Utilities & Other Plug-Ins
Acustica Audio Nebula 4
When Nebula was first released most computers couldn’t keep up — but now they can, and the product has matured. Nebula hosts ‘dynamic convolution’ libraries of hardware processors. The bundled libraries are decent enough, but some third‑party ones are jaw‑droppingly good and are often inexpensive to boot. Matt Houghton
€499 including VAT. €499 (about $599).
Acustica Audio Sienna
Sienna provides headphone correction and emulates some of Europe’s finest listening spaces. The GUI labels aren’t always intuitive but the presets work well, the correction is good and the studio emulations are stunning. Matt Houghton
Sienna (includes one library of rooms/speakers) €89. Room/speaker expansion libraries €69 each. Prices include VAT. Sienna (includes a library of rooms/speakers) €89 (about $107) . Room/speaker expansion libraries €69 (about $83) each.
Blue Cat Audio MB‑7
MB‑7 splits the signal into up to seven frequency bands and for each can host different plug‑in chains, before mixing it all to stereo again. It can turn any plug‑in into a multiband one, which is far more useful than you might imagine. Matt Houghton
€129 including VAT.$129.
Brainworx bx_solo
I use this on pretty much every session, not for processing but for monitoring. It allows you easily to compare the Left, Right, Middle and Sides signals as phantom mono images, which is a brilliant mix analysis tool. I use it for my weekly Mix Review critiques (www.themixreview.org). You can also use it to swap the left and right stereo channels, which is great for checking what’s really in the middle of the stereo image: if it’s truly central, it won’t move. Mike Senior
Free
Celemony Melodyne 5
In 20 years of writing SOS reviews, my first encounter with Melodyne was a jaw‑dropping highlight; there was something almost magical about its ability to alter pitch so transparently. It has continued to innovate, and with its unique polyphonic pitch‑correction, Melodyne remains in a class of its own. John Walden
From €99. Polyphonic version from €399. Prices include VAT.From $99. Polyphonic versions from $399.
Cockos ReaInsert
A godsend. This plug‑in has only one role in life: enabling you to patch hardware into Reaper. Simple to use and with automatic latency compensation, ReaInsert can even send MIDI data to an external synth and return the result to Reaper. Bob Thomas
Included with Reaper.
DDMF Metaplugin 3
An immensely versatile plug‑in‑hosting and routing utility: if you can’t do it in your DAW, you probably can with Metaplugin. It ships with other utility plug‑ins such as a crossover filter and SendIt, a signal tap that allows you to send audio from anywhere in your DAW to anywhere else — including inside Metaplugin. Matt Houghton
£40.80 including VAT.$49.
Eventide Precision Time Align
Plug‑ins don’t get much more boring and utilitarian than this. They also don’t get much more useful. Apply it to a single track in isolation and it will make no difference. But within the context of a multimic kit recording, it allows individual tracks to be invisibly shifted forward or back in increments as precise as a hundredth of a sample. That can make all the difference between polite, phasey and punchy. Sam Inglis
$99.
HOFA 4U+ BlindTest
A simple but fantastic idea, this plug‑in allows you to make blind comparisons of signals on different DAW tracks. So you can judge plug‑in choices or mix versions, blissfully free of expectation bias. There’s even a free version, though comparison is limited to three tracks. Matt Houghton
Full version €39.90. Basic version free.Full version €39.90 (about $48). Basic version free.
iZotope Neutron 2 Advanced & Ozone 9 Advanced
I’m cheating here, as some of these ‘audio intelligent’ machine‑learning plug‑ins’ processing options are also available as plug‑ins in their own right. Neutron acts as your track mix assistant, whilst Ozone plays a similar role for mastering. Both generate starting points for each track in your mix or your master bus and while I always end up refining their ‘recommendations’, only rarely have I been entirely disappointed with the initial results. Bob Thomas
Neutron 3 Advanced $399. Ozone 9 Advanced $499. Tonal Balance Bundle (includes both programs and more) $699.
