a Fairchild-like 670 to finish it off? You’ve still got five slots left! Mostly focused on the greats, but with some modern models included, you will not run out of creative ways to sculpt a track. Also included here are some great options for saturation – be it by way of tube, transformer or cassette tape*.

Uh-oh. B Church Rant™ Ahead! Yonder be dragonnes! Personally, I’ve always just low-passed tracks at 15kHz and said “there’s your tape saturation” – but I am also notoriously lazy and jaundiced about all the “ohhhhhh tapey tape-ity tape tape tape!” people who’ve never even touched a freakin’ cassette. Okay, I’m done.

TIME AND SPACE

With three delays and (count ‘em!) NINE reverbs, creating space and time is no problem. Working with everything from the curios and relics of digital reverbs and tape echoes to more modern technological advancements like convolution-based rooms, there’s a space for just about any inkling you might have. The spring reverb, though commonly thought of as a guitar amp “sound” can really put a different shade on things for vocals and ambient mics. And if you’re in a particularly 80’s sort of mood, the inverse and AMS-inspired “digital” reverbs would like a word.

GETTING WEIRD WITH IT

Modulator? She’s your date. YOU modulate her!

Filters and modulation effects abound with everything from simple chorus and band-passing for basic chores all the way into the psychedelic beyond. Want to really get weird with it? Don’t threaten MixBox with a good time here, because it will go “there” and beyond. Formant filtering and FM modulators for you Devo-tees, LFO-based and auto-filters for the funk and all the phasers and flangers your acid jam band revival could ever desire. Keep it simple or descend into a hallucinatory netherworld…. And just about anywhere in-between.

UNBOX THE POSSIBILITIES

One of the most faithful 1081 clones I’ve heard, hardware OR software.

Though the selection of available modules most certainly leans at least somewhat towards guitarists on the surface, I turned MixBox loose everywhere I could on a mix I’m currently in the throes of finishing. I really wanted to see if there’s anywhere this can’t stand in for other plug-ins or hardware.

For drums, I used MixBox as a track insert on kick, snare and overheads as well as a general drum submix (including toms, hats and ambient mics). For the kick I set about creating my “usual” chain – landing on the basic “Channel Strip” handling dynamics, then through the 81 EQ to bring out some emphasis at 100hz and 4.2kHz with a nice wide dip around 1kHz. I used my DAW’s gate and transient shaper pre-insert, as those are conspicuously absent from the list. Getting the individual modules and their settings situated was tactile and easy and the sound was very much on par with using similar plug-ins or yes, even my favorite hardware. I then used a near-identical chain for the snare, pulling up some “pop” in the lower-mids by bringing out the fundamental. Again, sounding great without any real fuss.

Being able to assign another track’s output or aux send to the compressors’ sidechain detection circuits could have easily been overlooked in bringing this behemoth to light. Thankfully it’s included. Especially with drums, having the flexibility to key a limiter or compressor with another transient source is of critical importance to ensure everything can come to the front when need be, but without a mushy glob of everything-all-the-time. If you want to key another track FROM MixBox, you’ll need to break the plug-in into two instances at the point you want to create the send, however

If it quacks like a duck. Fans of the Solid State Logic 4000 desks may notice some similarities.

On the overheads, I used the British EQ (modeling the lesser-used “brown”-era of SSL’s 4K 242 EQ circuit) to effectively (but not completely) high-pass out everything below 250hz and patched the 670 compressor post-EQ to pull up some of the resonance between the notes. It wasn’t quite “right” for this, so I switched in the “2A” compressor and was instantly satisfied with the result. But the 670 got its turn to shine compressing the entire drum submix, put in after just an ever-so-slight (about 10%) DigitalVerb plate (AMS RMX fans, rejoice!).

Solo’d out, the drums had a huge presence, with the kick and toms hauling tremendous weight behind the notes, but without losing articulation. The snare transients popped through the onslaught quite nicely, pushing the ambient and overhead mics away and letting them wash back in around it. Pulling the rest of the mix back in, I had to tame the bombast – making a few needed adjustments to keep the drums from owning all of the available sonic real estate, but it was just a nip here and a tuck there. I hate saying this as much as the next guy, but it “sounded analog”. You could literally feel your fingertips pushing “all four buttons in“. while Seriously, it conjured “that feeling” of those classic tubes, diodes, transformers and op-amps giving the transients a good set of teeth, but never at the expense of the drums becoming brash. In a word? “Big.” They sounded BIG.

FIDDLING WITH GUITAR

Turning my attention away from drums, I wanted to dive into MixBox’s capability on guitar. Luckily this session included not only miked tracks – but the raw, DI’d guitar and bass sources: a perfect opportunity to really see what all of these preamp and cabinet models could do. I figured “why not just go from raw track to effects to mix the whole way across in one channel?” We do have eight slots to mess with here – and again, I’ve never needed eight effects in a row on anything ever.

Care for a little Boogie with that Mesa? The MTL module beckons.

Step one, a little bit of line amp saturation courtesy of the very simple 1st-stage preamp that, for convenience here, has been called (rather simply, I thought…) “Preamp”. I have personally found that applying just a little bit of breakup and tone-shaping to the signal first before applying any “real distortion” gives the amp modeling a better foundation than a flat DI input. And besides, what’s it going to do… distort? Isn’t that the point?

Step two, straight to the MTL (Modern Tube Lead) amplifier. I know, I know, I’m predictable. I’ve also been listening to the new Deftones album all week. It’s just where my head is at the moment. My trusty vintage ESP Mirage Deluxe (NOT the reissue) tuned in drop C – C-G-C-F-A-D) lit up with a jagged, djenty girth with just an approximation of the settings I use on my VHT Pittbull or Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier heads. Scooped mids, thundering lows and a ear-level shelf at about 5k, with the low- and high-pass filters taking out any extraneous activity outside. Getting closer. I couldn’t quite get the gain all the way to where I needed it, but adding a bit more breakup from the preamp itself closed the gap. Adding the “Cabinet” module dialed the Reznoresque, buzzy direct-preamp tone into the monster it was born to be. It’s no surprise that the minds at IK would have a solid arsenal guitar tones, as AmpliTube has been one of their hallmark products for almost two decades.

I stacked this up next to one of the already recorded tracks – same guitar, VHT Pittbull CL head through a 2×12 Laney cabinet running 30W Greenbacks, captured through an Audix i5 into an AML EZ-1081 500 series preamp. These were not a direct comparison, obviously, but both recordings were aiming at a similar result – a bone-shaving, heaving, grunting, pummelling, raging bull tone. Though unique, both achieved the desired effect and I found things about the MixBox setup that outshined the actual amp/cab/mic route (to be fair, the way the ‘real thing’ fed back and handled line noise lent a veneer of realism that the MixBox didn’t). Point being, you may likely never need your amplifier in the studio again. What you do with it live is your business. Speaking of, are we playing gigs again yet? The “Standalone” version would be quite good for that.

VOCALS

I don’t mind telling you I used the 670 comp… a LOT.

For the life of me, I can not think of any vocal mixing situation where MixBox would not be able to actualize the sounds in your head. The selection of EQ’s and dynamics offer up everything from vintagey, lush transformer-piqued responses to full-on, tip-of-your-nose presence. I don’t know what it is about the 670 module that had me coming back for more, but it quickly became a go-to*, as did the 76 compressor and 1081 EQ. Not only do they work well as individuals, but building a chain of them and experimenting with the order paid off more than once with the results.

(* I was one of those lucky ones who had ready access to the actual Fairchild 670 for many years. While it’s been a while, this really feels like you’re getting the nuance and transient response it’s so widely hailed for.)

If you’re bussing individual vocal tracks to a subgroup like I do (saves on CPU and time, after all), you’ll find the modulation, delay and reverbs to not only handle your traditional mix chores, but some extremely creative ideas. Again, this is where bringing in a lot of IK’s guitar-based effects is an artistic boon – I often find myself running vocals through guitar pedals for that “something different” and this removes the step of impedance-matching. Want to get “all Sabbath with it” and put your vocals through a Leslie or a phaser? MixBox nods in encouragement.

OBEY YOUR MASTER

On the stereo mix bus, the MixBox most certainly shares some sonic resemblance to their T-Racks software. Whether it’s a dash or a splash of final EQ, compression or saturation, you’ve got a lot to choose from. For those of us who do multiple sub-groups with a bone-dry master channel, this is perfect.

The debate continues to rage from all sides just how much processing should occur in the stereo bus. I have seen effect chains that truly boggle the imagination… and I have seen nothing more than a soft-clipper and a phase meter (conspiculously missing from the former). To me, meaning this is my opinion, if your stereo bus needs that much processing, there’s either something wrong with the mix or you’re stepping on the toes of the mastering process.

But whatever methodology you use, MixBox provides a solid suite of possibilities – everything from a little final polish right down to a multi-stage finalizing-o-rama. Those looking to do more granular mastering-type work like stereo width processing, mid-side EQ or compression or dedicated limiting could likely feel a bit ignored here, but lest we forget this is not MasterBox… to say nothing of the fact that there are professional mastering engineers out there with tuned rooms, dedicated hardware and an objective set of ears ready and willing to help.

A CAREER IN MODELING

The accuracy with which MixBox models their hardware lineage is pretty darn impressive. I know that there will always be those who “harumph” at this and say “well, it doesn’t sound like MY LA-2A” but the truth is there are hundreds of working units out there that are well over fifty years old. Good luck finding ANY two that sound alike after decades of varying use, maintenance and storage. I particularly felt like if I were to build a powder-coated blue hardware controller with Marconi knobs on the front, you would not be able to tell the difference between an actual Neve EQ versus the MixBox version (let the hate mail begin!). I’ve run more than my fair share of signals through those Neve 1081 and 1084 EQ’s and frankly, I can think of many pieces of hardware professing to be a direct clone that aren’t as close as IK’s digital approximation.

Whatever the itch, MixBox is here to scratch.

In the immortal words of one William Wonka, “The Snozzberries taste like Snozzberries”. Sure, a 600x250px avatar is not quite the tactile experience of putting your hands on one of those gorgeous, patinaed relics. Alternately, just using the 670 as an example, being able to have that experience is going to cost you well over $10,000 and gets you one stereo pair at a time. The AMS-esque digital reverb was another particular favorite of mine and I found myself returning to it often – it’s ever-so-chiseled and grainy texture rendered beautifully. The vintage Roland-inspired “Ensemble” chorus is a dead-on lift of those famous 1980’s thickeners. And I’ve got to admit, even as a die-hard lifer of the hardware, the Bus Compressor (an SSL 4000 Quad Bus clone) also gets close, certainly moreso than many of the GSSL‘s floating around out there*.

(*Fellow SSL-enthusiast and esteemed engineer, Chuck Zwicky, once explained to me several flaws on the Gyraf circuit that have unfortunately been bred into the GSSL bloodline. And if you think I get too technical sometimes, he makes my articles look like Sweet Valley High.)

THOSE PRECIOUS CYCLES

You would think that, with so many possibilities crammed into a singular plug-in, that MixBox would gnaw through even the meatiest and mightiest of CPU’s. And you would be wrong. Frankly, I found MixBox to be a dainty “I’ll just have a salad”-type eater. Sure, stacking up multiple instances with all eight slots running is going to make a dent – but comparatively speaking MixBox runs pretty lean and mean, even at high sample rates and lower buffers.

You don’t need the newest, hardest, fastest comp to run MixBox.

I generally run my tracking session buffers at 64 samples and then back that off to 256 at mix. I can think of a few plug-ins that can get downright unruly – MixBox ain’t one of ‘em.

Even with it running in several places, I never experienced lag or got those dreaded “CPU hot-spikes”, dropouts and glitches. Though MixBox could in many ways be considered a “IK Multimedia Greatest Hits” compilation, the plug-in itself behaves as a new software application should – not a ball of band-aids from the 32-bit days of previous operating systems. Put another way, if your system starts glitching hard with MixBox, we need to take a look at your computer or the amount of processing you’re using.

FUTURE VERSION WISH-LIST

I really try to go easy on v1.0 software, especially when it’s clear they’ve got a solid foundation to build upon. Imagine using Pro Tools circa 1995 or Cubase v1 today and remember, these were considered quantum leaps at the time. You’d be pulling your hair out by the clump, screaming at a 640×480 monitor and a 33mHz single-core processor. So to that end, IK Multimedia are off to a very impressive start. Absolutely none of my critiques are at the expense of a five-star review.

“v1” is always an embryonic state with promises of better things to come.

There are a few additions I’d like to see in the next version or so that would “complete” the MixBox universe and not require stepping back out of the plugin, especially as they are processes that tend to happen somewhere in the early-to-middle phase. Mic preamp modeling could stand to make a heftier presence – we can run the track through a handful of guitar preamps, but the same can’t be said for actual console channels. A Helios 69. A different flavor of Neve like the 88VR or the RND Portico. A Trident 80B or API 312. Those are a big part of what in-the-box engineers are looking for. Transient shaping is another “need-to-have” inside this world. While I love the channel strip on Cubase Pro for this very thing, the rest of the world hasn’t woken up to this DAW’s superiority and I feel bad for them.

Another “wish” (it’d be a gripe by v2) is the serial-only design. Being able to modify the block diagram with different configurations of parallel and serial signal flow would open up even more creative doors than ever before thought possible given the range of possibilities MixBox contains. Speaking of routing – a dedicated mono channel version is a big “Yes, please” for me. In Cubase Pro 10.5, placing MixBox on a mono track instantly creates a stereo output and frankly, working with mono sources goes a long way from needing to chase down smearing phase issues down the road.

And as a final, distant “hope, hope, wish, wish”? It would be great to see additional modules become available through partnership, even if at a small additional price. If I could add my favorite McDSP FilterBank or elysia nVelope mid-stream, I would be tickled. That exposes probably the biggest snag of the whole “all-in-one” design (not just for IK, but in general) – if you want to add, say, your own preferred solution for any given task midway through, you’ll need to run one instance of MixBox before and another one after. I know the intention of a plug-in like this is to be the only one you need for a whole channel but sometimes you just “want what you want.”

I’M THE MAN IN THE BOX

We review a LOT of plug-ins at EverythingRecording. Developers are always looking for a new kind of rainy day to sell their umbrellas. To be fair, IK are not the first to the game with the “modular rack” approach, as PSP Audioware’s Infinistrip and Slate Digital’s VMR (Virtual Mix Rack) have been finding fans. But there’s certainly no denying that, even if there are a few pieces in MixBox’s 70 available modules that aren’t as exciting as others, it’s three times as many as PSP’s twenty-four and absolutely dwarfs Slate VMR’s seven.

