SlickHDR is a “Psychoaccoustic Dynamic Processor” which:
- balances the perceived global vs. local micro dynamics of any incoming audio.
- creates a rich in contrast, detailed and clearly perceived image which translates way better across different listening environments.
- provides a convenient workflow by simply adjusting three dynamic processors to show a roughly same load.
- offers further and detailed control about overall tone and release time behavior.
The stunning UI artwork and all renders were done by Patrick once again. Made with love in switzerland – as he said!
SlickHDR is a freeware VST audio plug-in for Windows x32 and you can download a copy right here: >>> DOWNLOAD <<<
Related Links
Variety Of Sound 
OK, I already know what to do after work today!
wooohooo!!!! 1hour and a half before the end of my work shift…. already counting down… can’t wait to get home and try this out!!!! Thank you Variety of Sound!!!
thank ….:-)
you’re welcome ;.)
you’re we-
would have been equally appropriate wahah.
Another thank you here. Gonna take some getting my head around what’s happening but it sounds fantastic so far. Instant clarity and depth. Lotsa depth.
it looks beautiful! Congrats! the UI is bigger than my screen and i can’t see the knobs at the bottom. I can’t find a way to resize it. Anything I can do? My resolution is 1366×768, Windows 8.1. Reaper x64.
Thank you very much for everything you share!
can’t you scroll in your host?
The plugin will not be “in” the host as it’s Reaper x64, only the bridge will.
simply bypass the GUI (graphical interface) by clicking the appropriate button un reaper…
“UI” button (close to load/save button) in the rack
better download the 1.0.1 hotfix which offers a smaller GUI ….
allow me to mention that the ui is to big on my laptop. i cant access the buttons below the tone slider.
thanks for this free VST anyway.
sos un genio, sabelo, gracias por dar esta agradable noticia
this thing is really slick!!!!! lol great plugin
Looks amazing, as always. I am looking forward to try and work with this.
Thank you SO MUCH for all your great work! 🙂
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! I’m off to the studio in haste! Woo Hoo! Psyched to the MAX !!
Reblogged this on ksn.
I just tried it out on every track of a drum mix. It’s quite subtle on a single track, but it sums up to real magic. You get what you expect from a good compressor, but it doesn’t sound too compressed – if compressed at all. The sound stays very natural.
Thanks for this. Cool work.
Very nice – maintains peaks in lots of volume levels with the piece of music I tested it with. Put it on my buses and a couple of tracks – lots of muddiness I never could do anything about with standard bus compression cleared away pretty quickly with some adjustments to the controls. Looking at the output waveform, previously with general compression what was essentially a turd of a waveform turned into a nice spiky caterpillar, with lots of transients at different dynamic ranges. I’ll be going to this first for a while, methinks, probably with one of his others for Master Bus compression. It’s good on lots of stuff – subtle, almost completely transparent. But you can SEE it’s having an effect, and that’s what a compressor’s really supposed to do – control your volume levels within mixes without deadening the sound. As far as I can tell, there’s not going to have to be the standard “boost everything above 5k with a tiny shelf because it all sounds lifeless now,” at least for me. I even ended up taking some saturation off tracks because I could totally hear it in the mix, when before I was adding it for presence – it doesn’t seem needed now. You can puncture a mix pretty well with this without having to change too much color. Really nice. Looking forward to working with this a LOT.
Wow, first impression: absolutely awesome! Just put it on a mix I made today and was immediatetely hooked by the sound results when I turned the knobs. Hard to explain what it does…immediately reminds me of the clearer and more distinct space and room separation of older analog records while glueing the mix/stage together at the same time…. kind of why I love to use Analog Tape sims for examples. I will definitely use this a lot. Thank you so much for your great work!
First, thanks for the smaller GUI version! Very much appreciated (just like the small BaxterEQ).
Then I would like to make two suggestons for a future Slick update:
• I think the TRIM knob’s +/- 6dB range is too small. Having a +/- 12 dB range would be more useful, especially in the attenuation (-) range.
• And having a DRY/WET knob would be cool.
Thank you for another cool and beautiful plugin. Testing it I already got a few great tones out of it and I made with a drum loop sound like I put a lot of frische Schlagsahne on it 😉
• I think the TRIM knob’s +/- 6dB range is too small. Having a +/- 12 dB range would be more useful, especially in the attenuation (-) range.
Thank you for another cool and beautiful plugin. Testing it I already got a few great tones out of it
+1
I agree regarding the trim, on safely recorded material at around -24db I had to crank p1 to max and then trim wasn’t enough. I had to use sonalkis freeG afterwards. Which kind of messes with bypassing options.
Not sure a mix knob world be poss though as I believe it works by parallel already.
Wow… great, useful plugin, sounds silky-smooth too! Thank You! 🙂
Just tried it on the master buss of a couple of different tracks, pre limiter as you suggest. Dude, you NAILED it! this performs fantastically. exactly as you promised when I queried what your HDR theory was. It brings fantastic clarity and as with all your plugs, is very, very musical! And all while taking some load of the limiter. 10/10 Herb this is closest to a free lunch when we’re asked to push the master buss a little too hot.
