'air band' battle: fresh air, air shelf, clariphonic 2

[fisherKing]

spent the day yesterday comparing 'air band' plugins, something i've been curious about. i already have the izotope exciter, but don't use it often. so i compared slate digital's fresh air, bertom audio's air shelf, and kush's clariphonic 2.

tried with vocals, piano, and a full mix. for me:

the places where these plugins were most useful were with the vocals and the full mix; not much needed for the piano (the noire piano), particularly as my focus was on the high end, versus any midrange presence.

i looped a  solo female vocal phrase, then separately, a full song chorus, 4 times (once with no plugin, the once with each plugin), so i could focus on listening and not have to turn tracks on & off. round 1, i tried to match settings (as much as possible, considering the plugin differences). round 2, i tried what sounded best to me for each situation.

fresh air sounded pretty good at first. air shelf, with it's extremely-minimal interface, sounded a little better. clariphonic 2, with it's many options, fared best (altho there were places where the air shelf sounded as good as the clariphonic).

a little goes a long way. the prevailing wisdom that one should find what they like out of an air plugin then roll it back as much as halfway, makes sense.

for me, the winner was the clariphonic 2; having control over so many parameters made a difference. but the air shelf is pretty great for what it is.

in the end, tho, am going with the air shelf. the slate is free, the air shelf is 'pay what you want'; the kush, by comparision, is expensive (but again, the most comprehensive).

sadly, the slate & kush plugins require ilok, and i prefer not to use that. besides, i got what i needed from the air shelf, since i will use it sparingly; so am happy with how this works out.

thoughts, comments, arguments welcome

[telecharge]

Have you tried any Mäag Audio plugins? - https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... maag_audio

[El°HYM]

Especially for the Air - Band, me would still stay out of the box. Which in this case, funnily enough is also the Clariphonic or Creme as cheapest options.

[fisherKing]

the maag is great, i've used it (elsewhere) in the past. my test is definitely missing some other options (and i could have added the izotope to the tests). i have no desire to work 'out of the box', i prefer a simple, repeatable and portable solution for mixing...

[fisherKing]

one more observation: tried this with a drum loop (apple's drummer), and each plugin held it's own (i worked with some upper-mid boost). fresh air sounded good in this instance, and got the other 2 sounding much the same. clariphonic 2 really is the most versatile...

[El°HYM]

Try TDR - Nova GE, if you really need to do this ITB; or any other that goes 40 kHz and beyond. It should be basically the same as long as its just a digital filter, without any kind of excitement or saturation added.

[zeep]

Fresh Air in my experience sounds the best. Not the least due to its dynamic action. Maag is nice but its static. Clariphonic i used a few times and afaik it was also a static shelf.
Fresh Air can add that magic mid high and high sheen without harshness. Works great on mixes, busses and tracks.

[fisherKing]

Fresh Air in my experience sounds the best. Not the least due to its dynamic action. Maag is nice but its static. Clariphonic i used a few times and afaik it was also a static shelf.
Fresh Air can add that magic mid high and high sheen without harshness. Works great on mixes, busses and tracks.

it's a reminder of how subjective this all is. any one of these plugins, used well, will work.

[Uncle E]

The thing that makes the Maag/NTI hardware special is how broad the bands are. By that logic, any EQ that lets you set a super broad Q will sound the same.

FWIW, all the Massive Passive plugins I've tried have great air bands.

[Funky40]

lets say one would want to emulate something similar with a modern digital plugin EQ, what would be the settings ? I´d just like to get an idea what this Airband really means translated to such terms.

Do phase shifts play a role to create certain effects ?

[Uncle E]

Set a parametric EQ's high band to shelf with the widest Q possible, then boost 20KHz or higher.

Phase shift is caused by the resonance peak around the band. The wider the Q, the less you'll notice it.

[morphex]

Fresh Air in my experience sounds the best. Not the least due to its dynamic action. Maag is nice but its static. Clariphonic i used a few times and afaik it was also a static shelf.
Fresh Air can add that magic mid high and high sheen without harshness. Works great on mixes, busses and tracks.

it's a reminder of how subjective this all is. any one of these plugins, used well, will work.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and your opinions. Exciters and air-type enhancers are probably the effects that I have the least amount of experience using.

While I do some vocal editing and mixing, most of the vocals have already been recorded in someone else’s studio, where they have access to high quality mics, and a premium vocal chain going into the DAW.

So I rarely need to use these types of effects. But I would like to learn more about when and where to use them when a recording actually needs it. That includes understanding the differences in the plug-ins out there. I have the Maag from Plugin-Alliance, so it’s helpful to hear about other options.

[fisherKing]

most of my collabs are singers, in other cities/countries, so i have no control over the vocal recordings. occasionally, i find i need to 'open up' the vocals a bit, and the clariphonic 2 will be useful. still, i expect to use this only occasionally.

am definitely into 'less is more', and just want vocals clean, clear. but i could see using this on a live drum bus as well, or a guitar that needs some clarity.

will see how it all goes....

[El°HYM]

https://www.kvraudio.com/product/luftikus-by-lkjb

[whassup]

Airwindows has quite a few offering for pretty high end.
Check the Brightness folder in Consolidated.