It’s interesting to me that, with most DAW’s supporting at least ten-plus inserts per track, we are effectively creating racks within the racks. But the convenience of building an entire chain within a single window does have its upsides (as we all know when stacking up multiple plugins of varying shapes and sizes with limited monitor space). Also, storing entire configurations as a single preset will make even the most die-hard of analog revivalists admit that pages full of patchbay and device settings is a living nightmare by comparison.

With any piece of gear, be it hardware OR software, it comes down to the sound, the ease of use and well… yeah, cost does have to figure in there somewhere, right? On the level of pure sonics, the MixBox is twelve out of a possible ten. Not every developer gets the modeling part of a particular piece dead on, but IK’s decades of experience really pay dividends here. With exquisite creation and emulation of dozens and dozens of so many processes, this is a must have for any engineer. It’s tactile, organized and quite simple to understand – the sort of plugin you just install and go.

At a $199 introductory MSRP ($299 for those ‘get-around-to-it’ types who don’t like saving money), it’s absolutely absurd to even consider complaining about the price. You’re buying seventy plug-ins here. And as I said before – you probably will have a dozen-or-so favorites, but knowing there is such a tremendous warchest to experiment with can unlock some creative windows that might otherwise be painted shut by now. Assuming you’re running all 8 modules, you have 722 trillion possible combinations. Let’s just take a moment to contemplate how vast a number that is – and then relax knowing we’ll all likely have somewhere between ten and a hundred home-spun presets that get called into battle.

Seriously? This is what a 5/5 plug-in looks like.

BOX IT UP

With the sheer amount of individual options under the hood, IK Multimedia’s MixBox is an absolute no-brainer. Even if you don’t use every last module or every last slot (I don’t think I’ve ever had more than five plugins on a track in twenty-five years). Even if you don’t need any guitar preamps or have no need for “yet another reverb”. The idea you can build entire processing chains for every possible situation then store and deploy them with ease from a single instance is a real level-up for plug-in technology.

Compared to the idea of building up an actual 500-series rack – wellllll…. Let’s just say I have two totally full racks and I love them dearly and use them often. Many of the modules I use are very off the beaten path – things like Baxandall and APSI-modeled EQ’s, dedicated transformers, relic compressors (like my trusty Aphex CX-1’s) and the inimitable nVelope (hardware edition). But the benefits to doing this digitally are not hard to fathom. You buy one analog module and you get to run one channel (one mono channel), that’s it. Want to try eight $3000 compressors in a row? MixBox can make that happen until your CPU screams for mercy.

The quality of the modeling and effects is impeccable, the ease of use is dead simple and the price is worth every penny and then some. It’s a masterful jack-of-all-trades piece of software that gets better with every single use. Producers and engineers of every style of music and any level of experience will have no problem finding new ways to inspire their mixes. My “v2 wish list” does remove a star, but since I had given it a 6 out of 5, IK Multimedia will have to settle for a perfect score. MixBox really is that good.

5 / 5 Reviewer

BUY

Pros

Options abound for making truly creative channel effects.
Sparkling sound quality and excellent models throughout.
More "esoteric" guitar-type effects work on more than just guitars.

Cons

Missing a couple modules to be a "complete" solution.
Routing is serial only, can't create parallel blocks.
Mono version for using single sources would be welcome.

Summary

Putting an entire plug-in folder inside your plug-in folder has its benefits. With a massive amount of IK's twenty years of excellent modeling technology in a single insert, this plug-in is sure to find a use in any situation. This is a "must have" for every producer and engineer.

Rating

Plugin Alliance Announces Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint

By

Bryan

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Plugin Alliance, supporting all major plugin formats and uniting some of the best-known international audio companies under one virtual roof, is proud to announce availability of Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint — an innovative new low-frequency enhancement tool designed to rapidly improve the bottom end of individual tracks, stems, and even entire mixes.

Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint’s musical heart beats to the tune of its simple frequency splitter with an adjustable cutoff, separating the low band from the high band to deploy different types of processing on each. From there, each of the five main (SATURATE, RESONATE, OCTAVE, SYNTHESIZE, and OVERFOLD) modes — each accessing five simple, intuitive (CUTOFF, STRENGTH, SOFTEN, SHELF, and CLARITY) knobs for dialling in ideal sounds — offer new and exciting ways to tweak those high and low parts of the signal through a remarkably simple, creative, and intuitive workflow. With further control provided via the six additional (ANTI RUMBLE, MID ONLY, SOLO BASS, MONO BASS, SOFT CLIP, and BYPASS) toggle OPTIONS on the right side of the plugin GUI (Graphical User Interface), applying essential bass processing techniques are only the flip of an appropriate switch away!

It is also worth noting that Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint makes use of one of the most popular saturation algorithms from its Southern Californian creator’s Dent, a duly different distortion/wave-shaping plugin par excellence, while providing users with instant feedback from its onscreen Visualizer showing real-time spectral change.

Ultimately, Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint is the only plugin on the market that offers such a diverse control set for low-end enhancement and low- end frequency management alike. Spanning subtle enhancement of low-end frequencies to totally reshaping the frequency spectrum from the subs on up, truly wild things are possible with this plugin! Whether wishing to really mess things up for super-dirty-sounding bass or simply bringing kicks and bass into better balance, Bass-Mint can practically do anything anyone would want to do to their lows.

Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint is available for purchase (as an AAX Native-, AU-, VST2-, and VST3-supporting effect plugin for macOS 10.11 through 10.15 and Windows 7 through 10) at an attractive introductory price of $129.99 USD until November 8, 2020 — rising thereafter to an MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) of $149.00 USD — from here: https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/unfiltered_audio_bass_mint.html

A fully-functional, 14-day trial of Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint is available to anyone registering for a free Plugin Alliance account here: http://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/registration.html

Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint is included in Plugin Alliance’s monthly MEGA Bundle (https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/pa-mega-bundle-monthly.html) and annual MEGA Bundle (https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/pa-mega-bundle.html) subscription services, its monthly MIX & MASTER Bundle (https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/pa-mix-master-bundle-monthly.html) and annual MIX & MASTER Bundle (https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/pa-mix-master-bundle-yearly.html) subscription services, and also its monthly Unfiltered Audio Bundle (https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/unfiltered_audio-bundle-monthly.html) subscription service at no extra cost!

Note that the proprietary Plugin Alliance Installation Manager means users can select, download, and install only the products and formats needed for their system.

For more in-depth info, including several superb-sounding audio demos, please visit Plugin Alliance’s dedicated Unfiltered Audio Bass-Mint webpage here: https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/unfiltered_audio_bass_mint.html

IK Multimedia Introduces MixBox Virtual Channel Strip Plugin

By

Bryan

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Combining FX and processors from their extensive collection of virtual instruments and processors, IK Multimedia introduces MixBox Virtual Channel Strip Plugin. This all-in-one solution saves you real estate on your tracks by combining up to eight modules in one interface. MixBox created complete channel strips with compression, eq, reverb, delay, along with several creative FX.

IK Multimedia announces MixBox, a “500 series”-style virtual rack plug-in for Mac and PC. It offers musicians, producers and engineers of every genre all the effects they need in one “rack” to mix faster and more efficiently while enjoying professional sound quality and a convenient, lightning-fast workflow.

MixBox includes 70 studio processors and creative effects derived from IK’s T-RackS mixing and mastering workstation, AmpliTube guitar and bass tone studio, and SampleTank sound and groove workstation, as well as four stunning new reverb algorithms. It packs these processors into a convenient and intuitive channel strip layout that can be used as a plug-in for any DAW or in stand-alone mode.

Beginners will benefit from having high-quality effects and 600+ presets at their fingertips to kick-start their creativity, while advanced users can speed up their workflow by using the customizable format to save and recall whole custom effects chains instantly.

Custom processor chain creation
Users can create and save their own custom channel strips in an 8-slot “rack” that can be used in all major DAWs. With drag & drop routing and a range of advanced controls like wet/dry mix, sidechain and individual processor gain, users can assemble even complex, professional processor chains in seconds. In stand-alone mode, users can create up to eight racks of eight processors each, for a highly optimized mixing environment.

70 processors for more mixing variety
Immaculate-sounding processors deliver powerful digital effects and warm, authentic physical models of classic analog gear. In addition, MixBox introduces four all-new, reverb algorithms for hall, room, plate and inverse.

A modeling powerhouse
A selection of ultra-precise digital models of some of the most iconic mixing gear in history is onboard, as well as creative models such as amplifier distortion and tape saturation. MixBox leverages many of the most advanced and popular models from AmpliTube & T-RackS to add ultra-authentic analog warmth and vibe to any track.

View the complete gear and effects collection here.

Creative FX for every need
In addition to standard EQ Dynamics and Channel Strip processors, MixBox also offers onboard Filters, Modulation, Saturation, Reverbs, Delays, Distortion and Amps to cover a multitude of scenarios such as tracking vocals, sound design, customizing virtual instruments and more.

Quick and convenient workflow
MixBox enhances workflow efficiency by keeping every parameter immediately accessible in a compact and easily editable GUI, eliminating the need to switch between plug-in windows when adjusting multiple effects.

Users can more easily adjust multiple processors from a single window, and can save entire processor changes to recall favorites at any time, saving time and energy and keeping them inspired.

Instant inspiration with 600+ presets
MixBox comes packed with more than 600 individual processor and whole-chain presets covering a range of uses, styles, genres and more, to offer a creative starting point. User presets can also be saved and recalled for future use.

Powerful multi-rack live mixing in stand-alone mode
MixBox’s stand-alone mode offers a complete, easy-to-use mixing experience for nearly any situation, with up to eight separate racks of eight processors each.

Audio can be fed into a computer from any source such as a digital mixer or audio interface, and the MixBox main panel will offer control over all eight racks at once. Users can load rack presets, add or remove processors from each rack, activate the side-chain and manage input/output channels and gain for each rack, all from one panel.

Price and availability
MixBox is now available from the IK Multimedia online store and from IK authorized dealers worldwide for an introductory price of $/€199.99* (regular price will be $/€299.99).

Existing owners of any registered IK product that retails for $/€99 or more can purchase MixBox for an introductory crossgrade price of $/€149.99 (regular crossgrade pricing will be $/€199.99).

From September 17 through October 31, 2020, registered owners of select T-RackS, Total Studio 2, Lurssen Mastering and iLoud products will receive a $/€50 automatic discount off the crossgrade price when purchasing MixBox through the IK Multimedia online store. Visit here for details.

*All prices excluding taxes

To purchase, please consider our Affiliate Link HERE. It won’t cost you any extra and helps keep our lights on!

AUSTRIAN AUDIO: THE SOUND OF MUSIC

By

B. Church

-

Sometimes when we review a product from another country, the tendency is to open with a quick quip about it being from the land of fine meats and cheeses, their abundance of elk or whatever else the Wikipedia search turns up. Beyond the iconic countryside scenes of “The Sound Of Music“, Austria’s most notable exports have come from Akustische und Kino-Geräte Gesellschaft m.b.H, better known to the world as “AKG”. AKG certainly need absolutely no introduction, their contributions to pro audio would be an article unto itself.

However, as tends to happen with corporations, they are often acquired, absorbed, repositioned, retooled, diversified and a dozen other terms spoken by MBA’s everywhere. For AKG, this meant their parent company (Harman International) was acquired by THEIR new parent company Samsung and relocated to California in 2017 – leaving a furloughed design team and factory in Austria. Rather than simply closing up shop, they created Austrian Audio, with a renewed focus and independent spirit.

Austrian Audio’s forebearer has always been a very serious player in the professional and consumer headphone market – leaving our new upstart with a big set of earcups to fill. Rather than just rehashing existing AKG designs and trading upon the legacy with a new logo, Austrian Audio have quickly made it abundantly clear that this is not how they plan on doing things.

ENTER THE HI-X55

With just an initial look at the Hi-X50 and Hi-X55 headphones, you immediately know that these are not a retread of existing patents, but a new concept with tremendous attention to detail and innovation. The Hi-X55’s we’re reviewing here are the over-ear version of their ‘high excursion’ design (there’s your ‘Hi-X’ designation right there). Sporting 44mm drivers and a stated 5hz-28kHz frequency range, the Hi-X55’s feature 118db of sensitivity and a relatively low 25ohm resistance.

There has been more chatter about headphone impedance in the past year than the previous fifty combined. What you need to know (lest you get sucked into a vision quest of online discussions) is that a lower impedance means the drivers’ voice coils have less resistance to incoming current. That means slightly lesser-powered sources (say for example, your phone or audio interface’s headphone amplifier) are able to provide enough amperage to make these shine. Other designs, notably from Beyer Dynamic, offer models with resistance as high as 600ohms – which really need a big heckin’ chonker of a headphone amp to be driven in their optimal range.

Speaking of voice coils, this is the very heart of the Hi-X55’s technical advancement. Building upon the ring-magnet design of their lineage. Austrian Audio’s design features a copper-wound aluminum driver that is able to move more freely due to the reduced weight. This means not only a faster response time, but (you guessed it) deeper driver excursion. Those sub frequencies today’s electronic music producers crave move the drivers deeper, farther and faster. A 30hz sine wave practically transforms these headphones into a portable massager, should your shoulders be a little tight from agonizing over your mix all day.

Though the Hi-X55’s do not fully fold inside the headband, the earpieces do pivot to lay flat for easy transport. I personally would not take my studio headphones away from home the same way I don’t take out any other gear or instruments. Headphones get dropped, stolen, lost and forgotten. At an MSRP of $299, I’ll stick to walking the dog with my cheap $50 pair instead. These are just as much an instrument as anything else in my studio, and I treat them as such.

THE ‘X’ FACTOR

“pull the red sash…” – unboxing the HiX-55’s is just the slightest bit naughty

As much as I try not to be swooned by appearances, the first time I saw the Hi-X55’s press release in my inbox, my idful, gear-lusting side wondered, “Ohhh…. Now what, pray tell, are these?!?” From the head-conforming forward-canted earpieces to the low-profile but handsomely-padded headband, the profile and materials let you know this is a design that’s equal parts evolution and revolution.

At that point I hadn’t even received my evaluation pair. And to be frank, I’m always a skeptic of product photos with so many being 3D-model renders anyways. But cracking open the shipping box, I suddenly understood all of those stupid unboxing videos you see on YouTube (do you seriously expect me to watch you open your new iPhone?). I had to pace myself as the initial presentation of the box made me linger… opening the red sash to its bewitching black matte box was disarmingly… seductive.

Internal dialogue: “No… stop…. Our readers already think I’m unstable… Lay off the Harlequin Romance Novels and get to the good stuff!”

Inside the Hi-X55’s box, you’ll find a velvety black carry pouch, a detachable 3.5mm cable with threaded ¼” TRS adapter and the documentation that I suspect no person has read, like, ever (seriously, if you’re an audio engineer who needs instructions for headphones, reevaluate your career choice). Oh, and a sticker – the most brilliant free advertising method ever conceived.

