The Score Magazine March 2020 issue | Page 46

KAUSTHUB RAVI & SIVANESH NATARAJAN PRO-AUDIO AUDIO AT IT’S BEST! Shadow Hills Mastering Com-pressor Class A TRULY CLASS A! The shadow hills mastering compressor class a limited edition is one of the most exclusive and powerful compressors ever built. vintage king released the class in 2012, limiting production to on-ly 50 units. This very expensive and high-end compressor sits very nicely in some of the best mastering houses in the world. The Brainwork plugin could be the closest we can get to this beautiful piece. The plugin models the limited edition piece quite faithfully down to the updated Class A discrete compressor section utilizing Lundahl input transformers as well as the hand-wired Mogami Cable. The plugin features all of the same controls as the original hardware including the control to choose between different transformers for different colors. This makes this quite versatile. The compression is 44 The Score Magazine highonscore.com extremely smooth and transparent. It delivers a thicker and richer tone to whatever is running through it. Among the controls, Brainworx included its well- known retractable Extra Unit. The BX Extra Unit provides the following features: Brainworx´s TMT (patent pending Tolerance Modeling Technolo-gy), MS - processing, Mono-Maker, Stereo Width, Parallel Mix, Sidechain Filter continuously vari-able 12 dB per octave high pass filter and a Headroom parameter. Visually, this version can also be distinguished by red LEDs on the front panel versus the green ones found on the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor. GREEN for the Drum Buss - RED for the Master. All in all its a great plugin to have and is surprisingly very noticeable different than the normal edi-tion of the Shadow Hills compressor. It has its character and adds a very distinct punch to mixes. It works well for electronic music to give it some overall character and vibe.