Jam Origin MIDI Guitar 2
I’ve owned many hardware guitar synths over the years, but none can hold a candle to Jam Origin’s MIDI Guitar software. Version 2, running as a plug‑in, is hands‑down the most accurate guitar synthesizer controller I’ve ever played. It is fully polyphonic, doesn’t require a special pickup or calibration, and works as well with any piezo system as it does with any magnetic pickup. Bob Thomas
iOS App Free (in‑app purchases available). Windows/Mac $99.95. GarageBand Version $59.95
Melda Production Oscilloscope
The MFreeFXBundle is one of the most useful collections of free audio plug‑ins around. It includes this spectacularly useful tool that has helped enormously in my understanding of what my synth modules are doing: Eurorack ’scopes tend to be fussy and difficult to read, but you can blow MOscilloscope up full screen and easily see the effect of your wave folding, modulations and mixing of oscillations. It has built‑in pitch detection and a wonderfully smooth visual display. MAnalyzer, in the same bundle, is its perfect companion, giving you a smoothly animated display of your frequency content. Robin Vincent
Free.
Meterplugs Dynameter
This novel metering plug‑in tells you at a glance how dynamic a signal is (the difference between the peak level and the loudness), and how the dynamic range changes over time. Like all great ideas, it’s simple yet really useful, and I’d recommend it to anyone who takes a DIY approach to mastering. It can also be really useful in judging whether you’re overcooking things with your mix bus compression. Matt Houghton
£70 including VAT.$99.
Meterplugs Perception A|B
This one’s so new I’ve not even finished reviewing it but it’s already a favourite! It’s the second generation of mastering engineer Ian Shepherd’s ground‑breaking system for comparing a signal chain pre‑ and post‑processing, without the difference in loudness skewing your perception. Others have copied that idea but among the new version’s many improvements are significant features for mix engineers, some of them unique: you can even use it to compare a full mix with and without processing! Matt Houghton
£105 including VAT.$149.
McDSP Moo X
McDSP’s Analog Processing Box is the biggest advance in hybrid mixing the world has yet seen, presenting real analogue compression and saturation through a conventional plug‑in interface. The Moo X mixer plug‑in is a great showcase for the technology. Load it onto key channels or buses and enjoy the sort of mix ‘glue’ that was once the province only of high‑end analogue consoles. Sam Inglis
Included with APB hardware.
PreSonus Studio One Pipeline
Being able to perform a technical process painlessly can be indispensable. Studio One’s Pipeline makes integrating hardware into your workflow seamless, especially when combined with a normalled patchbay wired to your favourite gear. It offers full automatic delay detection and compensation, in and out level controls, space for notes and even recall pictures of your hardware settings. JG Harding
Included with PreSonus Studio One.
Sonarworks SoundID
It’s not often that a developer’s debut plug‑in makes the cover of SOS, but the importance of Sonarworks’ Reference was obvious from the off. Their innovative measurement‑based approach meant that suddenly, even a cheap pair of headphones could become a neutral monitoring system. Reference has since become ever more sophisticated, culminating in this year’s morph to SoundID, but its benefits are as valuable as ever. Sam Inglis
From €99 including VAT.From $99.
Synchro Arts Vocalign Ultra
Matching the timing of two vocal takes sounds like it ought to be a simple job — but try to do it using manual editing and you quickly realise there aren’t enough hours in the day. Synchro Arts’ unique plug‑in does all the heavy lifting for you, and a recent ground‑up rework makes it even easier to use. Sam Inglis
£342 including VAT.$399.
Voxengo MSED
One of the plug‑ins I use most frequently, this makes adjusting the Middle and Sides levels of a stereo signal so easy. You can also use two instances in series to encode an L‑R stereo signal into M‑S and decode it back again, effectively allowing you to use any plug‑in inserted between them as a Mid‑Sides processor. Mike Senior
Free.
Waves Greg Wells VoiceCentric
During lockdown, I wanted a simple way to enhance a singer’s voice in a live stream and this was a real gem of a discovery. You’ve no idea what an incoming live‑streamed vocal will sound like, you’re about to go live to the planet and have no time to work on it... Just dial in a bit of Greg Wells’ VoiceCentric’s Intensity, and it brings in some reverb and delay that takes the edge off a compressed vocal coming at you via a phone. It’s also really good in ordinary mixing! Robin Vincent
$149. Discounted to $29 when going to press.