utilizing early reflections in a production

A quite often underestimated or even forgotten production technique is to take advantage of artificial early reflections which could be added somewhere during the mixing process. Without inserting any fully fledged reverberation at all, applying such techniques allows to dramatically increase stereo width and depth perception as well as a way better instrument localization even in a busy mix. Creating density is not the goal here but the opposite is the name of the game: achieving a clear and intelligible mix.

In a simple case, one can place a short and plain delay (a slap-back echo) on a track and properly place it in the stereo field – maybe on the opposite side of the source but that’s just an example. More sophisticated tap delays could be used to create a sort of room experience and some reverberators are allowing to disable the late reverb diffusion and just to use their early reflection generation. There are no restrictions in general – allowed is what gets the job done in that specific mixing situation.

Thrillseeker XTC – behind the scenes

The basic idea to build a VoS style Enhancer/Exciter was already there way earlier but to that time it simply wasn’t doable until my ‘stateful saturation’ approach emerged. Later on and when I asked “how a modern exciter/enhancer should look like“, several concepts were laid out on the drawing board and I knew that with this exciting (sic!) new approach they all would be accomplishable w/o any compromises. Finally, one of them made it into a prototype which led to ThrillseekerXTC.

Old or modern approach?

So, is the audio Enhancer/Exciter just an ancient relict from the days of dull tape recordings or still a valid concept today? In the digital age, technology and production techniques completely changed and of course the production aesthetics did also. Opposed to the old approaches of audio excitation which mostly were focusing on high frequency loss restoration, the demand shifted towards other tasks as well. Presence and definition in the (upper) mid range is the name of the game and getting the low-end right is the key in a modern production. Instrument separation in a busy mix is a tough challenge, also.

What the heck is Mojo?

In some other cases (mostly digital productions) – definition, presence and transparency is all there but at the cost of a rather thin or sterile sounding production. Even worse, the HF department might be exaggerated too much during the processing chain and taming and sweetening is a challenge then. Some of the artifacts that we’ve found in certain analog devices might add tonal qualities described as thick, fat and round by ‘pleasingly degrading’ a sound source. This is what Mojo is all about. Whether that’s some circuit crosstalk, tape flutter or transformer distortion stuff alike.

working ITB at higher sampling rates

Recently, I’ve moved from 44.1kHz up to 96kHz sampling rate for my current production. I would have loved to do this step earlier but it wasn’t possible with the older DAW generation in my case. With the newer stuff I was easily able to run a 44.1kHz based production with tons of headroom (resource wise – talking about CPU plus memory and disk space) and so I switched to 96kHz SR and still there is some room left.

I know there is a lot of confusion and misinformation floating around about this topic and so this small article is about to give some theoretical insights from a developer perspective as well as some hands-on tips for all those who are considering at what SR actually to work at. The title already suggests working ITB (In The Box) and I’ll exclude SR topics related to recording, AD/DA converters or other external digital devices.

tasty meal preparations with Density mkIII

Since precise routing and stuff like that is not taken down into the cookbook as of now, here are some exciting tips and tricks to experiment with and maybe to obtain a different approach to cook audio with Density mkIII.

Starter

As a starter just use the default preset and dial in huge amounts of compression right with the DRIVE knob. Now mix this back to the dry signal by using the DRY:WET option to obtain a thick sounding result (New York style compression). Since the COLOR option ignores any DRY:WET settings one can dial it in afterwards to thicken the soup even further. Hmm, tasty!

Second course

Set DRY:WET back to a 100% wet signal but also pull RANGE back to the left so that there will be no gain reduction anymore. There is no compression anymore now but one can still use the MAKEUP knob to drive the gain of the non-linear circuits. Use this and experience a hot (driven) meal.

Main course

By finishing the second course, you not only have a sophisticated non-linear amplifier now where you can dial in the coloration with the COLOR knob to taste. You also can use this in M/S mode to adjust the stereo imaging in a quite unique fashion just by adjusting the amounts of saturation per channel right with the MAKEUP knobs. Omph, I’m feelin so wide now!

Dessert

Just dial in again some amounts of compression by turning RANGE clockwise, maybe full to the right but RELAX the attack times so that some transients can pass. Those will be eaten now by the non-linear amplifier as an added sugar.

Espresso, anyone?

what I’m currently working on – Vol. 7

Updates, basically. I’m still struggling with a preFIX update due to some technical issues I just can’t get, errrm, fixed (some VST hosts still do not respond to reported delay changes). Well, lets see how many month or years this will gonna take to work around or maybe then those hosts are just obsolete At least, I’m pretty much sure that we will see two other updates here during Q2: First, there will be a smaller update for the BaxterEQ where small  is indeed the proper wording because it’s mainly about an additional but just smaller GUI version.

ThrillseekerLA – released today

nice workspace

(via fuck yeah studio porn)

WTF?

Check out “fuck yeah studio porn“!

introducing ThrillseekerLA

ThrillseekerLA – digital stereo leveling amplifier with truly analog qualities.

At a glance

• Sophisticated and deep gain riding full of musical character and attitude but with virtually no inter-modulation (IM) distortion artifacts
• Feedback compression design w/o any samplerate based delay in the loop
• Classic input level driven two knob design with additional manual attack and release time interventions
• Highly program dependent envelope timing adoption offering attack times ranging from “instantaneously” up to around 100ms and release times from 30ms up to several seconds
• Mix level switch to adopt the plug-ins internal gain staging to mixing levels at around -18dBFS
• Custom SC filter option to attenuate the SC bass response while slightly boosting the HF spectrum
• Additional one pole (6dB per octave) SC low-cut filter adjustable from 20 to 500Hz
• External sidechain support
• Switchable Input/GR/Output metering display
• Variable compression range control from 0 to 100%

announcing the “Thrillseeker” audio plug-in series

I’m bringing sexy back

The brand new and upcoming Variety of Sound Thrillseeker audio plug-ins series is going to be a plug-in collection premiering Stateful Saturation which is a sophisticated DSP core system for musical harmonic distortion generation based on authentic and truly stateful non-linear models.

Stateful Saturation takes advantage of some sought after analog qualities and preserves them accurately during their transfer right into the digital domain:

• high frequency shimmer and sheen without digital harshness
• depth and ’3d’ imaging side effects before distortion itself becomes apparent
• audio transient dynamics that remains vibrant and alive
• natural and impressive bass response

Stateful Saturation opens the door for quite a number of amazing applications ranging from smooth harmonic exciters up to convincing amplifier effects and the DSP core can easily be set in context whether it’s a compressor output stage or a preamplifier circuit, just to name the two.