L and R written ON the earpads? Nice touch.

Slipping the pair on and finding the “just right” spot on the extendable steel bows, it felt like sliding into the leather interior of a luxury automobile. Though the Hi-X55’s earcups are smaller than some of its contemporaries, they nestled perfectly over my ears with great economy of space and comfort. The importance of this fit can’t be overstated if you’re planning on wearing them for any extended amount of time. As a side note, screening the “L” and “R” inside the earpieces is a nice touch for those who don’t know the cable is ALWAYS on the left.

Though there is a fair amount of high-tensile plastic involved here, all of the usual places headphones break sported reassuringly sturdy metal joints and contact points. At just a penny over 300g (about 10.5oz to US Imperialists) the Hi-X55’s felt nice and light, almost as little as the Hi-X50’s smaller on-ear design. Those of us who’ve owned the two-pound “DJ’s delight” type headphones with 50mm+ magnets and way too much padding will appreciate giving your poor old neck a break.

Though the Hi-X55 is a closed-back design, they don’t completely seal you away in their own anechoic world the way some designs do. Honestly that has always made me feel a touch claustrophobic, even though pretending that the person trying to talk to me is singing along with the music playing inside is always entertaining. Try it with “Bohemian Rhapsody”, it’s hilarious.

THE FUTURE SOUND OF VIENNA

I will admit, I haven’t always been a heavy user of headphones when mixing. I’d use them to hear the mix folded to mono to check for phasing and make sure my poor old ears hadn’t fatigued for the day, leaving a shearing amount of high-end. But when I relocated my studio to New York City, space, acoustics and acceptable volume suddenly all became an issue. No more tracking live drums at 3AM – to say the very least.

At first, I used my trusty Sony V700’s from my DJ days which are fun to listen to, but an incredibly bad choice for making value judgments on EQ, balance and compression. DJ headphones have a knack for making just about anything sound good. I moved onto an audio-focused pair and found them helpful, but would only use them for working late at night or for the above-mentioned “gut check”. Why? Simple. I didn’t like them and they didn’t match the monitors OR the final mixes.

Plugging into my DIY’d headphone amp (seriously, I’m not paying $350 for 2 hours of work and $70 in parts), I went right back to a mix I’d been laboring over for a day or two (okay, more like ‘repeatedly getting frustrated and walking away from’) to hear Austrian Audio’s perspective. My first reactions? Present. Like, right there present. I was now nose-to-nose with the drums and guitars. The thwack and plump of the kick drum, the pang and ‘puh’ of the snare were so close I could smell the drummer’s breath (don’t forget to floss!). The guitars, particularly the hard-panned rhythm pair, were now firmly planted to the sides of my head like an Alien facehugger. Present and accounted for.

While something like a bass drum will never give you that kick to the chest that you’ll experience on actual speakers, I definitely could work deeper on EQ’ing into that sweet spot. And the Hi-X55’s quickly revealed to me that imaging of the room mics and overheads needed a wee-bit more aligning – which they gladly helped me find. Switching back to my monitors, everything seemed so much more properly spaced out in the stereo field. Okay, Austrian Audio. You have my attention.

JUST LISTEN…

Switching over to one of my favorite ever EDM tracks for system-checking, I absolutely loved how the Hi-X55’s reproduced the full spectrum of playback. Those subwoofer-bound lows were well-represented without puffery or difficult-to-pin-down rumbling. You knew which frequencies were being pushed with clinical specificity instead of just being ‘loooowwwwwww’. Those critical mid-range frequencies occupied their space without being encroached on (or encroach-ing) their neighboring bands. The highs sparkled and twinkled, even as overtones from cymbals and synths climbed into their cruising altitude, but never felt fatiguing or brash.

A quick note on the low frequencies here, though? The subbiest of sub-drenched tracks I personally know of (who’s name I won’t actually repeat, just link to) will bring most playback systems to their knees at even half of their operating range. It’s not “a lot of bass”, it’s not “sub heavy”, it’s the rap industry’s attempt at reproducing ‘the brown note’. And the Hi-X55’s handled them with clarity and confidence. Though you could feel the drivers physically flapping insead their enclosures, everything above 100hz carried on, unaffected by the ludicrous amount pressure from the 35hz kick drum.

Just for some relativity, I decided to just plug the Hi-X55’s into my home stereo receiver (a vintage Yamaha Natural Sound that is both older than me and far more reliable) and put on one of my absolute favorite vinyl LP’s of all time: “A Great River” by Nate Hall. This is one of those records that was most decidedly not recorded in a room full of Studer, Neumann and Neve, but created with minimal equipment by the artist himself to paint a simply breathtaking portrait. Every haunting chord and melody came through the earpieces and sent literal chills. You could really enjoy the lo-fi ambience for what it is, making such a unique recording that much better.

A few more glowing pieces of praise here: I found one of their strengths is creating a realistic and deep soundstage. When listening to ambient mics or reverbs on tracks, they faithfully placed elements with excellent perspective along the z-plane. Put another way, if the sound was ten versus twenty feet away from a microphone, you could tell. As it should be with headphones, finding the space on the X-axis is very detailed and with cohesive separation. Where headphones sometimes fail me is representing finite points in that crucial 5º around the center, sucking it all right into the middle. Not here. Just a ‘weensie bit that-a-way’ is as it should be for keeping your center-channel a little less cluttered.

FLAT VS FLATTERY

Consumer headphones (like those fugly-ass Beats costing a hundred more) entice would-be buyers with an EQ-response that’s been hollowed out like a Halloween pumpkin. In Pro Audio circles, we call that “the Sony smile” as an ode to the dipped graphic equalizers of the 80’s and 90’s (seriously, what did 2kHz ever do to YOU, man?) And I suppose that if you’re looking for that latest mumble rap Soundcloud link to rattle out your fillings, you’d be much happier sticking to the consumer stuff. I don’t say that out of snobbery – I just know that professional monitoring headphones are not going to give you that “T&A factor”, no matter how expensive or handsomely packaged they are.

That’s not at all what’s going on with the Austrian Audios – they are most certainly designed for reference and they do quite a great job of it. But I couldn’t help but feel just a nice little touch of low and high-end emphasis. No more than say… a 1 or 2db pillow on either end of the spectrum. And frankly, that is more than okay with me, if not preferable. I would stop far short of calling them “hyped” or “scooped” – I simply found them to have an ever-so delicate drop of sweetness compared to ruler-flat.

I like cross-referencing with headphones because I no longer have the benefit of my Equator Audio q10’s when I want to really hear a mix blown up. After hours of chasing gain reduction, frequency notches and phase anomalies, it’s nice to just rev up the volume for a minute. C’mon we all do it. Your listeners and clients (should you be lucky to have them) don’t “monitor” their music. They get excited by it – using all manner of fidelity-destroying mini-speakers, bluetooth connections and headphones. So while the Hi-X55’s are most definitely NOT hype-machines or ghetto blasters, they do offer a sliver of perspective into how the everyman will be listening.

PRICE, POWER AND PURPOSE

The two big factors that you take into consideration when purchasing headphones are one, what you’re using them for and two, what you’re willing to spend. If you’re looking for a daily-driver, something that you can plug into your studio, your phone and every point in between, the Austrian Audio Hi-X55’s are definitely a contender – but it hinges on whether you’re after ruler flat or a bit of thump and tickle. To that end, these do offer great isolation, a widely-compatible low impedance and sparkling fidelity. If you’re looking for hype, these are precariously a touch more than clinically flat, but most definitely not in a “make bass go boom” way that consumer headphones do.

For pure reference, these are a fantastic option. The fidelity is excellent, the soundstage is very detailed and they definitely will give you a valid second (or third) opinion on crucial mix decisions. The Hi-X55’s are faithful to their source and enjoyable to listen to for those insomnia-fit 3AM sessions. They’re light and don’t fatigue your hearing (monitor responsibly, kids!) and provide a ‘just right’ amount of isolation. Whether you’re writing that latest dancefloor-destroying club banger or mixing cocktail jazz, Austrian Audio manages to cover the wide range of genres and styles.

At $299, the Austrian Hi-X55’s are neither the cheapest nor the most expensive options out there in New-Cans-Land. I suspect for many of our readers these would be a step up from your current situation and you’re looking to invest into a dedicated set. And for those I would most-assuredly say these play at a level far beyond the price tag and are worth every dollar. Not a single corner has been cut in their design, quality and construction. If it’s time to hang up that old pair that’s being held together by duct-tape and hope, these deserve your attention.

While you could find some valid comparisons to the AKG models in their lineage, the Austrian Audio Hi-X55 headphones are most decidedly their own design, form and function. With its baby brother model (Hi-X50) and two impeccably designed condenser microphones that we hope to review soon, Austrian Audio is a group we’re confident will continue to bring both quality and innovation to studios everywhere.

HiX-55 Rundown:

5 / 5 Reviewer

Pros

Faithful, accurate and clear fidelity.
High-excursion driver design can really belt out the low end without flattery.
Sexy matters. And these are downright freaking sexy.

Cons

Price might be just a touch beyond some budgets.
Slightly flattering with high- and low-end (if ruler-flat is the ask).
Non-folding design and lack of a case make them the not-most-portable pair.

Summary

Some headphones are all flattery. Some stick to 'just the facts'. But with the Austrian Audio Hi-X55's you just might be able to have both. Impeccable Bosch-like design and jaw-dropping fidelity.

Rating

IT CAME FROM THE 80’s: ARTURIA OB-Xa

By

B. Church

-

WELCOME TO 1984… AGAIN…

At the dawn of the 1980’s, analog synthesizers were riding an all-time high. Those impressive behemoths could be heard everywhere from the proggiest of wizard rock to the sleaziest, sweatiest funk to the most candy-coated of pop anthems. The Oberheim OB series continued to up the bar, replacing its predecessors with not only additional features and polyphony, but a big technological jump by implementing Curtis Integrated Circuits, making these $7000 beasts more capable, reliable, expandable and easy to repair. Though competing designs from Moog and Sequential Circuits kept it race competitive, the OB-Xa’s sound had an irrefutable “it factor” that found its way onto many a Sony Walkman.

The decade’s fashions made us run… run so far a-wa-a-ayyy.

While the era’s quirky fashions came and went quickly, no decade in recent history has had such a memorable look and lifestyle quite the way the 1980’s did. The crimped hair, the dayglo everything, the “Frankie Says” t-shirts… it was ten years of Rick James-esque excess that simply had to be experienced to be believed. In cable tv-equipped living rooms across the world, music became a truly visual medium. Launched in 1980, the Oberheim OB-Xa is a living, breathing classic – and its legendary sounds helped define a decade.

Though digital synthesizers and samplers would soon begin to chip away the analog synthesizer’s market mid-decade, the OB-Xa was heard on the era’s most memorable songs. Notably, one fine day in 1983, one curiously cheery guitar virtuoso stunned the metal world by opening his band’s biggest hit to date with the iconic brassy saw-wave intro to “Jump.” Mulleted butt rockers wouldn’t experience an existential crisis this crippling until Judas Priest’s Rob Halford confirmed why he was so “Hellbent For Leather” fifteen years later (in retrospect, it was kind of obvious).

Analog synths enjoyed a tremendous “rebirth” as the world lurched towards the anti-cataclysmic Y2K. Practically discarded Junos, Jupiters and Prophets quickly went from garage sales and pawn shops to selling for often three or four times their original value. Their oscillators and filter’s trademark yowl, yip and growl became extremely coveted in electronic music – even as physical modelling synthesizers like the Nord Lead and the Roland JP-8000 faithfully recreated them. Here we are, over twenty years beyond that and musicians are still looking for exacting sonic replicas of these relics.

Well, with Arturia’s OB-Xa V? They’ve found it.

PUT THOSE NEON JELLY BRACELETS ON

Oberheim patches proudly served here: the Sony Walkman

Okay, let’s just say this at the outset. This thing has so much 1980’s packed under its hood you just might have a flashback nosebleed. It blats, it blerps, swooshes, rumbles, pierces, swells, slides and stabs very, very faithfully to the original. You want the funk of Rick James or the fluff of Flock of Seagulls? Boy, do you have it. Want to indulge your inner Nile Rodgers or watch 99 luft balloons go by? Just add MIDI and some line noise. On that note, the original was sometimes prone to oscillator drift and RF noise. You can always recreate that with the modulation matrix feature (keep reading).

With the OB-Xa V, you really do have the quintessential 80’s analog sound right under your fingers. Whether you’re after the plush pads, the meaty low basses or scorching leads, this synth is happy to indulge your every whim. But the good souls at Arturia knew that not every night is 80’s night – and this synth is more than ready to help you craft the sounds of tomorrow.

GETTING GOOEY

Loading up the OB-Xa the first time, you’re greeted with the patinaed black-and-blue fascia of this classic monster, albeit compacted for a computer display. If you’ve never even laid eyes on the original, let me just say this: The Oberheim OB-Xa was quite the hefty sucker – almost two feet deep and fifty pounds. Nobody was putting a guitar strap on one of these back then, that much I assure you. So let’s just thank the tech wizards at Arturia for getting all of that real estate onto a laptop. You’re presented with the same parameters exactly as they were on the original (save for patch navigation and arpeggiation). And like the original, It’s easy to get up and going, though some could be thrown with the amp and filter envelopes being placed on the far right.

As you’ve come to expect, Arturia are nice enough to provide both a CPU meter and a panic button along the bottom. Hate to say it, but when MIDI is involved, notes get stuck. And when analog-modelling is happening, lesser CPU’s and RAM allowances can feel the pain, especially at lower buffer settings or as part of these 150+ track counts people are creating nowadays. That’s not to say the OB-Xa is a heavy eater, most users shouldn’t see a sizable dent in their available CPU cycles. Compared to the last generation of processors, today’s multi-multi-core monsters can really handle quite a bit of pressure.

Click, twiddle, repeat: Mapping controllers to Arturia’s parameters is a breeze.

A synth like this is designed to be twiddled with, whether you know exactly what each function does or not. Analog synthesizers like these aren’t just tone generators – they are instruments and were made to be played. Mapping continuous controllers is simple, as it should be. Click the MIDI icon, select the parameter and send data from the hardware knob or slider of your choosing and boom, you’re ready to rip. Patch navigation is also a simple affair and quite seamless, even as you continue playing. Speaking of patches, it’s quite hilarious, if not a bit expected, that the first patch is a filtered, bratty saw-brass preset simply called “Jump”. Go ahead, bust it out one time.

