Solid State Logic autoSeries

autoEQ — a marriage of SSL’s excellent modelling EQ and Sonible’s smart assistance technology.

These new plug‑ins combine classic SSL sound with Sonible’s AI assistance.

SSL’s 4000‑ and 9000‑series analogue mixing consoles have a special place in recording history. Amongst the reasons for that are the channel EQ and dynamics processing, as well as that famous ‘glue’ bus compressor. Inevitably they’ve been popular targets for software emulations — not least by SSL themselves, who now offer a range of plug‑ins, including various software takes on those famous circuits. The latest version of their console‑inspired plug‑ins, though, comes with a twist: SSL have partnered with audio machine‑learning pioneers Sonible, to create the autoSeries plug‑ins.

Sonible were among the earliest developers to exploit machine‑learning in audio plug‑ins, and it’s now a decade since they released smart:EQ+, proximity:EQ+ and entropy:EQ+. Over the years, their tech has matured, and they’ve assembled an impressive range of EQ and dynamics options, as well as various ambience effects. What they all have in common is that they use ‘AI’ to audition your audio signal and then set an initial configuration for the plug‑in controls. But since the plug‑ins themselves are algorithmic (in other words, they work much like conventional plug‑ins), the user has full control over the results. For the less experienced engineer, or anyone simply needing to work quickly, and wanting a sensible EQ or compression starting point that’s better tailored to the source than a conventional preset, these ‘smart’ tools can make life considerably easier.

Now, SSL have embedded Sonible’s ‘smart assistant’ approach in three new plug‑ins inspired, like various others in their range, by their analogue consoles. Called autoEQ, autoDYN and autoBUS, they’re available individually or as a bundle, and they support all the major plug‑in types for Windows and macOS hosts.

autoDYN — the dynamics section also gets the ‘smart’ treatment.