A thousand thankyous. you are an inspiration.
p.s) please could you fix the bug introduced in the last Rescue (it doesn’t truely bypass, I think you forgot to include the delay compensation line in the bypass path as it doesn’t phase cancel. Keep up the good work!)
Thank You.
Very interresting plugin, nice looking too! But remember if you have a very dynamic track, with a hard hitting and loud snare for example – staying close to “yellow” on the 3 meters (or the last two at least) WILL reduce the dynamics quite alot – The track will sound more “controlled” and “separated”, but to the cost of lost dynamics. Not saying this is a bad thing ofc, if this is the sound you are going for.
/Jon
Hi, this looks really interesting. Unfortunately I do not have a Windows machine. Is there a future plan do develop an AU version for Logic X (64bit)?
Thank you in advance for your answer.
best,
robi
Amazing ! Thanks for this great plug !
Amazing! Thank you for everything that you do!
I like it Bootsy, I experienced instant gratification on first use.. 🙂 . I was expecting it work a certain way, and it exceeded my expectations.. 🙂 Bravo…
Regarding the ‘trim’, as long as the signal is in the green range its just fine. I tried to smash it and ran into yellow range and then felt the trim needed to be between +/- 12 db.
I would love to see the release times when the knob is moved. That really helps me a lot. Hope you could include the feature in an update some time. 😉
You are expanding audio engineering horizons with your ideas and plugins. Thank you very much for your work.
Cheers..
Absolutely stunning plugin! thanks
This plugin is absolutely killer!! It’s subtle but extremely effective. Thank you so much for prividing the community with an unbelievable amount of dedication and a set of professional tools which often make some of the expensive companies look like kindergarden. Just as with SlickHDR.
Thank you!!!
Thank you very much Herbert for bringing techniques from photography into the audio domain. It sounds like nothing else I’ve heard before. I tried it on some commercial tracks and even those benefit from the clarity that this awesome plugin provides.
Like always, very beautiful work from Patrick, too. As a photgrapher and designer myself with some experience with 3D programs, his work is very good!
SlichHDR also hardly have a hit on my old pc so thank you for that. This means that the code is already very optimised, considering what this plugin has to do.
Very nice work, you may be proud to what you provide everybody for free!
I wish you all the best, Sven
crashed is cubase 6.5(64bit)…otherwise cool sounding plugin
Cubase 6’s bridging is pretty terrible in general. Get jBridge if you can to bridge 32bit plugins.
It’ll probably take me a while to completely understand all aspects of this thing. But one thing I noticed right a way: It sounds like nothing else – in a very, very good way. It keeps the music alive. I can’t thank you enough, I really can’t.
MAC??
Yes, Mac please!
Agreed!!
Another excellent product from Bootsie and Patrick
There is a lovely clarity thats available in the plugin
i look forward to exploring its potential
A winner, YES!
Just wanted to say thank you for creating this amazing sounding vst and making it available for us all. Your hard work is definitely appreciated.
Im not sure what its doing but as I said it seems to makes everything sound “better”!, but im a little confused about the controls and how to make best use of it?? Also, can it be used at the mastering stage?
What the controls are for can be found in the manual.
What is does can be read here http://www.ronnypries.de/blog/plugins/variety-of-sound-slickhdr-explained/
Many thanks for your response, that link does make sense. But…does that mean it can be as alternative to a compressor (sorry for the dumb questions!)
It can… Indeed. Depending on the sound you want…
Try and listen what it ultimately comes down to.
I noticed that some people who joined in the latest KVR OneSynthChallenge already used Slick in their submissions. That is only one day after releasing Slick! 😀
Love it. Perhaps a small overload flashing light near the trim pot would help remove yellow light ambiguity.
BTW, in Wavelab 6, it only works on 2-channel files. It locks on single channel files.
Slap it on the master buss and instantly sound better! 😀
Thank you again Bootsy for an amazing plugin. I would use it on all my masters, if… yes, if it wouldn´t crash my Cubase 7.5/64 within a minute (and none of my myriads of plugs does so) 😦 Any known bug that makes this gem unstable?
Do you think it would be feasible to create an expander version of this plugin? It would be pretty amazing to be able to use such a plugin to expand music which has a small dynamic range as a result of the loudness wars. Slapping on a traditional expander doesn’t really do the job, but an engine like you’ve created here seems like it could potentially yield some really pleasing results.
Dude, I’m using this on the master bus and it’s rockin it.
what the f is going on here? is there a pdf manual? i love how you can mash the sound but it sounds more like a tape saturation than digital mass overload. gui could be smaller… very nice. thanks….
This plugin is very clever and if you know how to tweak it you can get an amazing sound, you should release this plugin as a RTAS plugin!
This sounds like a very cool and useful plug-in. Any updates for a Mac system yet?