CALL DOWN THE THUNDER

The 400+ patches included on-board range from the sounds of “back then” all the way to some pretty cutting edge-sounding stuff for right now. Whether you’re cutting the many flavors of EDM, darkwave, industrial, electropop or anything else, the OB-Xa is up to it. True, its forebearer was not the most complicated of synthesizers and as such, neither is this. If you’re angling for 20,000 wavetables to choose from, well, this has three. There aren’t pages after pages of parameters or options a la Native Instruments’ Massive or xFer’s Serum. Those are both arguably more “capable” synthesizers on paper, but if you’re looking for living, fire-breathing analog, you’ve come to the right place.

Presets, presets galore! (if that’s your thing…)

Every corner of the colorful world of analog synthesizers is on display. Pads are swirling, lush and intoxicating. Basses lumber with extreme amounts of weight. The quite-exacting emulation of the Curtis chips gives you subs and growls that will definitely shake floors. Leads traverse the classic Rick Wakeman stylings of late 70’s prog rock (wizard costume recommended but not required) all the way into raving-mad squelches and searing highs. And though the original was never explicitly designed for percussion, you can most certainly create some great kicks, snares, toms and hi-hats. Want that classic TR-808 sine kick or some Simmons-esque “PJOO! PJOO!” synth toms? Don’t threaten the OB-Xa with a good time here, it’s more than up to the task.

BEYOND RETRO…. NOW-TRO!

Now that we’ve all enjoyed those photo albums from a decade long passed, let’s talk about what the OB-Xa can do for your music today. True to its original design, Arturia gives you two oscillators (plus a noise wave) but now with up-to 16 voices of polyphony (which you would never, ever get with even the fully-expanded original). By the standards of these 80’s megasynths, it’s much more than plenty.

The arpeggiator is more of an Arturia-based creation and gives you your basic ups, downs and all-arounds. With so many synthesizer plug-ins out there that offer you a few-too-many ways to slink up and down a fistful of notes, this keeps things refreshingly more simple. Remember, the original hardware shipped years before the MIDI standard was ever put to work – so be gracious for the tempo sync. It wasn’t always this easy!

Programming your own patches on this behemoth is, as synths of this era were, an intuitive process that rewards exploration. No pages of menus or multi-function encoders. You’ve got a lot of one-knob-per-function rotary controls for creating envelopes, modifying LFO’s, dialing in your filters – it’s all right there. Were it me, I’d ship software like this with a “blank patch” or “reset” button that leaves you with one active saw wave and not a thing more to encourage people building from the ground up. Getting your inspiration from a preset is fine, but you can quickly get caught in the branches of turning off unwanted effects or modulation.

Without actual knobs or sliders (like on this Arturia KeyLab) you’re missing out on the fun part.

Speaking of, a simple suite of onboard effects is included which will also look quite familiar to owners of other Arturia synthesizers. You’ve got your basic delays, reverbs, distortion and modulation effects. While there’s nothing groundbreaking here, having quick access to the “most-wanted” type effects without inserting another plug-in can come in handy for basic chores. I suspect that Arturia, who make some seriously good time-based and modulation plug-ins, might want you to consider an additional purchase. But for your basic reverb and chorus tasks, the OB-Xa provides four slots to work with, all capable of automation and being driven in series or parallel. By comparison, the original Oberheim provided zero, so stop your moaning or I’ll turn this car around right now.

An interesting feature was the stereo functionality, letting you spread a note from ear to ear in a few different ways. With the width control, you can dial in a little to keep your center unencumbered… or take all 88 keys coast to coast. With pads in particular, I loved the way it tickled the margins of the stereo image. This is a good time, however, to remind the newer generation among our readers that anything under 200hz does best right up the middle in mono.

Arturia’s Modulation Matrix is where the real fun starts.

Lastly, Arturia’s modulation matrix is a quite intuitive way to draw in envelopes via time or tempo, be they waves, directional or finger paintings – and then route them to any parameter you wish, including effects. To be clear, this is an Arturia feature, not from Oberheim – and users of their other software synthesizers will recognize it right away. Punters and professionals alike should have no issue experimenting their way through the learning process until its true potential is realized. Once you figure out how to put this feature to work, you can unlock possibilities that were unfathomable during the Material Girl-era.

THE BIGGER THE CUSHION…

The AML ezPre 1073. Like a toaster, but for audio.

If you’re really trying to nail down the “eighties sound”, consider giving the OB-Xa a trip through a little tube-, transformer- or transistor-based saturation. That’s not an affront to the sound of this incredible instrument at all – it is as close to the real deal as you’re going to find out there. But it helps to remember that the synthesizer itself was just one part of the recording chain when we’re talking about all those 80’s records that made the Oberheim famous. I’ve found that with many 70’s and 80’s inspired soft synths, rubbing a little dab of analog on there really drives it home. My personal favorite, the AML ez1073 500-series preamps, get pulled in to give these sorts of chores some transformer-based cushion and harmonic richness – emulating the outputs’ trip from synth to console to tape to console to tape again. Try it with your saturation plug-in or hardware of choice.

DEFINING THE DECADE OF EXCESS

There are literally hundreds of software synthesizers out there. Some try to define the sound of the future with so many options that a hardware version wouldn’t fit on your dining room table. Still others relish the classic formats and flavors, using physical modeling to keep the sounds and stylings of their influences alive. The greatest ones, however, manage to build a bridge between then and now, giving the user that awe-inspiring “analog-type thing”, but harnessing it with exacting digital control that would have never been possible in their day.

Once I mapped out my “most wanted” hardware knobs and sliders, I remembered the first time I played with a Roland Juno 106 in my neighbor’s garage at the all-too-impressionable age of 12. My favorite synthesizers, no matter their inner workings, have always been the ones that beckon you to twist and twiddle your way to parts unknown until you’ve either gone so far off the map you reset everything, or find an inspiring tweak that you can undeniably call your own. To be sure, you’re far more likely to get there with actual knobs and sliders than mousing around a mouse. But once you’ve got this impressive beast under control, the past is the future.

Arturia OB-Xa $199 USD, Mac/PC 64/32bit, AAX, AU and VST

OB-Xa Rundown:

5 / 5 Reviewer

BUY

Pros

Easy controller mapping lets you slip, slide and squiggle like it’s 1984.

Captures the sound of then, but enables the sonics of tomorrow.

Cons

Needs a simpler way to start with a blank canvas.

Another background authorization app? iLok please.

Summary

Arturia OB-Xa $199 USD, Mac/PC 64/32bit AAX, AU and VST
Whether you’ve ever used the real thing or not doesn’t matter. This is not just the sound of analog, but the joy of creating with it. It’ll go all twelve rounds with any real hardware synth you’ve got. Seriously.

Rating

BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE

I like reviewing Arturia’s stuff. I casually mentioned that their CZ V Casio CZ-1 clone (having owned the rackmount version in the 1990’s) looked interesting and if they felt like it would they mind sliding me an install? They obliged and so, if you don’t mind, I’d like to say a few words. The Casio CZ family are quite literally opposite of the Oberheim in every conceivable way, so if “Tubular Bells” is more your speed, do read on.

I go back with Casio. Way back. I received my first “synthesizer” Christmas, 1981. The Casiotone MT-40, with it’s 29 mini keys, eight “rhythms” and four banks of twelve or so presets, sucked the life out of so many C batteries that I might have caused climate change. Though much more of a toy by comparison, it was pivotal to my life as a musician. Ironically, these fetch several hundreds of dollars now as the ‘rock’ accompaniment rhythm was immortalized in reggae music’s “Sleng Teng Riddim” in the mid-80’s. Yes, I still have mine and no, it’s not for sale. I’m glad my mom doesn’t have a scanner, because she’s still got the photo of me opening that box on Christmas morning with my face forever preserved in pure, bacchanalian joy.

I never thought that “vintage digital” would be an actual “thing”. But here we are: Arturia’s CZ-V synthesizer.

CZ-ING THE CLASSIC CASIO SOUND.

As this Japanese company sold far more musical calculator wristwatches than synthesizers, Casio’s professional products live in the esoteric fringes of synthesizer history. The VZ-10 that I had purchased for maybe $200 back in 1995 certainly garnered a long stare, positioned next to such heavyweights as my Kurzweil K2500RS, Nord Lead 1 and Roland MKS-80. (Did I forget to mention that back in the pRe-Birth 1990’s, synthesizers were these big boxes you had to plug into a mixer? Sorry.) The CZ family, though difficult to navigate and program, were quite capable synthesizers, sonically reminiscent of the more-expensive Yamaha DX-7 in many ways. No, there was no instant-gratification or squelchy analog filter. The “phase-distortion synthesis” engine lacked the immediacy and heft of my Super Jupiter’s rampaging analog oscillators. But these curious synths did have a certain “something” to them. Designed to compete with the DX-7 (the most successful hardware synthesizer in history), adventurous programmers could tease out some truly unique sounds.

So when I saw the Arturia CZ V, I had to give it a try. There were some very progressive ideas going on inside the Casio CZ’s nascent 80’s digital technology. “Phase Distortion”, put simply, means the user could horizontally ‘push’ or ‘pull’ the shape of a waveform, adding asymmetry to the wave. From there, you could optionally superimpose one wave against the other to create all manner of auditory curiosities and abnormalities. Couple this with an 8-stage envelope (letting you create a second envelope beyond or within the existing ADSR) and yes, your quiver of tones certainly had some new arrows.

THESE BELLS ARE TUBULAR, DUDE

The CZ curried favor with many synth pop and new-age artists in the 1980’s, Vincent Clark and Jean Michell-Jarre notably among them. For the MTV crowd, that chiffing pipe lead in Salt N Pepa’s “Push It” was famously a CZ patch. The crucial flaw to these synthesizers was navigating a seemingly endless sea of sub-menus and multi-function encoders. That’s not to say you couldn’t make this curious $500 box do some truly unique and amazing things – but that you’d be rolling up your sleeves and digging deep into its lair to make it happen, aided only by a small multi-character LCD. As a longtime fan of the Kurzweil 2000 series, with their almost DOS-like environment locking away a tower of extreme sonic mayhem, I was able to at least understand its language, even if I couldn’t speak it fluently.

What Arturia has done here is not so much an emulation, but a reverse-engineering. As is the case with digital anything, the trick is to simply replicate the algorithms’ code. Granted it’s been decades since the original VZ-10 adorned my racks, but it was quickly apparent that (save for the original’s abhorrent line noise and crappy DAC’s) what you were seeing was exactly what you were getting. Like I’d mentioned before about adding some analog transformers to the OB-Xa to frame the era faithfully, a little digital degradation can really drive the point home if you’re going for “exact”. Even the cheapest of modern converters today are hundreds of times more capable than anything the 1980’s had on offer.

(Warning: This could be you…)

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

Armed with modern niceties like a screen, keyboard and mouse, Arturia gives modern users a far more efficient and intuitive way to get inside the troubled brain of this unique engine. True, you may never find yourself awestruck by fat and filthy low end the way its analog brethren can, but that’s not to say the CZ V doesn’t arm the user with plenty of compelling sounds. The addition of four assignable “macro” sliders give you access to parameters buried deep within the recesses of the original. For example, creating and controlling a low-pass filter from the PD engine inside the original could take hours of head-scratching, but Arturia have it front and center where necessary.

Programming this detailed with the original CZ was nigh impossible without a SYSEX editor.

As with the OB-Xa, you have the addition of Arturia’s robust modulation matrix, a workhorse effects section, arpeggiation and a huge array of preset sounds to begin unlocking the creative possibilities within. Had they stuck with a true 1:1 recreation, I don’t believe the CZ V would make for such a wonderful instrument. And again, if you aren’t the owner of a controller with at least a few sliders or knobs, you’re going to be missing the real joy of synthesis – whether you call it “noodling” or “programming”. Confining your creativity to one click and drag at a time woefully ignores the amount of fingers and toes human evolution has provided you with.

While comparisons to other O.G.-era digital wavetable, phase modulation and PCM synthesis engines are inevitable, the CZ V does provide some unique opportunities – especially with the voice stacking and multi-stage envelopes. Admitting, “I have no idea what any of this means” and diving headlong into editing will give you just as much of a chance to create something great as burying yourself in the manual for a week.

WHY? WHY NOT?!?

We’ve come quite a long way from entire racks and walls of synthesizers taking up precious studio real estate. Prior to the new millennium, space was a consideration and you’d often find yourself wishing you could have just one more synthesizer to open the doors to creativity. The endless hunt for a new sound benefits from having as many possible sources as possible. By comparison, your plug-in folder ALWAYS has room (sometimes too much… but we’ll discuss option anxiety another time).

To be honest, though – the $199 MSRP* feels a bit lux for a plug-in like this. That’s not to say it’s not quality. Arturia consistently produce the very best-in-class synthesizers like this. But a Casio – even a “PRO” Casio errs a tad gimmicky. Those producing on a budget could likely pass this over (or download a cracked version, the thievin’ bastiges) and make do with a free or much cheaper option. Even those of us with the extra scratch to spend might find another place to make that two hundo go farther.

(*You can own CZ V as part of the entire V Series package for $499. That effectively knocks down the price to about a 20-spot and gives you their entire collection.)

The Arturia CZ V really does offer you a “something new”, “something weird” or “something different” that other synthesizers (hardware OR software) seem to have missed. Phase Distortion synthesis, as heard here and more famously with the DX 7, may have never been as immediately desirable or well-understood compared to wavetables or subtractive synthesis, but to ignore it is to miss out on a whole new way to color and shade.

When you combine their true blue emulation with a much more intuitive way to harness it, Arturia’s CZ V is a welcome addition to any workstation’s synthesizer arsenal. Once you get past the cheeky, utter Casio-ness of it all, it’s a quite a worthwhile weapon in your warchest.

Arturia CZ V $199 USD, Mac/PC 64/32bit, AAX, AU and VST

Arturia CZ V

4 / 5 Reviewer

Pros

A new palette of quirky, early-era digital tones and timbres.

Adds programmability and editing the original simply did not.

Modulation matrix really unlocks what’s possible with Phase Distortion synthesis.

Cons

$200 is a little steep for a synth that sold for $495 brand new.

Maybe not the most “necessary” set of sounds, save for esoteric 80’s retrobilia.

More of a flaw of the original… but this is not the most joyful hardware to program.

Summary

A 1 to 1 recreation of the 1980’s curious “Phase Distortion” synth engine, Arturia have unlocked the possibilities of these synthesizers of yesteryear by adding a level of control you would likely never find with the original hardware.

Rating

BACK TO THE FUTURE

The 1980’s were a booming cycle of emerging technology in the world of synthesis and Arturia have brought these two quite dissimilar pieces of history into modern times wonderfully. On the one hand, the Oberheim OB Xa pushed the possibilities of analog synthesis to the bleeding edge of technology – finally giving users the polyphony and reliability that plagued earlier designs. And on the other, the Casio CZ family brought the emerging technology of digital synthesis into the hands of hobbyists and pros alike – albeit with the difficulty of navigating menu after menu of arcane and occasionally difficult-to-understand parameters.

