KVR Audio

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Thu Jan 16, 2025 4:57 am

Has anyone tried this? I downloaded the demo this morning and I've just been playing around with it. As a one-stop mastering solution I think it's actually pretty good. Every control has a purpose and you can hear what each is doing to your mix. The X-Y pad makes it easy to zero in on the sound you're after, too. For the intro price of $39, it seems pretty good. The demo timed out as I was testing it on my drum mix but it was sounding promising there, too.

CHECK IT OUT HERE

motomotomoto · Post by **motomotomoto** » Thu Jan 16, 2025 8:18 am

Heavyocity stuff is always good

vitocorleone123 · Post by **vitocorleone123** » Thu Jan 16, 2025 3:00 pm

Coming soon....

(kidding! maybe)

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Thu Jan 16, 2025 7:51 pm

Looks interesting, thanks for the heads-up

. Great price too. I might have some free time to check it out later.

DJErmac · Post by **DJErmac** » Thu Jan 16, 2025 9:25 pm

OK, well it's a special one.

Magic happens, or not. You have very few controls over the result.

I first tried it on my reference track, and no matter what I tried, even at the lowest compression levels, it only squashed it to death. Loudness war clearly isn't its thing.

On different instruments, after trying different settings, I got good results nearly every time. But I'd say it tends to slighly kill the high frequencies and emphasize the middle frequencies to the maximum.

The frequency curve you get is very pleasing I must say. When you A/B it's almost astonishing : it's like you've used compressors, multiband, limiters, EQs until all is perfectly clean. But don't expect any "smile" FX like from an OTT for example, this plugin can't do this in any way.

Purchased. This is a very, very fast way to get a perfect sounding track with only a few clicks for a low price.

morphex · Post by **morphex** » Sun Jan 19, 2025 2:28 am

I was thrilled when Heavyocity began to release effects outside of their instruments. I’ve enjoyed some of their sample-based instruments for years, and I was curious if they would ever branch out into VST effects that didn’t rely on Kontakt.

MicroFX Refiner obviously has some magic going on underneath the hood. The demo videos certainly seem to make the source material sound much more detailed and polished. I guess it would fall into the category of a “sound gooderizer” and if the shoe fits... well you know the rest.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Mon Jan 20, 2025 12:37 am

I bought it today. I really like what it does. My current mastering chain is FireCobra into STA Enhancer, with a Limiter on the Post insert and I think Refiner is capable or replacing them all. A couple of the presets are 95% of the way there already, with a bit of tweaking it could be even better.

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Mon Jan 20, 2025 9:05 pm

I tried it and it's not for me. It does some good stuff, but not sounding good on a lot of settings. Too obscure, in that I want to know what it's doing rather than just moving a xy pad around and hoping it works. Very muddy and distorted on a lot of settings for masters, though I didn't try it out exhaustively on channels. Big distortion when pushed hard for volume which makes me think it's not a very good clipper/limiter or whatever the f**k it is? Also f**ked up my system. The CPU usage looked OK but it REALLY slowed down everything. My master output meters pretty well stopped working, mouse control got glitchy, graphics went weird, pretty well like it was maxed out but cpu meter said no. Back to normal the instant I unloaded it, tried again and same thing. Cubase 14, standard i7 2yr old laptop. Something is very weird with that plugin so it's deleted, gone never to return.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Tue Jan 21, 2025 6:35 am

Weird, I've not noticed anything like that here.

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Tue Jan 21, 2025 5:14 pm

I might try it again on something else - it was on a reasonably processor-heavy ongoing mix. Possibly the CPU meter wasn't registering properly or something? I still don't like the interface and lack of control/parameters on it though.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:23 pm

Yeah, I'm actually the opposite. My favourite mastering plugin is still YouWaShok!, which had four modes and a single knob - the more you turned it up, the better your mix sounded. I never gave a shit what was going on, only how it sounded. I'm the same with FireCobra and also with Refiner. It works or it doesn't, you use it or you move on. I think I will be using Refiner on my drums more than mastering, as I've already got that nailed down pretty well and if it ain't broke...

DJErmac · Post by **DJErmac** » Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:42 pm

BONES wrote: Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:23 pm My favourite mastering plugin is still YouWaShok!, which had four modes and a single knob - the more you turned it up, the better your mix sounded.

bones_in_studio.jpg

I had forgotten about this plugin btw. I used it a lot a looooong looooong time ago.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Wed Jan 22, 2025 2:37 am

Yeah, it was 32 bit only, so I stopped using it a long time ago, too.

simon.a.billington · Post by **simon.a.billington** » Mon Jan 27, 2025 12:16 pm

I grabbed the other MicroFX plugins last year. It only made sense to grab this one as well.

db3 · Post by **db3** » Fri Feb 28, 2025 8:11 pm

Currently free with any purchase at Plugin Boutique.

Heavyocity MicroFX Refiner