Review: Big4 Bundle
The Plugin Alliance has made M/S mastering easier in any DAW with the Big4 bundle.
20 April 2012
Review: Alex Richardson
Plugin Alliance’s Big4 Bundle has combined some of the biggest brands into a Mid/Side focused mastering juggernaut. The bundle includes the Elysia Alpha Compressor, Brainworx bx_XL, SPL Passeq and the Vertigo VSC-2. Three of these plug-ins have hardware alternatives: SPL, Elysia and Vertigo are all well-established mastering units and retail at a combined US$21,963. Those three in their plug-in format and the bx_XL have been made available at the very affordable US$1176 – that number has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
In most DAWs, M/S isn’t a doddle. To whip up a workflow, practitioners have been restricted to creating a matrix with a minimum of six auxiliary tracks to encode and decode the stereo signal, which proves to be fiddly. All of Big4 Bundle’s plug-ins have matrices in-built and allow its user to focus on the compression and EQ. As a result it has eliminated the distractions inherent with creating or loading an M/S template. Bypassing each plug-in becomes swift, and soloing the mid or side simple.
Here’s the Big4 in action, with a few Mid-Side tips techniques thrown in.
BRAINWORX BX_XL
The first plug-in I tried was the Brainworx bx_XL. For Brainworx, this takes their flagship technique of M/S and exposes its true potential as a mastering tool. Two of the major issues involved in the loudness war debates are distortion and dynamics. Well, with M/S you have the most room to apply loudness without dramatically increasing either. For instance, multiplicative compression is no longer an issue. By dividing the track into segmented information (using M/S and crossovers) the bx_XL can compress information within the stereo image separately rather than applying compression twice or even three times. bx_XL divides the track into Mid and Side like all M/S encoders but it also separates the Mid channel with a crossover, allowing you to treat the lower frequencies differently to the higher ones. Furthermore, you can mono your bottom end! The human ear/brain system is lousy at using frequencies below 250Hz to determine stereo placement, so a low end in mono means more focused energy and more impact.
The M/S matrices in-built into the Brainworx bx_XL makes the plug-in much more than a limiter. In truth, it’s a mastering console dedicated to limiting (digital version). I found the bx_XL creatively inspiring in how the parameters worked together and in a lot of ways it complements many methodologies. For instance auto solo automatically solos each section as you move a parameter and deactivates the solo when you’re not. this removes right brain distractions from the workflow.
In my mastering session I had a synth part that was too loud for the track on certain stabs. Using EQ to rein that frequency in would remove body from the guitars and vocal. With bx_XL I could apply compression to the Lo Mid channel triggered by a filtered sidechain (the original track with low- and high-pass filters to target the problem frequency) and the crossover for the Mid channel is separated just above the problem frequency. I then applied a limiting threshold – triggered by the sidechain – that simply squashed those loud transients. Awesome!
With all this automatic switching and simplified workflow, the one thing I felt missing was a mono toggle button in the final stage of this plug-in’s signal flow. It’s looking the gift horse firmly in the mouth, but Brainworx has already covered every other aspect, so why not?
NEED TO KNOW
VERTIGO VSC-2
This plug-in really blew me away. Although most of my processing happens in the digital realm nowadays there is something about a real compressor that cannot be replaced. I’ve heard it explained a million ways; warmth, musical nature, tone shaping, and the list goes on. The Vertigo VSC-2 is possibly one of the best digital emulations I’ve heard to date. If you want to hear the warmth just pull up an instance on your track, dial everything all the way to the right and enjoy the enhanced harmonics. A fantastic feature of this plug-in is its dual side chaining as opposed to mono summed stereo. This allows for out of phase sidechain triggering – music to a mastering engineer’s ears.
