KVR Audio

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 2:33 am

This thing has, apparently, been around forever but I only just stumbled upon it a few weeks ago and I can't believe how freakishly good it is. On my mixes it is generally very unsubtle - even with all the controls zeroed it makes big changes to a mix, mostly by scooping out mid-range frequencies that instantly clear it up, albeit by reducing the oomph in the song. But when you start to play with the controls, you can get all that oomph back and then some.

Honestly, it's taken my best mixes, things I was pretty much totally happy with, and made them sound like amateur hour at the pub. And the changes are so full-on that I'd never have thought to do anything even remotely like that myself.

You can still get it in a BUNDLE for $29 on the Marketplace and it's definitely worth having a look at. It's changed the way we sound for the better, that's for sure. If anyone's interested, I can put some A/B samples up so you can hear what it does.

imrae · Post by **imrae** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:13 am

Has anyone compared this with (free) ThrillseekerXTC mk ii or (more expensive but more versatile) Spectre?

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:25 am

No but I'm happy to have a look at the others and let you know.

parma · Post by **parma** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:27 am

This thing really made me realize just how muddy my mixes are. Bought it after 15 minutes of slapping it on different mixes and knob tweaking to taste (usually subtle settings)

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:36 am

Yeah, I find I need to turn all the presets down, they are very unsubtle. I also wish it had a Wet/Dry control because sometimes I think it does go a bit far in "cleaning up" the mids.

parma · Post by **parma** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 8:25 am

Yeah, wet/dry would be nice to dial back in a bit of the mids to taste

El°HYM · Post by **El°HYM** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 12:38 pm

The Pricing - Scheme seems a bit odd, though. I guess that quite a few already having the also good #freebies STA - Preamp & STA - Delay, yet those are also exactly the only ones which can be bought individual, without having to buy the whole Bundle. The Enhancer cannot be bought alone, unfortunately. I will test it out anyway, since I trust BONES ears, as he was the Only to spot the need of added Saturation on Top of the highly acclaimed GForce SEM emulation.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 1:08 pm

imrae wrote: Wed Jul 20, 2022 7:13 amHas anyone compared this with (free) ThrillseekerXTC mk ii or (more expensive but more versatile) Spectre?

I just installed both of these and had a quick play and what they do is very, very different. Both of them only add stuff - there is no +/-in either of them, just +, where STA Enhancer mostly takes shit away to reveal the song underneath the mud, so you can add back a bit of the top and bottom end. It's a completely different approach that gives very different results.

TBH, every Mastering preset I tried for Spectre made the song I was putting it on sound worse and ThrillseekerXTC was way more subtle than STA Enhancer is. STA Enhancer usually makes whatever you add it to sound quieter, the other two never do that (unless you turn the input or output down, of course).

imrae · Post by **imrae** » Wed Jul 20, 2022 2:28 pm

Interesting! So it somewhat falls in between. I usually use Spectre in "de-emphasis" mode, so it effectively redistributes energy from one frequency range to another without any overall boost.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 12:42 am

Spectre feels like a mastering EQ to me, STA Enhancer is very different to that. De-Emphasis is not the same as what this does and it's one thing or the other. i.e. Switching over affects every band. You need to try the STA demo to hear how different it is.

parma · Post by **parma** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 5:47 am

Having bought the bundle I will say that the other included effects are serviceable at best. Still, $29 for the enhancer mojo is a good deal.

El°HYM · Post by **El°HYM** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 6:45 am

Is this one actually the same as STA Enhancer CM by Audiffex, or its Successor?

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 7:23 am

I think it's probably the same, it's been around for a long time.

carrieres · Post by **carrieres** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 8:20 am

Buy Computer Music magazine issue 209 (CM209) and you can download STA Enhancer CM right away :
https://www.musicradar.com/computermusi ... ter-606956

plexuss · Post by **plexuss** » Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:56 pm

You can try replicating the characteristics of Enhancer using these graphs. Just he EQ curve should be enough to replicate the action of the plugin... perhaps...

Screen Shot 2022-07-21 at 10.51.09 AM.png

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Screen Shot 2022-07-21 at 10.51.46 AM.png

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Audified STA Enhancer