At the end of the day, when it concerns emulation what matters most is getting it right. And to that end, Arturia has simply NAILED the sounds of both. Go ahead and track down the originals and do a head-to-head if you absolutely must, but the point here is that you simply don’t have to – and Arturia’s synthesizers fit in a folder, not on a stand. In fact, once you address the signal flow beyond the synths themselves, you’ve got as close to the real thing as you’ll ever want or possibly need. Now that we’re done here, you may now return to remembering the synth line to “Take On Me” in your Ocean Pacific shirt. You know you’re gonna do it.

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OF METAL AND IMMORTALITY. THE TERRY DATE INTERVIEW.

By

B. Church

-

hensonb — Terry Date at Henson Studio B Photo: Frank Delgado

Sure, Quiet Riot may have sang “Bang Your Head”, but Terry Date has made a hundred records that literally MAKE you do it. While some producers have careers, Terry Date has carved out a legacy. As the sonic architect of pivotal albums like Pantera’s “Vulgar Display Of Power”, Deftones’ “White Pony” and Soundgarden’s “Louder Than Love”, his influence is still heard on just about every heavy artist and album out there today.

With Terry back at the controls with Deftones for the first time in over a decade to produce the forthcoming “Ohms” LP, we wanted to ask about the mojo behind so many of these huge metal landmarks. Terry took a couple hours to share his insights on not only “Ohms”, but an enlightening smorgasbord of gear, philosophy, war stories and last wishes. And seriously? He’s as nice a guy as you will ever meet in this crazy business. Enjoy.

(after the customary two minutes of futzing with Zoom cameras and microphones)

Where are you broadcasting from right now?

This is mine, my home studio.

Interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of you with anything other than an SSL…

Well, when I did this studio, you know, I don’t work in here enough to leave a console on all the time and they (SSL) suck so much energy. So I wanted something that I could turn off at the end of the night.

One of the true immortals of mixing modern metal. Photo: Radionica

Right. You can never turn them off. They might not turn back on.

I know! And I’m in a neighborhood, so the power company always sends me this thing that says ‘this is how much power you’re using in relationship to your neighbors’. And as it is, I’m always the worst. Not by much. But if I had the SSL, they’d probably be calling the cops on me looking for a weed growing operation.

The weed farmer down the street still probably appreciates the cover. How long have you had your own studio?

Well, I’ve only had this board in here (he’s in front of a spanking new Rupert Neve Designs 5088) since a year ago, June. But the room itself, I’ve been kind of building this for seven years. And there’s a studio in Seattle that I use all the time called Studio X…

…that’s where you started, right? When it was Lawson Recording?

Well, technically Lawson was a different building a few blocks away. Studio X was on Fourth. And that was where I started.

Don’t worry, I’m not the creepy interview guy who knows too much. You don’t have to bother with the restraining order. Besides, I’m in New York City.

I was wondering what that area code was. But anyways, the designer who built Studio X was a designer who… whenever I’m in a new city and I need a studio, I always look for the bau:ton-designed rooms. And so Studio X was built by them also. And I just took pictures of every bau:ton room I was ever in. And I was so used to it that when I built this place, I just kind of did it from memory – it’s really designed from that. I did all the work myself, just because I’m kind of dumb like that. But all of the acoustic stuff, all the wood, everything on the interior I did myself as well as the wiring of the board.

You sound like a man who’s desperately trying to avoid spending time with his family.

You are a wise person. How did you know? I have two daughters – and because I have two daughters I am massively outnumbered when there’s a discussion going on. I would much prefer solder smoke.

There’s something very “zen” about leaning over a PCB doing solder joints. Also, if I DIY my own stuff, it’s easier to sneak new gear past my wife.

Yeah, I don’t know how I snuck the board in.

So tell me about mixing on the Neve versus the SSL.

SSL has its own sound, but you have to work for it. These boards, the less you do, the better sometimes and that’s very weird for me. I’m so used to digging hard on EQ. And so it took a little while to get used to all that. I’ve cut a lot of records on Neve and mixed on SSL. Or API – I love tracking API. This is the first time I’ve ever mixed on Neve and it’s a little bit of a transition for me. But it’ll work really well. You know, I don’t need automation – I have the computer for automation. I don’t need recall – I just take pictures. And I do a lot of stems when I’m mixing, so if I have to go back on a mix, I’ll do it from stems. And that way I don’t have to go so deep unless something is really wrong.

“Ohms” is the maiden mixing voyage for Terry’s new RND 5088.

So you actually mixed the new Deftones record on the 5088?

Yeah, we did the music at Henson Studio B and the rest right here. We were right at the very beginning of the pandemic. I started mixing it sometime in February. I believe the band was just about to start their Australian tour right when I was starting to mix. And the day before they left they had to cancel because the pandemic was swirling around out there and management didn’t want them risking it. That was a good move obviously because everything got shut down three days later. So fortunately, we’d been in here for… I don’t know… four or five months on and off? And we just decided to keep rolling with it right here.

And there’s advantages and disadvantages to that. You know, the advantage for me was that I can just work two hours a day if I want and walk away then come back the next day, check it out, listen to it some more… I can’t take my time if I’m at a Henson or a place like that, I’m paying a daily rate. I have, in my opinion, the best people and the best gear anywhere in the world there (Henson). I love working there just because of that. But I feel like I’m under the gun, I’ve got to get it done, done. And also, you know, just in this situation, if I’d have started it down there, I would have been shut down because of COVID. They shut everything down pretty early in California.

Every one of us picked up a quarantine project. And, you know, yours just happened to be kind of lucrative.

Well the thing is, Deftones, they’re like family to me. We’ve been together for so long and they live relatively nearby. I mean, Chino (Moreno, vocals) can drive here if he wants to. That’s who I was working with primarily after we left Henson. So it was really comfortable. You know, it was just like we were making a record in our garage, which is kind of what we were doing.

The last time you had worked with them was the shelved “Eros” project in 2007 or 2008.

Right.

With Deftones drummer, Abe Cunningham (photo: Frank Delgado)

What was it like recording with them in 2019-20 compared to then?

Well… I think the main difference is that they’d been around the block enough. They’d worked with other people. We came back, everything was kind of comfortable. They knew what they were going to get. There wasn’t the head-butting like in the early records. There’s always tension, of course. But “White Pony” was really tense because there was other stuff going on, auxiliary stuff with that record. Everybody was pretty sane, pretty sober. It’s been a while since they’d made a record, so they weren’t burnt out there. You know, it was a fun process. And we all stayed together at a hotel in LA. So we were doing the music part of it at Henson. We’d always get up in the morning, go have breakfast. You know, it was just fun. And then when we came up and worked up here they would come up. We had everybody up here for part of the time just for moral support. But mainly it was just Chino and me or Sergio (Vega, bass) would come out from New York. Frank (Delgado, keyboards) would come up, you know, but it was pretty laid back.

Deftones’ “White Pony” most certainly needs no introduction. It’s considered the intersection of their metal roots and their love of experimentation and texture.

“White Pony” is almost finally old enough to buy beer. There’s been a lot of media attention around it turning twenty this year. Do you have any thoughts on what made that album so significant?

I just think a lot of it was just… they were at a peak for them and there was… you know, that was their third record. Third records, especially during those days, were always my favorite. Second and third, but mainly the third. The first one was… all the bands have been playing the songs live a bunch, but they didn’t really know the studio that well. The second record, with relative success on the first record, they were a little bit better. Then the third record… they had the experience, they had the money, but they also had the tensions of family, extra-curricular business stuff was kicking in more, you know. There was all kinds of pressures being put on them, so everyone was more stressed out. And I think that stress, as long as it was focused toward making the record…

…it’s like harnessing nuclear power.

Yeah. I think that that was really the secret sauce there.

Do you think “Ohms” will be your new favorite Deftones record?

Well, you know this from doing this for so long, after hearing a record so many times in a row, it takes me ten years to actually like a record again. I have to get so far away from it to appreciate it. I’m just now starting to like Pantera records! And that’s overdramatizing, of course. But the immediacy of the dirty laundry is so apparent when something is new like that. So I can’t judge anything right now. White Pony is still my favorite just because of “Digital Bath” and because I reference myself to those drums at the beginning of that song, that drum sound. I think that was my favorite drum sound that I got with the exception of the two hits at the beginning of “Around The Fur” album. Yeah. My favorite entrance to any record I’ve ever done was that right there – just like, “Here we go.”

You know, Abe (Cunningham) is a heavily underappreciated drummer, massively underappreciated.

Abe is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated drummers. I mean, that guy’s feel… and I know this from sitting through rehearsals with him… just his personality, everything he’s like… my favorite drummer. He’s just what a drummer is supposed to be, I think.

It seems like with every new Deftones record, Stephen’s (Carpenter) back with a new guitar. This one’s got seventeen strings, all strung with telephone pole cable and it goes to 40hz. No problem though, right?

(Laughs) Well, you know, somebody sent me a thing the other day and it said, “Next record, Stephen’s going to be playing a harp.”

But this means he’s ostensibly playing the bass. So how does Sergio work within that? How do you rectify a guitar that’s quite literally where the bass is supposed to be?

Yeah, my assistant engineer on this, Andy Park, we were talking about this. The hardest thing to do on this record was managing the low end. Where do you go? And Sergio plays, you know, because of Stephen’s extreme low end, he’ll creep toward the mid-range a lot more – which creates some problems with “who’s going to take the spotlight here? Who’s going to stick out? Where does everybody fit in? This was the first time I’ve worked with Sergio – I’ve known him a long time but it’s the first time I’ve made a record with him. So it was different than with Chi (Cheng, R.I.P.) because he’d play with his fingers. He’d sit down below everybody basically. He would just “do what he does”. With Sergio… Sergio’s a much more active bass player.

He definitely walks a lot more…

…right and he likes to have a lot of interesting sounds. So it was one of those things that was, you know, we definitely had to think through it a little bit.

The one thing with Deftones is it takes me a long time to like the new record. I still don’t get into “Gore”. I might soon.

That’s the previous one?

Right.

I’ve heard them probably in interviews say that wasn’t their favorite to make either. I think there were some issues going on there. I don’t know. You know, I didn’t listen to a lot of the other records that they did just… ten records, there’s a lot of material to listen to and they do a pretty good job of not repeating themselves. And that’s what’s really impressive. Chino’s always been really sensitive that he never wants to do the same thing twice. And it’s so hard. The longer you do it, the more records you make, it’s so hard to not fall into patterns and tendencies.

Well, I can’t believe that in twenty days or whatever I’m going to have a vinyl copy of the new one here. The first single fits like a comfy old pair of shoes…

There’s a lot of good songs on there. You know, this to me (“Ohms“) wasn’t… this wasn’t a first single to me at all. I mean, it’s a good song.

“Ohms” is Deftones’ first release with Terry Date since their 2004 self-titled LP.

The first chords were major intervals! That kinda threw me.

I think it was the first song that Stephen brought in. I don’t know who decided that. I don’t even know if it’s a single, I just know it’s the first video, the first song they wanted to release. But there’s some really good songs on it. I’d love to hear your thinking after you get to have a few good, honest listens with the record.

So they did their previous three albums with Nick Raskulinecz and Matt Hyde. Did you take any of your production cues from those records or was it more of a tendency to continue building off of the work from “Deftones (s/t)”?

Well, first of all, Nick is a good friend of mine. And I love what Nick does. You know, I love everything he does. I didn’t want to go back and listen to stuff they did with other people because the reason we were working together again was to hopefully capture some of the early records’ vibe… the “magic”. And even if we weren’t doing that… if I was working with a band for the first time, I’d try not to listen to old stuff too much because I don’t want to be influenced by where they’ve come from. I would much rather just forge our own path and just see where the record takes us. I don’t want to try to guide it or direct it artificially, I guess. I just wanted to sort of follow its own path and see where it goes.

So I don’t know, if I’m mixing a record for somebody, I’ll listen to their previous records just to kind of get a vibe of where they are. If I’ve never worked with them before, I’ll listen a little bit there. But I don’t like to… I guess I’m insecure?

(Laughs) You’re such an artist…

Right, everything sounds good to me. I do my stuff and I go, “That’s not as good. Oh my god, I’m going to jump off a cliff.” So now I… I tend to just, you know, go my own way.

Your body of work still is a major influence on metal today. Not just how it’s mixed, but how it’s played. Did you ever think at the time you were creating the template for heavy music twenty or thirty years down the road?

Well, the short answer is “no”. We, you know, especially in the early Pantera days, we were listening to stuff trying to fit in to what was around us. I remember I can’t remember if it was Vulgar (“Vulgar Display Of Power”, 1992) or Cowboys (“Cowboys From Hell”, 1990), but around that time is when (Metallica’s) “…And Justice For All” came out with that kick drum that was all click, you know? And I think Anthrax was probably doing it before that.

Cookie Monster at a typewriter. That’s death metal right there.

You’d also have to either credit (or blame) death metal in the late 1980’s for that. Scott Burns created something that could cut around the “Cookie Monster” vocal and drop-A guitars. A lot of engineers just call that ‘the typewriter kick’ now.

Yeah, I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t remember exactly what the bottom line is. We just sort of, we were trying to find sounds that were what we thought were common and popular at the time.

So you’re in this league of extraordinary gentlemen where when you hear a record, you can tell who did it. I can spot a Chris Lord-Alge mix, or a Colin Richardson mix or an Andy Wallace mix. But I don’t say, “That’s a Terry Date mix” that way. How do you go from doing White Zombie to Smashing Pumpkins to Slayer without having a trademark sound? I mean, I know it’ll be up front, all the elements are on the tip of my nose, the vocalist’s literally inside my head. So what’s the secret to keeping them all unique?

Well, this is not an original thought by any means but, you know, my initial thought early on was always to keep myself as invisible as possible, because well… first of all, I’m not a musician. So I’m not going to get in there, I’m not going to give musical advice like, “Play it here instead of here.” I’m going to be listening like a fan. And the other thing I try to do is… I want to see this band, I want this record to sound like the band sounds like on stage. I want it to sound like them live. So by doing that, obviously, I can’t make Smashing Pumpkins sound like, you know, White Zombie, there’s no way.

Smashing Pumpkins probably isn’t the best example. I didn’t really work a ton on the development. I made it about two thirds of the way through.

That was a bit more lunatic fringe. I mean, I could have said “Sir Mix-a-Lot”, but…

Well, you know, Pantera and White Zombie are radically different. I mean when we did the White Zombie record, it was the first record I ever used a sample on. People always used to ask me if I sampled Vinnie (Paul)’s drums with Pantera and those weren’t samples. Those are just extremely EQ’d real drums.

