Home > Gear > Essential mixing effects

These are the basic building blocks of my virtual mixing and mastering signal chain. Of course it’s a very subjective look through the keyhole but if you know what kind of music i usually produce, you should be able to find some valuable information here.


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Universal Audio Cambridge EQ

Universal Audio Cambridge EQThe Cambridge EQ is – hands down – the best software equalizer i ever used. It is perfeclty predictable, precise and easy to use, sounds very natural and serves all my equalizing needs. Especially its elliptical lowcut filter mode does very suprising things in the bass frequencies below 50hz and is unique to this EQ. Culprit: only available for UAD dsp cards. Then again i recommend purchasing a UAD anyway – you can run dozens of Cambridge EQs without ever putting your cpu in trouble. » more

Voxengo Elephant Limiter

Voxengo Elephant I was looking for a transparent mastering limiter and bought Elephant back when the first version appeared. It always did a very good job to keep the levels in place. Last not least thanks to its reliable metering and ease of use it’s one of the workhorses in my setup. Can be purchased online at the Voxengo website, mac and pc versions available.

Audio Damage Rough Rider

Audio Damage RoughriderAD’s Rough Rider is the single channel and free brother of their multiband Pro version which reminds me a bit of Empirical Labs Distressor and its insane nuke compression mode. If you want to kill people with rimshots, burn those drumbusses in hell or just slightly attenuate effects on percussion, Rough Rider is a good one. Available for both: mac & pc.

Universal Audio Fairchild 670

Universal Audio Fairchild 670Being part of the UAD-Series, the Fairchild 670 emulates the classic hardware compressor from the 50s. It’s known for its magic mix-glueing abilties and usually the sum compressor in my setup. Also awesome on groups and loops it is, alongside with the other UAD plugs in the bundle, the best thing i bought over the years.

Variety of Sound Density mkII

Variety of Sound Density mkIIAlthough it sounds quite different i think of Density mkII as being the nearest neighbour to UAD’s Fairchild. Capable of glueing a mix in a good way while preserving a good amount of dynamics, you shouldn’t miss it by any means. Last not least it’s free, like all those v.o.s./ex-Bootsie plugins. At the moment available for pc only.

RME Audio Digicheck

RME Audio Digicheck TotalyserRME’s Digicheck is some kind of swiss army knife when it comes to audio analyses and measuring. Bundled with their soundcards it offers many very reliable tools, the most powerful being its Totalyser (as seen in the screenshot). Offering a configurable 30 bands analyser, a goniometer and a levelmeter while running on the cards dsp-chip i couldn’t be bothered to use anything else. Standalone, works with RME cards only.

TT Dynamic Range Meter

TT Dynamic Range MeterThis metering plugin is a little bit odd: it attempts to tell you how much dynamics are available in your mix. If you’re not sure wether you’re already running into overcompression or if you’ve got some headroom leff you can use this as a guide being the last effect in your signal chain. I use to keep my tracks around a DR value of ~9. » more