Plug-in Alliance $99 sale... Dynamic Spectrum Mapper!

[waitsongs]

Not that we need more temptation to part from our hard-earned money these days, but I've been holding out for a sale on Dynamic Spectrum Mapper from Plug-in Alliance, and the wait was definitely worth it... $99 until November 30th. I picked that up this morning, but wonder if anyone feels any of their other plug-ins are also must-haves at these prices?

[waitsongs]

Whoops, I should've checked Audio Deluxe first... members there save another $15 per plug-in....

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Is there a link? What's it do?

[waitsongs]

It's one of my desert island plugs... it's a multi, multi band compressor that's frequency dependent, and lets you take a snapshot of a track or a mix you like, and apply the same sonic character anywhere else. That's a really simple explanation of a complicated, yet easy to use plug-in.

The best thing I can say is, I recently had to mix a song where the female vocalist sounded great in parts, but a bit strident in others. I spent countless hours trying to even her out with mixed (or unmixed, haha) results, then finally downloaded the fully working demo of DSM and solved the whole issue within 5 minutes. If you spend much time mixing, I think it's a must-have. There are links on Motunation about it, but I'll just link you to the company and sale pages for now.....

http://www.proaudiodsp.com/products/dsm/
http://plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/d ... er_v2.html
http://audiodeluxe.com/products/pro-audio-dsp-dsm-v2

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Thanks. Looks great.

[mikehalloran]

Is it different from Ozone 6?

[waitsongs]

Is it different from Ozone 6?

I'm only up to Ozone 5, which is another desert island plug (along with RX4...), and I confess it's been a long time since I tried the snapshot approach in Ozone because it kind of baffled me when I first tried it, and I haven't gone back to try it since. Perhaps if I mastered that feature in Ozone I wouldn't have looked elsewhere.

When I first tried DSM, it took me a minute to realize how simple it is. You literally snapshot the area you like and then activate the "Process" button, and it starts applying that character to everything you run through it. It shows you a graphic line of the snapshot, and you can use the overall threshold control to move the source material above or below that threshold... even WAY above it, and it still sounds good. There's a 3 part frequency selector so you can vary the threshold by frequency ranges if you want to fine tune how the ranges are getting compressed. I'm not doing it justice with this quick description, but the demo is 14 days, so the best thing is to try it out and see if you need it. I know I now feel much more at ease taking on a mix with uneven sound sources, figuring I can solve problems quickly, and concentrate instead on creative mix decisions. To be able to get that peace of mind for less than $100 (normally $320)... I put that in the no-brainer category.

[towerproductions]

Looks pretty cool, I am going to check it out . They'll also have it at jrrshop as well for
$84 with the 15% discount code GROUP.

[waitsongs]

Good tip on JRRShop, towerproductions.

DSM is cool, and now I'm also curious about the Gliss EQ from Voxengo. Sounds like it might be a similar thing, but approaching it from the eq angle first, with some frequency-determined compression capabilities added on top.

I know Voxengo also makes Soniformer, which might actually be more like DSM, but I recall trying it out a few years ago and not really falling for it. I think Gliss EQ might be a good complement to DSM for really surgical strikes on stuff that can't be fixed with more standard plugs. But that's just a theory until I try it out.

[Shooshie]

It's one of my desert island plugs... it's a multi, multi band compressor that's frequency dependent, and lets you take a snapshot of a track or a mix you like, and apply the same sonic character anywhere else. That's a really simple explanation of a complicated, yet easy to use plug-in.

The best thing I can say is, I recently had to mix a song where the female vocalist sounded great in parts, but a bit strident in others. I spent countless hours trying to even her out with mixed (or unmixed, haha) results, then finally downloaded the fully working demo of DSM and solved the whole issue within 5 minutes. If you spend much time mixing, I think it's a must-have. There are links on Motunation about it, but I'll just link you to the company and sale pages for now.....

http://www.proaudiodsp.com/products/dsm/
http://plugin-alliance.com/en/plugins/d ... er_v2.html
http://audiodeluxe.com/products/pro-audio-dsp-dsm-v2

Wow. That's one I've been wanting for a long time.

There was one other that I always wanted, and I don't know who makes it. I last saw it years ago at the time that Elemental Audio was selling their metering suite on the cheap. It MIGHT have been made by EA. I just don't remember.

Basically, it was a harmonic content equalizer. Rather than push up or down frequency ranges, with this you could latch on to a harmonic and raise or lower it throughout, thus giving you a lot of control over timbre of the sound. It apparently wasn't too popular, because it disappeared after that. I can imagine that some people don't know what to do with such a tool, but it seems like — if it worked — it would be plainly obvious to anyone. If it was by EA, then Roger Nichols may have messed around with it. I never bought his stuff, partly because of the bizarre, "hand-drawn" interfaces he put on the formerly eloquent EA interfaces. Anyway, if anyone knows of a harmonic content remapper, I might go for that on a good sale.