Just really compressed to get that same consistent hit?

You know, to tell you the truth, I don’t think we compressed the drums much. I’m pretty sure… well I’ve got the documentation around here someplace I was looking at the other day… but they hated compression. The guitars were definitely not compressed. I had to sneak the bus compressor on the SSL when I was mixing because they hated the bus compressor.

A not-so-secret ingredient: The SSL 4000 Quad Bus Compressor

Who could hate that compressor?!?

I know, well, they just thought the compression, especially Dimebag (Darrell, R.I.P), you know, the low end on his guitar would get tamed a little bit. So, you know, no samples and I… I’m not 100 percent sure, but I’m 99.9 percent sure drums had no compression either.

So some of the other LP’s and artists… you’ve got the A-listers here but then also some that are a bit more off the radar… the one you did for Dredg or Handsome, for example. Do you have any standouts from your years of doing this that should have been bigger?

The second Prong record that I did, “Rude Awakening” (1996), is one of my personal favorites to listen to. I used to always, when I’d walk into a studio to start a record, I would put on that record to start with. It was done right after the White Zombie record, but it had Tommy’s (Victor) just brutally edgy guitar. His guitar sound was so good, but we also had Charlie Clouser doing loops. So it was a really cool combination, I thought.

Yes, I DO interview by my vinyl collection. Always comes in handy for visual aids.

This one (pulling out my vinyl copy of Prong’s “Beg To Differ”) to me is always their one to beat.

Ahh, yeah. That was Mark Dodson.

Mark Dodson and a whole lot of gated reverb.

I did a Metal Church record with Mark Dodson. So I’ve worked with him before. As a matter of fact (motions to a rack) see those (Neve) 1081’s right there?

I most certainly do.

Those are his. It was around the time I was doing that Prong record. Actually, I was in L.A. and I was looking to buy some and somebody got a hold of me and said, “Hey, there’s a couple of 1081’s for sale in town for $1000 a piece.” And I said, “Well, I better listen to him!” At that time they were probably going for two grand or fifteen hundred maybe, they were still pretty cheap.

So the 1081 is your go-to?

Well, the 1081 was what was available to me. It has a little bit more, it’s got more frequencies on the high end than the 1073. (laughs) I think they probably sound just exactly the same, you know, very close to each other. I’m not the audio snob where I put two identical modules next to each other and I’ll just turn my nose up at one of them when the other one is beautiful, you know? A 1073 or a 1081? I would be totally happy to record anything through either one of those.

So when do you think was the last time you actually cracked open a reel of 2” tape?

Wow, it’s been… it’s been a minute… It’s probably been ten years. You know, it might have been… the last time I used tape for real was probably that Smashing Pumpkins record. There was a minute when the transition was coming, when you’d go into a studio and you’d pay extra for ProTools. Tape came with the studio, but you had to rent ProTools – and during that transition was where Pro Tools became free and you had to rent the tape deck.

Oh, it was lucrative for me in the late 90’s. I was a for-hire ProTools guy. I had three (Apogee) AD-8000’s and a ProTools Mix Cube in a case. One call and I’d be anywhere. I never even had a business card, I just got one call one day and then got really busy, really fast. I was “that guy”. If you ever want the exact measure of fifteen seconds, it’s the time from the artist leaving the studio and the engineer turning to me, saying “that crap’s never going to stick around.”

Yeah, I know. I have definitely heard that. “Yeah, it’s all gimmicky”, and yeah, we saw where it landed. But you’re right. That was the transition. I remember when we were doing that Smashing Pumpkins record – just finding a studio that had a Neve and a tape deck and an engineer who knew how to align the machine. Nobody knew how to run it any more. So I had to, like, kind of dust the cobwebs off my brain and try to remember how to set up the machine and show him how to do it…

…where’s that alignment tones tape?

(laughs) …and then to sync two or three machines together, you know, with timecode? That was was like Bizzaroland for everybody.

Around that time when ProTools first came out, I did a similar thing when I’d walk into a studio and they were charging me huge amounts of money to rent a ProTools rig, I just went out and I bought one. It was actually when we were doing “Around The Fur”. I had my assistant, a guy named Ulrich Wild who has gone on to do pretty good stuff himself. I said, “Okay, Ulrich, your job for the next two weeks is to figure out how to fucking run this thing because I’m not going to. I’m too old for that shit.” So he learned how to run it and then I took the thing and I would rent it back to my projects for like half of what… I mean, they wanted ProTools. We’d go into a studio and instead of renting the studio’s, we’d rent mine for half of the cost. And I’d make money. The band would make money and it worked out pretty good. Then, of course, the transition became complete. And I’m not going to roll around with a two-inch tape deck anymore.

And the huge studios wonder why they’re dropping one-per-day. There’s been so many great studios here in New York, but you turn around one day and they’re gone. There’s one over Jersey (IIWII Sound) that acquired one of the ten Focusrite consoles that Rupert Neve designed.

I did a record working with Tony Visconti years ago. We worked at Electric Lady “A” right when they put that Focusrite console in.

It’s a beautiful piece of engineering… when it’s running.

Yeah. Just don’t touch it because you’ll burn the shit out of yourself.

At Chicago Trax they had the unofficial follow-up to that, the AMEK 9098. It was their Mix Magazine “cover shot” room. I don’t think it lasted eighteen months. Their tech basically moved in. But I still do see that analog fetishization – bands who say, “I just want tape.” I mean, that’s cool and all but I think we’ve forgotten the problems. Do you need a drum edit? Let me go find a razor blade!

The advantage of tape to me was always, well only a small part of it was the ‘sound’. The biggest part was the fact that the band had to perform. You know, there was no fixing things. So it was more like a real performance. There was the fear of failure.

The photo that Terry wishes would go away.

That’s a bit cruel!

Well, I mean, it’s just like, “I’ve got to do this.” You know, be on point. It’s got to be like going on stage.

Don’t fuck up!

And now with ProTools, you know, there are guys who don’t know anything but ProTools. They know they can play 50 percent or less and if they get one little piece of it right, it can be copied and pasted. So there’s none of that, like there isn’t that fear going into making a record anymore or “butterflies” or whatever you want to call it.

But can’t that be a good thing? You know, musicians are a tender folk and the fear of failure is just the sort of thing that can keep them out of their element. But to be able to go in saying, “Listen, just do your best, we’ll be proud of you and we’ll fix your screw-ups.” But I can’t remember the last time that I quantized live drums. If it was off, well, I’ve got eight other performances I can tab through. Let’s pick a verse, let’s pick a chorus, now let’s see how the verse feels going into the chorus. You know, the “Russian Dragon”, that’s rock and roll, isn’t it?

You got to push it, right. But the comment you just said, “You just do what you do and we’ll fix your fuck-ups”? The mistakes were my favorite part of those early records! I did an Overkill record and I remember one time where I fucked up punching in the bass player and instead of it going “Wyoo!” (a bass guitar slide), it went “Wyoo, wyoo!”. And it was like the coolest part of the whole song, you know? It was! So anyway, those happy mistakes, you can get them with ProTools, too. You just have to be disciplined enough. You just have to be disciplined enough to know what’s good.

I’m having a harder time listening to bands these days and knowing they’ve “Beat Detectived” the life out of a perfectly good performance. Like Chino (vocalist, Deftones), his vocals are often at their best when they’re just the slightest bit out of tune. I don’t know if they’d be as compelling if they were dead accurate.

I don’t use AutoTune. I mean, I have in the past, but partially I just don’t like using it. If I was doing a fucking Ford commercial, I would probably use it, you know? But for what I’m doing, I want the warts. You know, I like all the scars.

Yeah. I mean, this is rock and roll. At the end of the day, we’re not making, you know, EDM or K-Pop where the perfection is really ‘the sound’. I don’t see you making that late career pivot, either.

I wouldn’t know where to start.

So in your opinion, what’s a trend in production or engineering that really needs to end?

AutoTune: Good for Ford commercials, not for Deftones.

I mean, the AutoTune thing has always been my, you know… fixing mistakes. Over-correcting the song is… the problem with me is making things sound too good. You know – of fixing, making something sound good because you can. I think that’s the thing that I kind of run away from the most. I want to always want to make it sound like I’m attempting to make it sound good, but I never quite get there. That’s the goal for me.

So if you had to record stranded on a deserted island…

I mean, if I was stuck, if I had to make a record with one microphone, it would be a 58. And it would be run through two 1176’s. And it would probably go straight to two-track tape. Okay, and just because I’m on an island. I don’t have that. I got to keep my gear limited in a small boat that wrecked and I got deserted on.

But do you have anything like, if you were on a three month studio lockout, how many racks of gear with your name stenciled on the side are in the loading dock?

Well, I record drums through Neves. You know, I want to have Neve. I want to have API’s. (motions to four “O.G.” 312 preamps) I always want those available to me. And those there, those are the original ones from Studio X which sound way better than the reissues. I still use the reissues a lot because sometimes I just want more. So anyway, some Neve modules, some API modules, an 1176 – I use those a lot for vocals. But that’s kind of my “comfort zone” compressor.

That and the SSL bus comp. Do you have a racked version of that?

No, I thought about getting a 500 series version of that not too long ago. But I have the Alan Smart C2 to do the same thing, just because I’m so used to seeing that. That quad bus, you know, I don’t even probably know what the knobs do anymore. I just know how I set them always, you know, and so it’d be nice to have that. But to tell you the truth, I don’t know if the five hundred series sounds the same anyway.

You’ve influenced my generation of engineers and producers. Now we’re finding ourselves passing OUR torch a bit. What’s an insight you want to pass on – something they’ve missed?

One thing I find with younger guys coming up is they basically only know the computer. They don’t listen, you know, they’re so concentrated on just being fast that they’re not sitting back and just listening to what the problem is. I sound like a really old man: “You need to listen more!” That’s the biggest thing, though, is they’re so fast on the computer. There’s so good with being in the box – and being in the world of the box that they forget about what’s around them. They forget that somebody is telling you something, you know? Take the time to listen to what they’re actually saying. You know, don’t just assume that you can fix it over here in the box easily.

I use controllers, but I’ve got everything mapped so I can set EQ’s and compressors with my screen off and just listen. It may not be mathematically right, but sonically…

…that was the biggest problem I had making the transition to using a plug-in from using something real. You know this is so psychological, I’m sure, but I bet there’s something to it. You know, I definitely hear the EQ change differently when I’m turning it with my hand, when I’m actually turning a knob, than when I’m moving the mouse and looking at a screen. It’s just that I hear things different that way. I’ll use plug-ins. They’re really handy to have and you can you know, you can get one and they can go across your whole mix and all that instead of having to buy, you know, a bunch of individual units. But nothing beats the real thing.

I’m not so old that I don’t remember working on an old 4000E. Still with the 8” floppy drive, thank you very much. So we had what, 32 channels of the black 242 EQ, the 611 dynamics – mixing with the same line amp, EQ and compressor on every channel. Now you see sessions that have a Pultec here, a Neve there, it tends to take away a sort of “gel”. It makes the tracks seem unrelated to me.

I am much more comfortable when I can EQ and process everything right on the board and everything kind of goes to the bus there. Using plug-ins, I have to be really careful to do them so that I’m comfortable with it. So “the glue” that you’re talking about is very valid. It’s hard to glue things together when you’re mixing things up like that.

Someone says, “I need a compressor plug-in” and boom, here’s ninety-seven different compressors. It’s cool until it isn’t.

You know, I’m more of a digital guy than I was ten years ago. But there’s a reason why I bought a Neve – because I want that… I want to hear audio through electricity. I started out making vinyl, making, you know, going on tape to vinyl. And so the transition… I mean, there weren’t even DATs back then. So the transition through the years of going from that beautiful analog to vinyl combination to now with all the different layers and finally ProTools or wherever else it’s going to go. You know, I was not leading the charge for new technology, let me put it that way. I liked tape. I liked vinyl. When you finished a record, it was never really done until you got the test pressing back and you could actually hear it. And then it sounded like a record.

Fred Durst “did it all for the nookie”. What did you do it for?

Well, I did it… early on, because my friends were all musicians and I didn’t want to feel like a dork hanging around watching them play, I had to find some way to contribute. I’m the one in the room… everyone’s playing something and I’m sitting there going, “Wow, that’s really cool. I wish I could do that.”

Usually that makes you a roadie.

That’s true, I kind of started that way, too.

You built your career in heavy music all the way to Slayer. It simply doesn’t get “more metal” than that. There have been heavier bands since, but there’s none more metal.

You know what’s funny is that until I started working on that record with those guys, I’d never met them in 30 years. You know, I’d been backstage when Pantera was playing with them. Phil would take me… there was a road case on the side of the stage that said
“Phil’s Throne”. So when Slayer was playing, he’d go sit there and he’d make me come out with him and sit there next to him. He goes (adopts a perfect Phil Anselmo impersonation), “You know? These guys are my Led Zeppelin.” But I never met the guys in all those years, you know, until we met and we did that record. And now whenever I see Kerry (King, guitar) whenever we’re close, we go find someplace to eat. We talk fairly regularly still.

Terry Date and Tom Araya. (photo: Blabbermouth)

When I read that you were cutting an album with Slayer, my first thought was like many Slayer fans… there’s no Jeff, there’s no Dave…

I got a lot of people that were concerned about that, you know, not having the original band. But, you know, I didn’t really care about that. I wasn’t a huge Slayer fan. I mean, I wasn’t not a fan. I was just listening to a million other bands at that time. And I didn’t know the Slayer guys so I wasn’t, like, locked into, “Oh my god, this is not Slayer because (Dave) Lombardo wasn’t there or (Jeff) Hannemann (R.I.P.) isn’t there or whatever.” But, you know, it was just fun. Those those guys were just great guys to be with.

You know, Slayer fans can and do tend to border on the somewhat, you know… you got to be a little bit cautious.

I mean, between Tom and Kerry, I laughed really hard through that record. Tom can keep me on the floor all day long if he wants to. So we had a good time.

Do you think they’re going to squeeze one more record?

You know, I don’t know what they’re going to do. I do know that we do have, you know, we’ve got other songs recorded.

I know you’ve done a lot of vocals where it’s just like, “Here, Phil. Here’s a floor monitor and a (Shure) SM58. We don’t need to get the Sony 800 out for this – it’s just going to get distorted anyway.”

