Review

Plugin Reviews

By George Shilling and Russell Cottier

With many years experience working as recording engineers and producers, our review team of George Shilling and Russell Cottier know the good from the bad. In many cases it's a matter of taste, some prefer one EQ over another but we try to provide unbiased and objective reviews of the equipment tested.

Baby Audio Transit Multi-effects plugin
Nov 2 2023 Multi-effects plugin
Baby Audio Transit

Baby Audio are relatively new kids on the block, making some innovative and very groovy plugins that a number of influential producers have adopted and lauded.

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Accentize dxRevive Speech restoration plugin
Sep 16 2023 Speech restoration plugin
Accentize dxRevive

dxRevive is a speech restoration plugin, designed to correct audio problems such as background noise, clipping, overly-reverby recordings. It can also restore missing frequencies using AI. Although designed for dialogue restoration, we thought we would have a look at uses for this in music.

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Kalide Collage Creative effects plugin
Aug 31 2023 Creative effects plugin
Kalide Collage

Collage is a “modular effects system” bundled up as a single plugin. Its processor modules include all kinds of effects like modulation, dynamics, EQ, filters, reverb, delays, distortion, panning and width controls and more. But that doesn’t really tell the whole story.

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Eiosis e2deesser De-esser plugin
Aug 20 2023 De-esser plugin
Eiosis e2deesser

Eiosis was the brainchild of renowned plugin designer Fabrice Gabriel, who set up the company before teaming up with Steven Slate to co-found Slate Digital.

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PSP FETpressor FET compressor plugin
Jun 22 2023 FET compressor plugin
PSP FETpressor

Polish plug-in designer PSP has been producing hardware inspired plug-ins for nearly 15 years. The plug-in solutions tend to be tools in their own right with a generic analogue feel to them, but not specific emulations.

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Eventide Tony Visconti Tverb Reverb plugin
May 2 2023 Reverb plugin
Eventide Tony Visconti Tverb

Berlin, 1977, in Hansa Tonstudio: Tony Visconti is recording Bowie's soon-to-be hit song Heroes, but he has run out of tracks. Hansa's studio 2 was the historic Meistersaal Hall constructed in 1910 for classical music performance.

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LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Professional Convolution plugin Reverb
Mar 19 2023 Convolution plugin Reverb
LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Professional

Seventh Heaven is a high-end reverb plug-in from LiquidSonics. LiquidSonics has been bringing advanced reverb plug-
ins to the market for the best
 part of a decade. Based on
 Fusion-IR technology these 
are more than just convolution
 reverbs.

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Newfangled Audio Elevate & EQuivocate Multiband limiter and EQ plugins
Feb 4 2023 Multiband limiter and EQ plugins
Newfangled Audio Elevate & EQuivocate

Eventide partnered with Newfangled Audio (founded by former Eventide DSP developer Dan Gillespie) in 2017 to launch the Elevate multiband artificial intelligence driven limiter.

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Toontrack Superior Drummer 3 Sampled drums virtual instrument
Jan 12 2023 Sampled drums virtual instrument
Toontrack Superior Drummer 3

Toontrack has a solid reputation in the software instrument world primarily for its flagship product, Superior Drummer. Back in May Toontrack flew journalists from across the world to Galaxy Studios, Belgium.

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Leapwing Al Schmitt Signature sound plugin
Jun 26 2021 Signature sound plugin
Leapwing Al Schmitt

Leapwing have scored themselves something of a coup by bagging Al Schmitt’s talents and working with him to make something useful for mixing and mastering engineers.

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Bettermaker EQ232D Equalizer plugin from Plugin Alliance
Jul 25 2020 Equalizer plugin from Plugin Alliance
Bettermaker EQ232D

Many Bettermaker outboard processors have passed through my studio including the knob-less (but still very physical) version of the hardware EQ232P, with its excellent sonics and clever expansion on the Pultec theme.

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Tone Projects Unisum Mastering Compressor Multiband compressor plugin
Jul 18 2020 Multiband compressor plugin
Tone Projects Unisum Mastering Compressor

Rune Lund-Hermansen is the brains behind Tone Projects – clearly a man of many talents, as for nearly 7 years he was Lead Product Designer for every wine drinker’s favourite phone app, Vivino.

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Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate Gate plugin
Apr 27 2020 Gate plugin
Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate

Engineers have been gating drums since the Kepex was introduced by Allison Research in 1970, and apart from the 1982 Drawmer DS201 adding useful key filters, not much new has happened in the world of noise gating, apart from the ‘look ahead’ function afforded by...

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McDSP ML8000 Limiter plugin with multi-band option
Feb 28 2018 Limiter plugin with multi-band option
McDSP ML8000

Silicon Valley plug-in boffins McDSP cite ML8000 as the next generation in advanced limiting technology. The ML8000 plug-in features two discrete processors. The first being multistage, multi-band lookahead peak detection and limiting, followed by a broadband master limiter with some rather flexible controls.

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Toneforge Guilty Pleasure by Joey Sturgis Guitar amp simulator plugin
Dec 28 2017 Guitar amp simulator plugin
Toneforge Guilty Pleasure by Joey Sturgis

Joey Sturgis is an American record producer with a studio in Indiana and a reputation as a leading expert working in the metalcore scene.

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Empirical Labs Arouser Compressor plugin
Jun 16 2017 Compressor plugin
Empirical Labs Arouser

Dave Derr introduced his first hardware unit the Distressor in the mid-1990s and scored remarkable success with what was perceived to be a modern advance on classic knee compressor designs like the 1176 and LA-2A.

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