Meanwhile, I think I've got to have this DSM. Thanks for the tip!

Shooshie

[Shooshie]

I've bought the DSM plugin and watched some of the tutorials. This is amazing. And beyond easy-to-use. Many aspects of it operate similarly to the Waves C4, C6, and Linear Phase Multiband (C5) processors (which are amazing in their own right), except that in the DSM it's as if some electronic wizard is operating all the thresholds in real time, making sure the output adheres to the frequency band levels of the original content or the desired model's content.

In a nutshell, DSM make it possible to get the sound you want in the mix, then to process it without changing the harmonic spectrum of that sound. Or to CHANGE it, if that's your goal, but to change it consistently, and not just when it goes into certain frequency ranges.

It's going to be fun to see what it does in some of the mixes I make. Thanks again to Waitsongs for the tip. It's a wonderful plugin to have!

Just curious, Waitsongs, do you tend to use it on certain tracks, or on the master? Or both? Is it a CPU hog? Can you run many instances of it? (shoulda asked these before I bought, but the answers won't change my desire to use it; just HOW I use it. )

Shooshie

[Killahurts]

There was one other that I always wanted, and I don't know who makes it. I last saw it years ago at the time that Elemental Audio was selling their metering suite on the cheap. It MIGHT have been made by EA. I just don't remember.

Hey Shoosh, you talking about the Ionizer? Arboretum.. I saved several mixes back in the day..

http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/ ... m/ion.html

[Shooshie]

Question:
Is there an option to authorize via iLok? I'm seeing instructions to authorize in the plugin itself. I'd much rather assure portability with iLok. Previous purchases from AudioDeluxe were authorized with iLok, but it's been a couple years. Maybe it's up to each developer. I think the last thing I bought was by Stephen Slate, and it uses iLok. Apparently this doesn't.

Oh well... if anyone knows differently, please post some directions or a path to them. Thanks,

Shoosh

[Shooshie]

There was one other that I always wanted, and I don't know who makes it. I last saw it years ago at the time that Elemental Audio was selling their metering suite on the cheap. It MIGHT have been made by EA. I just don't remember.

Hey Shoosh, you talking about the Ionizer? Arboretum.. I saved several mixes back in the day..

http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/ ... m/ion.html

No, that's not it. The one I described a few posts up the ladder was not an EQ or compressor, per-se. Nor a noise reducer or anything comparable with the plugins I've seen offered by other companies. It actually analyzed the harmonic content of the audio, then you could vary the prominence of each of those harmonics, even as the pitch changed.

So, picture this: you're looking at a Middle C on a saxophone, and you think the reed sounds too bright (or dark). If you were looking at an a FFT display, you might see that it's the 4th overtone sticking out (or subdued). You could bring that overtone down (or up), then play a scale, and the 4th overtone of each note would be similarly altered. At least, that's how I REMEMBER it. That was so long ago that it wouldn't surprise me if my memory has turned it into something I want, rather than something I actually saw. I mean, if it was real, why hasn't anyone else produced one?

Meanwhile, that Ionizer does look quite special. 512 bands of frequency modulation? Spiffy!

Shooshie

[waitsongs]

So, picture this: you're looking at a Middle C on a saxophone, and you think the reed sounds too bright (or dark). If you were looking at an a FFT display, you might see that it's the 4th overtone sticking out (or subdued). You could bring that overtone down (or up), then play a scale, and the 4th overtone of each note would be similarly altered. At least, that's how I REMEMBER it. That was so long ago that it wouldn't surprise me if my memory has turned it into something I want, rather than something I actually saw. I mean, if it was real, why hasn't anyone else produced one?

Meanwhile, that Ionizer does look quite special. 512 bands of frequency modulation? Spiffy!

Shooshie

I'm not sure what plug-in that may have been, but yes, it sounds really useful and vaguely familiar as well, so if it comes to me, I'll let you know.

Thinking more about the videos I've seen about the Voxengo Gliss EQ, they have something called Harmonic Peak filters, and I'm wondering if maybe you combine that filter with the adjustable dynamics control, you could tame specific harmonics like that? Otherwise, this sounds like the first Shooshie-designed plug-in waiting to happen!

Here's an overview video of the Gliss EQ: http://www.voxengo.com/product/glisseq/video/

re: Authorization for DSM, it struck me as odd at first too, but they keep 3 authorizations in your online account "for life", all useable at the same time on different computers. Your machine I.D. is part of the authorization, so if you wanted to use it on a 4th computer, or change computers, or maybe take it to another studio for mixing, you'd have to go online to de-authorize one of your 3 in order to put it on the 4th. I too would prefer an iLok, but this strikes me as an ok compromise.