Yeah, well actually for that vocal (Phil), he just stood behind the board. You know, I just had the NS10’s. Buckcherry. I did that for a lot of people. Rob Zombie was a 58 and a floor monitor out in the studio, but it was it was like, live volume off those things. I mean, it was so loud when I went out to talk to him and the music was going, I had to get into his ear, you know, that’s how loud it was. But yeah, Buckcherry, the record I did with them, he used the big speakers in the control room. Phil, a lot of the time was standing right behind me with a fifty eight. Chino did a lot of his vocals… well, Chino would actually tend to go be a little bit more hidden. He didn’t want people to see him when he was singing so much, but he has done some in the control room.

So if I’m looking to recreate the infamous SM58-into-the-trash-can-full-of-barbeque-sauce trick, like at the end of “Fucking Hostile”? What kind of barbeque sauce should I use?

Well, let’s see. That barbecue sauce probably came from some shitty barbecue fast food place in Arlington, Texas. It’s my guess, but yeah, I think, I think you’d have to have for me, it would have to be the Spicy Carolina sauce. So you know, we’re in Texas, so spicy with some fried pickles in there.

The hardware version > The plug-in. Coming soon?

Do you see that maybe being a plug-in any time soon? The Hostile BBQ emulator?

You know, that story’s been around. But did I ever say anywhere what that distortion source was for that vocal?

The world awaits your answer.

I’m pretty sure I’ve said it before, but short-story-long here: Nine Inch Nails had come out with their, I think, you know, big first big record, I assume was their first record, the one about “fuck you like an animal”?

“The Downward Spiral”

Right, okay. So basically that distorted vocal sound was popular at the time and that intrigued Pantera guys a lot. So when we were doing Phil’s vocal, we wanted to get a distorted sound like that. And I was running through… Of course we had this little studio that didn’t really have a lot of interesting stuff.

This is still at Jerry Abbott’s studio?

Yeah, the studio where we did those first two Pantera records had like the regular 70’s and early 80’s stuff in there, but nothing for distortion like that. We tried whatever we could but couldn’t get it to go. So finally Dime goes, “Oh, I know how to do that. Give me a minute.” He runs back to his house. You know, he’s got this little closet set up with, you know, garbage sacks worth of foot pedals and all this shit. So he brings this, I think it was a Casio four-track cassette. And we plug the microphone into the preamp on that thing and just turned it up – and that was the distortion on that vocal.

Problem is, that was like an MCI tape deck and I think an MCI 500 console. The tape deck was so old I’d have to clean the heads after every time I stopped tape because the tape was just shedding. I mean, those old masters are probably clear right now. You can probably see through the tape.

You could sell vials of the oxide on eBay.

Yeah, I know. That’s what I was thinking about. But you know what? My favorite “ending statement” was Hunter Thompson, when he died. They put his ashes in fireworks and shot them, shot fireworks up into the sky and blew them up. That was great to me. So when I kick the bucket? Burn me up, mix me up with some oxide and make a fucking reel of tape out of me. You know, that’d be fucking awesome.

But are we going to record TO or play BACK from it?

Well, that’s the question.

KUSH AUDIO SILIKA: THE RACE TO THE BONHAM

By

B. Church

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Kush SILIKA Rundown:

4.5 / 5 Reviewer

BUY / SUBSCRIBE

Pros

- Modern take on a much-overlooked analog design.
- A virtual “PB&J” of germanium and zener diode sonics.
- Stunningly rich and nuanced, analog-esque sound.
- Great for “just a little” or “a whole damn lot”.

Cons

- Three-way VU is a little hard to decipher for critical metering.
- Easy to over-use in the wrong hands.
- Stereo field gets smeared when pushed too hard.
- Slightly higher learning curve than other plug-ins.

Summary

It takes something special to earn a place in my plug-ins folder, but Kush Audio Silika has found a seat. Rather than recreating the old, Silika crafts something vintage-inspired, but completely new and useful.

Rating

We are decades-deep into the plug-in gold rush. By now we have more compressors, saturators, eq’s, expanders, modulators, delays, bitcrushers, synthesizers, samplers, virtual toy pianos and rhythmic oblongiscopic downglitch pixellators than anyone could possibly ever need. But they keep washing ashore here at our humble doublewide / global headquarters, so we keep reviewing ‘em.

On that note, it seems that about 90% of the vintage compressor plug-ins are based on either VCA-based or optical designs. But the 20th Century’s advent of recording technology has many overlooked examples of Edisonian experimentation: Esoteric, almost mythical pieces of rarely seen kit that are as hard to find as they are to afford. Check out Sylvia Massey’s control room – it’s a virtual freak show of pro audio’s oddities.

A notable example of this bygone era is the diode bridge compressor. Originally conceived as a way to make mid-century radio transmissions more intelligible, the Neve 2254 and the Neumann u73 found fans in the recording studio for its unique, wooly character. Comparatively noisy compared to the later VCA and vactrol-based designs, diode bridge designs have stayed largely off the main stage.

The Neumann u73. Not an easy (or inexpensive) find.

Another curio from your great-grandfather’s time in the war is the germanium transistor. Germanium is a curious one as it’s design intent was to amplify, but it softened and compressed louder signals as an unintended artifact. In other words, germanium’s bug is now a feature. Keep it civil and it’ll give you soft edges like a vintage sepia-toned photograph. But push the input 6db harder and you’ll get an increasingly girthy splat of your signal’s former self. Yes, tubes and diodes do that, too. But not quite like this.

WELCOME TO SILIKAN VALLEY

Kush Audio are a company that I trust more than just about anyone to modernize an old design. Why? Well, for one, they’re not just code crushers – they build actual hardware. Excellent hardware, in fact. For another, Kush keeps their sense of humor and adventure intact with their plug-ins. It’s not as clinical and by-the-numbers with this company when you put their stuff to work. Everything from their GUI to the gear itself has a way of reminding you, “Hey, idiot, we are supposed to be having fun right now. Stop agonizing over the milliseconds of your attack time and just listen.” (There’s another kind of kush that can help with that, too.)

Actual Kush hardware: The Clariphonic MS Equalizer.

In the spirit of that, our friends over there at Cannabis References, Inc. have just unleashed “Silika” on the world. ($99 USD*, PC (32/64bit), Mac (64bit only), VST/AAX/AU). Silika combines both the features and limitations of the diode and germanium circuits mentioned above – milling both their beauty and their beast into a whole new kind of cool. If a GML compressor is the trained young teacup poodle who sits on command, Silika is the mangy dog you found by the dumpster who smells like trash, but licks your face and really seems to like you.

(* You can either purchase a single in perpetuity license of Silika for $99, or get an annual license to the entire House of Kush bundle for the same price)

P-P-P-PUSH IT REAL GOOD

Silika’s interface bears the expected controls you’d find in any compressturator plug-in, letting you control input and output levels, threshold, ratio, attack, release, and so on. A single VU meter simultaneously displays the incoming and outgoing levels and the amount of gain reduction. On that, putting three needles into one VU is great for economy of space – but was definitely a little hard on my aging Gen X-eyeballs and short attention span.

But you’re also presented, if not confronted, with a few curious choices, such as zener and germanium (“zener” being the aforementioned diode bridge) on the input, a blend between saturated and compressed and a curious “FURY” button right below the metering that clearly wants you to push it. These take a bit of experimentation to find that storied “sweet spot” from source to source – so save your presets.

Additionally, you’re provided with an internal sidechain high-pass filter that will keep things like bass drums and other LFE-rich material from breaching the compressor’s threshold, or you can externally trigger from the source material of your choosing. This should be on every compressor plugin whether it was modeled on one without it or not. Once you’re without it, you miss it. Fast.

One thing that quickly becomes apparent in use is that, like an LA-2A or 1176, the real way to make Silika get busy is pushing the input gain and leaving the threshold and ratio alone. Need more squash? Hit it harder. Not quite there yet? Crank the input another turn. Don’t worry, we’re in a 64-bit world now, there’s headroom – just watch your output gain.

It’s the combination of the germanium transistor input stage and the diode bridge compression circuit that make Silika such a unique beast. Each of those features easily command a plug-in of their own. But having both at once with the ability to blend between the two is what makes Silika such a compelling option.

STORMING THE CASTLE

Once you hear what Silika brings to the table, every “flat”-sounding source will likely be getting a taste. We’ve all agonized over drum mixes or vocals that, due to operator negligence, inattention or inexperience, just felt somehow anemic. Sure, you can hear what’s happening, but there’s no excitement, nothing compelling to draw somebody in. That’s where Silika’s magic beans start growing. Lifeless drum overheads or room mics now possess a Bonham-esque bombast with a beefy-supreme low-end and delightfully crunchy top. Anorexic basses are strapped to a chair and force fed a double cheeseburger. Lifeless vocals are brought back from the dead with breathy presence and immediacy, letting you place the point-of-source in the listener’s ear canal if you want. It’s like giving your dog his testicles back after all these years.

As with most things in life however, there’s a fine line between doing and overdoing to be cognizant of here. The initial excitement of hearing a scrawny, inert performance grow fangs and howl at the moon can make even the most seasoned of engineers a little bit giddy with new-found power. “Season to taste” often means a dash or sprinkle, not screwing the top off of the pepper shaker. Pushed too hard, too much or too often can quickly take things from full to fatiguing. But if what you’re after is “compression as an effect”, by all means, thwack that “FURY” button (if you haven’t already) and Silika will kick out the jams accordingly. Anything’s fair game: loops, basses, congas… this plug-in’s an equal opportunity smackulator.

Surgeon General’s warnings aside, Silika can play nice… or not-so-nice. Drum busses and overheads gobble up Silika’s meaty sonics hungrily, but so do basses and low synths that need to reclaim their rightful place in the lower registers. If the track (or tracks) feel dimensionless, running Silika either full-on or as a parallel effect can really add the electricity that’s gone missing. As a master bus compressor, I’m a bit more hesitant to unleash its wrath – it seemed to smear the stereo image a touch. If you’re still inclined to try, use Silika’s blend knob as a parallel effect and work your way up. Done tastefully, Silika could be just the thing that turns “ho-hum” to “hell yeah”.

Like all good studio tools should be – Silika is whatever you want it to be. There’s no “right way” to use something like this properly – and even after tooling around several different sessions and genres, I kept finding new ways to bring its magic and its mojo into the fold. Yes, I said “mojo”. Sue me.

BRING THAT BEAT BACK

Some old drums have now found work as demo material.

I pulled in a few pieces of an old multitrack, recorded through Downtown Recording‘s pristine Neve Melbourne side-console. And while these files were eventually given the usual time correction, sample replacing and processing for the client, I just threw in the kick, snare, overheads and mono room, set a couple of quick levels and strapped Silika across the master bus for a quick test drive.

Everything Recording · Silika DrumMixDry

While the original recording was well-represented, a thoroughly unprocessed mix doesn’t cut through the way the meticulously mixed and mastered results do. Dialing in just a bit of Silika’s germanium input and a few db of overall reduction from the compressor brought out the kit’s presence and a new layer of depth to the decay of each hit. You got more of a sense that what was happening was right in front of you.

Everything Recording · Silika DrumMixFirst

Pushed a bit more liberally (and unable to resist that ‘Fury’ button), the drums became an untamed animal. A crunchy, analog smack elicited the 2″ 16-track days of long ago. Even the kit’s 20″ kick drum and 13″ snare, a far, far cry from John Bonham’s circus-sized monster Ludwigs, took on an indelible weight. They felt big. Heavy. Meaty. And definitely would propel a full band’s mix with their energy.

Everything Recording · Silika DrumMixHardcore

A tale of three mixes. Green is dry. Yellow is just a taste. Red is… well, red.

YOU CAN’T SPELL “ANALOG” WITHOUT “A – N – A – L”.

Whenever we evaluate a “classic” modeled piece of hardware or software, a big piece of the puzzle is how faithfully it’s able to recreate the sonics, the quirks and the eccentricities of the hardware that inspired it. Some do it far better than others, and for some reason the VCA-based designs seem to categorically get the closest. But at the same time, we also have take into consideration how it sounds in and of itself, regardless of the image on the interface. I can think of one particular API 2500 clone that, while being a swing and a miss in its emulation of this classic compressor, is still eminently useful.

To that end, Silika’s not particularly modeled on any one piece of hardware, but on a stew pot full of different designs. I hear shades of the Neve 33609, the ADR Compex F760 and EMI’s hallowed TG12413 mastering limiter, but it’s clear that Kush Audio is taking their inspiration to create their own thing. So while yes, you can evaluate a plug-in like this in many ways, a key metric is how much it replicates the “analogism”. To that end, Silika nails the silky highs, the presence in the high mids and booming rounded lows… it’s all right there.

At the risk of being pedantic, it really is just “the it factor” with something like Silika. If you close your eyes and just listen, do you get the sense that there’s a vintage powder-coated box adding hundreds to your electric bill? Does it impart that elusive warmth that we all try to avoid calling “warmth”? I found Silika extremely up to the chore – creating an intoxicating layer of analog shimmer and weight at responsible levels. Pushed to its limits and beyond, it continued to mimic its hardware brethren quite well – pushing the source material to snarl, heave and grunt its way to greatness.

SUPER SMASH BROTHERS

You’ll find a few other plug-ins that are adept for similar use. Tone Empire’s “Goliath” comes to mind, though its particular “hook” is emulating different types of output transformer core materials.

It may not look like much, but the Shure Level-Loc does unspeakably cool things. Ask Butch Vig.

Sound Toys’ “Devil Loc” (a faithful reimagining of the Shure Level-Loc that found a new army of fans in the 1990’s) can also be deployed against shrug-inducing source material with enticing results.

Waves’ V-Comp and Lindell Audio’s 254E are modeled directly after the Neve 2254 and 33609 compressor’s zener diode topology and do so quite well – but lack the germanium-inspired input stage. And yes, even the lesser-known EMI TG12413 has been recreated for life in a digital world.

Kush Audio’s Silika does all of “those things”, but with the right amount of control in combining the saturation and compression. The sound is just as easy to reign in and use in a pleasing, useful way as it is to unleash holy terror on unsuspecting sources. To be honest, simply destroying your signal isn’t that difficult. Slapping it around until it sits just right needs bit more refinement – and Silika has that refinement in spades. Used a little or a lot, on one source or several, it teases the track’s excitement and energy out of hiding. With just a little bit of patience, Silika can help you saturate, clip and compress in a glorious, lush way.

There are hundreds of compression/saturation plug-ins out there. You have your vintage-modeled ones, you have your “never seen this before” ones – and somewhere in the middle you have the rare gem that bridges both. On the one hand, Kush Audio Silika’s sound may be inspired by a relic circuit from a bygone era, sure. But the way it’s been reinvented for today with a modern feature set gives you a whole new palette of sonic awesomeness to play with.

For more information and to purchase, visit https://thehouseofkush.com/products/silika

First Look: iZotope RX 8 Suite

By

Bryan

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Today, iZotope has released version 8 of its industry-desperately-needed audio correction suite. We were sent over a copy of RX 8 to do a first look at your next set of audio repair tools. Let’s get to it!

