An analysis and repair tool, the Fixate:Midrange plug-in seeks to clear the mud, repair missing lows, adjust frequencies that build up too much, and improve whatever sources are put through it. I jumped in and did some mucking – and un-mucking – around.
I started with Automatic mode, where the audio gets Analyzed then Fixed. You Analyze the audio, but then you gotta remember to hit the Fix button so that Fixate's plans are enacted. I did a number of experiments where I forgot to activate Fix and sat there A/B'ing a whole lotta nothing – luckily I didn't hallucinate a change, so I started snooping around!
I dropped Fixate:Midrange on a master bus for a song I'd just mixed. What would I find out once it had been Analyzed and Fixed? Well, I guess my mix wasn’t so bad, as I didn’t hear or see much difference. Whew! It was doing some work for sure, but it wasn't changing the feel of the track. I went to an archival CD release that I had dropped into Pro Tools (not something I'd worked on). The ’80s studio sessions sounded a bit better after Analysis and Fix, but the cassette-sourced live recordings improved immensely with the same process applied. Oh, now I see why I could use a tool like this! When I dropped it on some rough mixes a client sent me before our mixing session, it brought the material one step closer to finished and was far more enjoyable to listen to. The Fix Resonance controls/bands of Demud, Dethin, Dehonk, Denasal, and Deharsh do a lot of the work for this sort of repair, and they only actuate when the sounds they are trying to attenuate or boost are detected. The Fix EQ Balance slider (defaults a lot to center) controls the blend between Original and Fixed versions of your source. This can be important to check, as I sometimes found the dynamics of drum hits would get a little too smoothed out; a different balance helped keep the energy up. As their manual notes, always use your ears and feel free to change settings!
Please note that Fixate:Midrange is not only for slapping on a mix bus and sorting out your midrange clarity issues. It's also handy for treating individual tracks or busses. On a drum bus, I noticed it kept wanting to Dehonk the snare, so I put an instance right on the snare track. A/B'ing back and forth, it did sound a little better. There's a lot of mid/side work going on with the Resonance controls, and you can change the balance between sides and center when you are in the Resonance Detail pane. This could be handy for applying more correction to the center of a stereo bass instrument, for instance.
It can load a profile of an existing song to build a preset, though I didn’t try that. There are a bunch of settings one can apply to match EQ curves for musical styles or instruments, but I found those to be pretty extreme at times. The real power is using Analyze and Fix and then making a few tweaks with the amount blended in and a few resonance adjustments. I can imagine first-time mixers abusing Fixate:Midrange until they learn to A/B it and listen a little deeper. For me, it can help elevate a final mix a bit more. But maybe it's also like a mix test: if it tells me my mix needs a lot of help, then I should bypass it for a minute and work a little harder on the tracks! It's a quick euphonic fix though, and I can imagine a lot of people benefitting from Fixate:Midrange's helping hand.