The pop track I was mastering had been mixed in traditional LCR (Left-Centre-Right) and the mix engineer has done a great job. Immediately I noticed the verse and chorus was at significantly different volume levels and as a result the verse’s drums were losing their power. This is a perfect job for the Vertigo. I pull up an instance, dialled the ratio and threshold to 50%, adjusted the attack to 1ms and the release to 0.6s. There’s no need for adjustment with the attack and release so I dialled back the ratio and threshold, and adjusted the makeup gain to an appropriate level. Immediately my verse was imbued with more apparent energy and ‘rounder’ with the slight addition of harmonics. The transitions into the chorus were fine too, so it was easy to leave the dynamic shift intact between sections and therefore my compression work was done.
SPL PASSEQ
SPL has done it again with yet another essential plug-in for any mixing or mastering engineer’s toolbox. The Passeq is modelled on its hardware counterpart, which is an incredibly powerful and versatile passive EQ. I say powerful because of the huge selection of frequencies, the M/S function, the crossover frequencies between bands and the benefits/limitations of passive equalisation. Crossover frequency bands on passive equalisers give you an extra bit of individuality in that it creates an ‘S’ curve. ‘S’-sloping technique is commonly found in high-end passive EQ application due to the lack of Q or bandwidth. A boost in a particular frequency followed by attenuation on either side of that frequency will subsequently narrow the Q. For example, the closer the frequencies are to the original, the narrower the Q or ‘S’ slopes. This is also determined by the value at which the attenuation (in decibels) was set.
My favourite aspect of this plug-in is its M/S matrix. If ever I’m creating a wider mix, I like to boost the Side signal’s frequencies below 600Hz by a small amount (varying upon the ratio of Mid to Side). This technique is a descendant of Griesinger’s proposal to AES, which claimed that a 600Hz low shelf boost aids in reinforcing real spaciousness for the M/S mic technique. Once I’d finished my equalisations on the pop mix I noticed that it had increased in level by about 0.8 of a dB. M/S mode allows me to adjust the signals pre-decoder and in this case attenuate their gain until the stereo mix regains its output. The transparency of this equaliser really astonishes me and it impressed the minute I started playing with the frequencies.
ELYSIA ALPHA COMPRESSOR
My first impression of the Elysia Alpha Compressor was amazement. The plug-in looks fantastic: 3D rotary knobs, a futuristic layout, curved LEDs and lots of parameters. Sexy GUI aside, it isn’t a plug-in you dive into headfirst – the parameters do weird and unusually wonderful things. Firstly, the EQ is more of a balancing scale between the low and high frequencies than the normal cut/boost frequency. This is useful for when the compression creates an imbalance in energy between high and low frequencies (typically the case when heavily squashing high frequency transients).
Often when I receive a mix to master in a pop situation, the vocals sit way too loud. On this session, the plug-in came in handy to fix that issue. I used the onboard M/S encoder to separate the mid and side signals and proceeded to send the mid signal to the side chain. At this point the mid signal consisted mainly of bass, kick and vocal. I set the HP SC filter to 800Hz so that it would react only to the vocal and set the threshold moderately, the attack time about 60ms and the release time about 100ms. These settings also avoid loud and fast transient signals like snares or toms, which may occur in the same frequency range. The most impressive feature of the Alpha compressor is that I can easily AB the compressed signal and the original signal with the toggle switches in the bottom corner. Neither signal in this case was ideal but a mix of the two at 40% was exactly what I needed.
STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE
The tools in the Big4 bundle each have their own individual purpose, but share an inspiring focus on M/S and its mastering application. Also for any serious or budding mastering engineer, this is a really affordable bundle of plug-ins emulating a gold-mine of top-end gear. That said, you would do well to delve into the tutorial videos and detailed manuals before wrestling with the myriad parameters on the bx_XL and especially the Elysia – where the possibilities can be bewildering.
And for anyone looking to get a firm handle on M/S mastering technioques, you could do worse than flicking through Dirk Ulrich’s (CEO of Plugin-Alliance) in-depth explanations of Mid/Side application in a mastering environment in the manual for the bx_XL.
RESPONSES