What is RX?

For those unfamiliar, RX is a set of tools created with one purpose in mind, fixing the unfixable in audio. All too often, perfect takes have been ruined by microphone bleed, hum, clipping, crackling, and your angry screaming upstairs neighbor yelling obscenities during your 100th vocal take of that song that’s “finally going to put you on the map.” Now, more than ever, tools to fix problematic audio are a must. Podcasting has exploded into a behemoth, and with recent times, the recording spaces have become less than ideal. Version 8 comes with just about any fix for any problem you can throw at it.

Versions

Like every iZotope Suite, versions abound!

Elements

This is your entry-level version. With Elements, you get (Improved) De-hum, De-click, De-clip, Repair Assistant, and Voice De-noise. Additionally, you’ll get third-party plugin hosting, along with essential features like normalizing, fade, gain, module chains, and mixing.

Standard

If you need a few more features, Standard has more than a few. On top of all of the goods in Elements, you get a Batch Processor, Guitar De-noise, Music Rebalance, Loudness Control, Composite View, Breath Control, De-bleed, De-crackle, De-reverb, De-plosive, De-ess, Interpolate, Mouth De-click, Spectral De-noise, Spectral Repair, RX Connect, and RX Monitor. On top of the standard editing features, you also get Variable Time, Variable Pitch, Dither, EQ, Resample, and Instant Process.

Advanced

Welcome to the kitchen sink. Advanced, of course, has everything listed above plus a few tools that akin to audio witchcraft. Dialog Contour, Dialog De-reverb, De-rustle, Ambience Match, Center Extract, De-wind, and Deconstruct are included along with Spectral Recovery and Wow and Flutter. Lastly, Advanced adds Azimuth, EQ Match, Leveler, and Surround Support.

What’s New

To try to make things a little easier to follow, we will break down what is new for each version (Elements, Standard, and Advanced).

Improved De-hum (All Versions)

The De-hum module got a massive overhaul to fix the fact that you refused to track without that portable AC unit this summer. You’re such a diva. The module features up to sixteen harmonic reduction bands to hone in on that sixty-cycle hum. You also have an Adaptive Mode that can further dial in and automate the hum detection. Added high and low-pass filters help clean up audio in a snap, and a click-and-drag interface help for smoother control.

Horizontal Scrolling (All Versions)

Your cries, yelp reviews, and letters to iZotope have been heard! Now you can use your mouse, trackpad, or touchpad for horizontal navigation through the spectral window. This gives you DAW-like control and the ability to zoom in tighter and scroll through audio.

Improved Module Chain (All Versions)

We all have that podcaster who, despite being told, still refuses to use a pop filter and nervously rustles paper. Instead of having to perform each function one at a time, you can create a module chain, including multiple instances of the same module in the chain. RX8’s improvement of the Module Chain gives you the ability to process specific frequency areas, adding improved precision to your repairs.

Improved Batch Processor (Standard and Advanced)

Fixing multiple files has never been more straightforward with Batch Processor. Load numerous pieces of audio and apply entire Module Chains to all of them. Once complete, export options are endless. Make as many file formats and versions to as many places as you need. You can even save presets for different batches and import module chains for fast reference.

NEW Guitar De-noise (Standard and Advanced)

No matter how many cans of Finger Ease, there’s always that player who can’t help but loudly squeak every… single… chord change. In the right hands, fret squeak can give authenticity to a guitar track but when done wrong, it is truly one of the worst sounds in the world. I’m pretty sure iZotope agrees because they’re created Guitar De-Noise. The Amp tools can fix the hiss and electrical issues of that vintage Radio Shack amp the guitar player insists was used by Kurt Cobain. Spoiler alert, it’s not.

To further control pick transients, the Pick Tool easily controls the overly dynamic parts. Then there’s the dreaded aforementioned fret noise. The Squeak tool can tame the presence of the strings being pushed just a little too firmly during transitions. Each control has a Sensitivity and Reduction fader to fine-tune control. To help even further, Michael Brauer has created an RX 8 Preset Pack for easy fixing of common problems.

Improved Music Rebalance (Standard and Advanced)

This tool was inspired by Ozone’s Master Rebalance tool. This module goes beyond simply repair use and into creative territory. Isolate individual instruments (including vocals) from other elements in just about any source material. In version eight, we see the algorithm supercharged for even more precise separation, resulting in better-isolated tracks from fully mastered material. Go beyond merely removing a vocal and create a whole new balance of instruments and vocals from tracks.

Improved Loudness Control (Standard and Advanced)

This module has been completely remodeled from floor to ceiling with single-click workflows, perfect for podcasters. You’ll never have to worry about your levels stack up to broadcast standards withe Loudness Control. Presets are already created with loudness standard targets, and feedback is easy to read with built-in numeric and histogram readouts. The GUI can resize as well to fit perfectly into your workflow.

Improved Composite View (Standard and Advanced)

Up from 16 individual tracks, RX 8 now offers editing of up to 32 individual tracks as if they were one. A Composite Tab is now available that applies the same processing to multiple files. This is especially useful when working with sources with several mics. Now, you can pretty much correct spectral issues on entire orchestral recordings from all angles.

NEW Wow and Flutter (Advanced)

We’ve all worn out that Bananarama Cassette to the point where it sounds like something from the Demonic Electronics Subreddit. Let RX 8’s new Wow and Flutter tool take a crack at that troubled audio. This tool has multiple controls for just about any situation fro,m aged tape to warped vinyl.

Improved Dialogue Isolate (Advanced)

Version 8 adds new functionality for more natural-sounding separation of your vocals and the outside world. Improved Ambience Preservation keeps life in your dialog, even when using noise reduction heavy-handedly. Separate crowd noise, weather, traffic, and footsteps from your spoken word, even when the noise ratio is challenging your dialogue. Your outdoor slam poetry sesh during rush hour is saved!

Spectral Recovery

As much as we love technology, bandwidth is king, and it is killing your podcast interviews and recorded Zoom conferences. Let Spectral Recovery take a stab at that cheap laptop microphone and horrible internet connection with tools that restore those hashed out frequencies above 4 kHz. Remove all of that swishy, whistling, and grating compression artifacts and make your guest sound like they were in the room with you, with more presence and natural clarity.

Thoughts

I’m continually impressed with how iZotope constantly produces tools that, just years ago, were thought to be impossible. The Music Rebalance module is one of the most accessible tools to isolate more than just vocals from music. The Guitar De-noise tool forever has a place in my template, and the Spectral Recovery is downright amazing.

What sets RX 8 from the pack is not just the sheer power of the suite; it’s the ease of use each tool offers. Even if you have no clue how or even what is wrong with your audio, RX 8 does. The Repair Assistant can go through your material, analyze, and offer several options to compare for better decision making. Never before have we been in a time where audio repair is needed more. Podcasters are being forced to work away from treated rooms due to the pandemic and social distancing and we’ve been driven to tears as editors with room noise, traffic, and children screaming in the background (no judgment on that last part).

Whether you are a professional or bedroom content creator, RX 8 has more than enough tools to fix whatever migraine-inducing problem you can throw at it. Don’t let the world get in the way of your art. Get iZotope RX 8.

Pricing:

RX 8 Elements: $99 introductory ($129 regular)
RX 8 Standard: $299 introductory ($399 regular)
RX 8 Advanced: $999 introductory ($1199 regular)
RX Post Production Suite 5: $1499 introductory ($1999 regular)

To purchase, please visit our Affiliate Link HERE

Eventide Releases Newfangled Audio Pendulate Monosynth

By

Bryan

-

For those bored of the same old synth sounds, Newfangled Audio’s Pendulate offers something truly new – and free. Most synthesizers sound similar because they’re based on the same technologies. Pendulate is refreshingly different – a chaotic monosynth that uses a brand-new oscillator technique to create previously unheard sounds – biting basses, searing leads, and gritty textures. Pendulate, distributed by Eventide, is available for immediate download free of charge.

Pendulate is based on the physics of a double pendulum. What initially looks like randomness contains underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization. When designing the Pendulate oscillator, great care was taken to bring out these underlying patterns. The result is an oscillator that can smoothly fade from a sine wave to total chaos, with an expanse of territory to explore in between.
Pendulate’s chaotic oscillator is matched with a wavefolder and low pass gate inspired by the ideas of legendary synthesizer designer Don Buchla. These three modules – oscillator, wavefolder, and gate – combine to make previously inconceivable sounds.

Every parameter in Pendulate’s three modules can be modulated by an included Envelope Generator or LFO, or by MIDI and MPE sources. The innovative modulation interface allows users to easily and quickly patch any combination of sources to any destination, creating sounds that compel the listener to move with them.

Pendulate’s wavefolder is based on a pioneering design from the Buchla 259 Complex Waveform Generator, adding MIX and CUTOFF functions. The low pass gate in Pendulate is based on the Buchla 292’s gate, adding controls for POLES and RESONANCE. Pendulate’s Envelope Generator and LFO each have multiple outputs generated simultaneously, like a modular synth should. Every modulation output can be applied to every control in the monosynth, resulting in up to 221 modulation points, viewed and controlled in an intuitive single pane. The Double Pendulum, Wavefolder, and Low Pass Gate modules each have animations to show how each module responds to input, and to modulation. Along with three unique color schemes to customize the synth’s appearance, 136 Presets provide a launch point for creating experimentation – including artist presets from Matt Lange (Producer, DJ) and Matthew Wang (Composer Film/TV).

Newfangled Audio’s Pendulate requires no iLok. For macOS 10.9+, Pendulate is compatible with AAX 64-bit, AU 64-bit and VST3 64-bit protocols. For Windows 8+, Pendulate is AAX 64-bit and VST3 64-bit compatible.

To download Pendulate for free, visit https://etide.io/pendulate-giveaway.

Audified Releases VocalMint Compressor

By

Bryan

-

Recently, Audified has created a whole suite of compact but powerful tools that get you sounding how you want and back to work. The latest is VocalMint, a one-knob plugin that claims to deliver mix-ready tone quick and easy.

BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC: software applications, software effects, and hardware processors developer Audified is proud to announce availability of VocalMint Compressor — augmenting its (relatively) recently launched plug-in product line of top-tier professional voice tools perfectly packed into an intuitive learning curve-free user interface as a one-knob multi-stage compressor — as of August 24…

Achieving a specific vocal recording-related task with super-fast results without forsaking achieving a professional sound might well once have sounded like a pipe dream. Ask anyone who has ever spent some time pondering over building up a complete compression chain for any vocal track. That dream is now reality, however, thanks to Audified’s VocalMint Compressor, the latest addition to its innovative plug-in product line of top-tier professional voice tools perfectly packaged into an intuitive learning curve-free user interface as a one-knob multi-stage compressor.

Ultimately, users can master VocalMint Compressor in a matter of seconds. Saying that, though, beneath its superficially simple surface lies a powerful tool. Indeed, it not only compresses a track once, but rather runs it through its virtual signal chain to tune multiple parameters of the voice at once — and achieves all that under the hood without disturbing the user’s creative flow state.

Shrewdly, the plug-in itself comprises three different, intelligently-tuned compressors, including a special analogue-like stage based on an exact model of a real valve circuit. Sequenced as Smash, the self-explanatory Valve, and Multi-band, together they combine to provide powerful, hand-picked processing to simultaneously sort out all kinds of problems typically associated with the human voice. The third compression stage subtly delivers EQ shaping attributes — as does the exact valve circuit model. Such shaping has been consciously pre-tuned by Audified at source. Far from overpowering, yet nonetheless helpful when it comes to professionally processing vocal tracks, it does not overshadow the user’s own EQ moves, making the track in question still sound more open as an audible result.

Though this top-tier professional voice tool is perfectly packed into an intuitive learning curve-free user interface, VocalMint Compressor is not entirely a closed book, so to speak, since its plug-in menu can be opened to reveal additional controls such as a zoom option or dBU/dBFS calibration. Acting as an operation point setting for the compressors themselves, the latter influences the amplitude at which compression starts to become more substantial. Set at 0.0 dBFS, the plug-in will apply less compression than when calibrated at -24.0 dBFS, say. Saying that, the factory default setting is actually -9.0 dBFS.

So sometimes less is, indeed, more. Achieving a specific vocal recording-related task with super-fast results without forsaking achieving a professional sound is perfectly possible with Audified’s aptly-named VocalMint Compressor!

Price: $79.00

To purchase, visit our affiliate link HERE.

Watch Audified literally sing VocalMint Compressor’s praises in this informative introductory video: https://youtu.be/6ddMnOJeYCA

A BRIEF WORD

ANALOG ENVY

MEET THE MIXBOX

This is the single most comprehensive mixing plug-in ever offered from anyone, anywhere.

GET AMPED

SWIMMING THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

TIME AND SPACE

GETTING WEIRD WITH IT

UNBOX THE POSSIBILITIES

FIDDLING WITH GUITAR

VOCALS

OBEY YOUR MASTER

A CAREER IN MODELING

THOSE PRECIOUS CYCLES

FUTURE VERSION WISH-LIST

I’M THE MAN IN THE BOX

BOX IT UP

ENTER THE HI-X55

THE ‘X’ FACTOR

THE FUTURE SOUND OF VIENNA

JUST LISTEN…

FLAT VS FLATTERY

PRICE, POWER AND PURPOSE

WELCOME TO 1984… AGAIN…

PUT THOSE NEON JELLY BRACELETS ON

GETTING GOOEY

CALL DOWN THE THUNDER

BEYOND RETRO…. NOW-TRO!

THE BIGGER THE CUSHION…

DEFINING THE DECADE OF EXCESS

BUT WAIT… THERE’S MORE

CZ-ING THE CLASSIC CASIO SOUND.

THESE BELLS ARE TUBULAR, DUDE

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

WHY? WHY NOT?!?

BACK TO THE FUTURE

WELCOME TO SILIKAN VALLEY

P-P-P-PUSH IT REAL GOOD

STORMING THE CASTLE

BRING THAT BEAT BACK

YOU CAN’T SPELL “ANALOG” WITHOUT “A – N – A – L”.

SUPER SMASH BROTHERS

What is RX?

Versions

Elements

Standard

Advanced

What’s New

Improved De-hum (All Versions)

Horizontal Scrolling (All Versions)

Improved Module Chain (All Versions)

Improved Batch Processor (Standard and Advanced)

NEW Guitar De-noise (Standard and Advanced)

Improved Music Rebalance (Standard and Advanced)

Improved Loudness Control (Standard and Advanced)

Improved Composite View (Standard and Advanced)

NEW Wow and Flutter (Advanced)

Improved Dialogue Isolate (Advanced)

Spectral Recovery

Thoughts

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