Last year, at least once a week, I heard someone mention Coil Audio. Even a few engineers I knew who never hype gear were straight-up saying, "These are the best preamps on the planet.” My...
Ostensibly a drum mixing tool especially built for kick drums, Subloom is one of those plug-ins based on a mixer's workflow, specifically Jesse Ray Ernster [Tape Op #151], and combines several...
It wasn't that many years ago that my staff at Jackpot! Recording Studio kept mentioning FabFilter's Pro-Q 3 [Tape Op #132] so much that I began using it on everything; they were correct –...
In what seems to be a growing trend, Freqtube FT-1 is a saturation plug-in for DAWs that uses an outboard analog processor in conjunction with software. This is my first experience with anything from...
The SA-3 is a massive evolution of McDSP’s SA-2 Dialogue Processor. Like its predecessor, it’s still a killer dialogue and vocal tamer, but it’s so much more than simply that. This...
Remember when hardware reverbs were the sole effects available? I certainly do. In the mid-‘90s, when I began making records in Los Angeles, I would scan any unfamiliar studio for the presence...
To list all the classic, quintessential rock 'n' roll recordings that have been tracked at Sound City Studios is beyond the scope of this review – but trust me, you’ve heard them:...
Baby Audio collaborated with producer Andrew Huang [Tape Op #85] to create the Transit transition designer plug-in. Like most Baby Audio plug-ins, Transit aims to simplify a complex task, offering an...
Universal Audio (UA) is one of the giants of the plug-in world, and their emulations of classic analog gear are among the most hallowed. With the release of their PolyMAX synth, UA is showing...
Remix is a plug-in that "uses cutting edge technology based on artificial intelligence" in order to un-mix a stereo track into five stems of Vocals, Piano, Bass, Drums, and Other. There have been a...
I've been wary of "all-in-one" vocal processing plug-ins that claim to deliver "pro-level vocals" for your mixes with minimal work. I've tried a few, and every time I've been better off removing the...
The kind folks at Wavesfactory recently offered up the free SK10 plug-in, which simulates having a speaker-based mic as an extra low frequency kick drum track. Insert it on your kick track, dial in...
