updates to the al-ready amazing piece of software. We
first heard of this one from none other than Bob Katz,
one of the greatest mastering engineers and among
the ones who wrote a lot of the rules we follow today.
DynOne is a 5-band, linear phase dynamics processor
that can be used directly on the audio, or in Parallel
Compression mode, with custom-built crossover filters
that have been designed to avoid phase alignment issues.
Kush Omega Transformer Model TWK
Kush audio has long been one of our favourite
manufacturers of audio tools. Mostly due to the fact
that they operate and think very differently to others.
Gregory Scott is well known for his alternate views on
mixing and mastering techniques. One of his favourite
tools has to be saturation/distortion. He says its useful
for adjusting signal clarity and im-pact when he needs
an element to be more present in a mix — without
resorting to EQ — as well as for grit and excitement.
This new plugin borrows from the famous Tweaker
unit. It is a single-channel VCA dynamics processor.
One of the best features of the Tweaker is the Drive
control, the first knob in the audio path section. It can
bring a lot of soul and life to an element in a mix. There
is a full range of tones that can be achieved with Drive,
from gentle presence to quite aggressive tube-amp-like
sound. The Tweaker distortion module offers just that,
a simple one knob solution to your saturation needs. Its
the most simple plugin you could possibly use. It has a
drive knob in the centre to dial in the grit along with
a phase flip switch, a button to pad by -20dB and some
volume control. And it just simply works! It works on
most sources and scenarios. You could use it to add a
ton of grit to a drum parallel, some more presence to
guitars in a mix or even a nice subtle saturation on your
mix buss. It does is all and the best part is its just one
knob! It really is a little bit of magic in a digital box.
This particular plugin has also been freed from the iLok
ecosystem so feel free to go check it out and have fun!
Leapwing Audio DynOne
Continuing the recent trend of new tools that are in
the market, lets talk about this one, the DynOne which
recently got a third version with some really good
The original version of DynOne was actually released
last year, and this v3 release con-tains a handful of
subtle, but useful tweaks. You have five faders in the
middle of the GUI that control the volume of each band
so you can subtly alter the tonality of your material by
bringing up the parallel compressed versions.
Straight off the bat, we were able to load a mixbus preset
that added some excitement to the top end and controlled
the lows, and adjusted each fader to taste, giving us a
great sounding result in less than a minute! Not only
is this excellent for multi band compres-sion, where it
really shines is in parallel. If what you are looking for
is a transparent level or loudness raise the DynOne
has the most transparent parallel compression I’ve
heard. It can “invisibly” raise the level of a recording a
considerable amount without creating any artifacts. In
fact, it’s so invisible you may have a hard time believing
it’s actually in your chain. In that case, bypass it, and
suddenly the level will drop and your jaw will drop,
too. It works almost as well as bringing up a fader, but
without overloading the peak level, which a regular
fader would cause if the source material is already near
full peak level.
A lot of people claim that it competes if not sounds better
than the 10,000$+ boxes that mastering houses have been
using for decades. Its certainly is as transparent and has
the depth but it never lacks the warmth. Transients are
preserved far better than many other compressors and
the sound retains depth and dimension far better.
DynOne is very transparent at reasonable gains, but
sooner or later you’re going to start hearing tonality
changes or compression pumping, if you push it too far.
The more purist the source, the less level boost you can
get away with. This stands to reason, but you may even
like some of the sound quality that comes from raising
the faders very far. It’s ok to use it for an effect if that’s
what you are going for. Or if you need as much transpar-
ency as possible, If you need to make things louder
or denser, to bring up soft passages, for example, it’s
always best to combine multiple processes — do a little
lifting in the Dy-nOne, and add a little lifting using other
processors in your mastering chain.
This barely scratch the surface of DynOne’s capabilities.
It can also do downward com-pression, or upward
expansion. The only downsides are the cost of the plugin
itself and the face that DynOne uses up a tremendous
amount of CPU power, because the quality of its filtering
and internal resolution are impeccable. And impeccable
DSP is very costly in system resources.
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
45