Newfangled Audio Fixate:Midrange

[stuckpandora]

Ok. I gave it a go on a recent track I've been working on that had two of the problems Fixate:MidRange is built to solve:
1) There was some masking going on in the mids, especially low mids
2) There were some nasty resonances on a guitar part

I had tried a bunch of different methods to solve these problems previously, but wasn't really satisfied with the results. Regular EQ, Dynamic EQ, Soothe, etc. but everything I tried felt like it sucked the life out of the mix. I'm naturally very skeptical of these kinds of processors, but I love everything I've tried from Newfangled so far and these problems were really bothering me so when this came out I decided to give it a demo.

At first I did the full mix analyze and fix flow. Too aggressive, no life. Then, I tweaked some settings and loaded my own reference track. Much better, but still a little heavy-handed. I then switched to the transparent mode. It's very subtle, but I finally liked what it was doing. I wouldn't call it a total game changer for the mix, but it was definitely better.

Then I put it directly on the guitar track, put it on transparent mode, and just did the resonance suppression (no EQ shaping). Fantastic! Much better results than Soothe or Pro Q4 dynamic bands alone. The sauce for this particular track was to dial the automatic resonance suppression back a bit and combine it with a more subtle version of the dynamic EQing I was doing with Pro Q4. Chef's kiss! Bought it for the very reasonable crossgrade price and will likely be using it for this kind of thing a lot going forward.

[simon.a.billington]

My issue w/ these fix everything in your mix plugins is that, to my ears at least, they sap out alot of the energy of the track. Esp. Zynaptiq Unfilter and Waves Equator(AQ?) which I really put to the test on a lot of stuff and ended up always taking off.

The best results I've managed by far for such broad stroke work is from DSM V3.

That said I 'm moderately intrigued by this one based on the name brand. Gearspace seems to love it but I tend to take reviews from there with a grain of salt as it seems every new plugin is always the next best thing, but I digress.

I think thats true also, but to an extent.

While I actually see alot of that happening I actually largely think that's because of user error. Meaning, that its all to easy to overdo it, like compression, or saturation, or reverb, or many things really. Or maybe they just didn't make use of any Learn functionality. I believe the problems we're hearing is because people are too heavy haded with these tools, or not selective enough, trying to fix what isn't broken.

I think if used selectively and with a more lighter approach these tools can be quite effective.

[Gamma-UT]

I think the main problem lies in people using these tools too much on stuff that doesn't really need it in the first place. Resonance- and masking-hunting tactics have turned into the "high pass every channel; there must be no mud, ever".

[Dr.Gunjah]

The issue with high pass is that people do not set it by ear, but looking on the analyzer or simply set a certain cutoff on each track that they think "won't hurt". I don't see plugins like this being an issue as long as you double check if it actually improves the sound, which you should with almost any plugin. That being said the only plugin of this kind that usually stays on my mixbus is Finesse. That's the one to beat imo even if Fixate seems to work a bit differently with its critical bands approach.

[Gamma-UT]

The issue with high pass is that people do not set it by ear, but looking on the analyzer or simply set a certain cutoff on each track that they think "won't hurt". I don't see plugins like this being an issue as long as you double check if it actually improves the sound, which you should with almost any plugin.

Absolutely. I suppose it's a slightly different scenario here. With high-pass a lot of it is "I read it on the interwebz so I must use", whereas with these tools it's more "I got shiny new tool and shiny new tool must be put to work". The tools do a pretty good job overall but, a bit like reverb, unless you need the sound of the effect, it's better if you're not aware of them working, just that it doesn't sound quite so nice when bypassed (within the context of a full mix).

[Dr.Gunjah]

Yeah ngl I've had quite a few "bad awakenings" with tools I just slapped on by default because they sounded good on a few tracks. It's just natural though because who even has time to test every single plugin in their toolbox every single time. It also only gets worse if one keeps buying plugins.

Still gonna try Fixate, because I liked the concept of detroubler but it wasn't flexible enough and the dev (unlike NF audio) doesn't seem to be interested in improving their tools. Which tbf is understandable for a 12$ plugin.

[noahrbc]

Can’t believe how good each initial result sounds. This is giving me far better results that have so much more life compared to Soothe 2 and even Gullfoss. Apparently, Soothe 3 is on the horizon. We’ll see what that brings… but for now every Newfangled plugin I have has been an absolute hit.

[nusound mind]

My issue w/ these fix everything in your mix plugins is that, to my ears at least, they sap out alot of the energy of the track. Esp. Zynaptiq Unfilter and Waves Equator(AQ?) which I really put to the test on a lot of stuff and ended up always taking off.

The best results I've managed by far for such broad stroke work is from DSM V3.

That said I 'm moderately intrigued by this one based on the name brand. Gearspace seems to love it but I tend to take reviews from there with a grain of salt as it seems every new plugin is always the next best thing, but I digress.

I think thats true also, but to an extent.

While I actually see alot of that happening I actually largely think that's because of user error. Meaning, that its all to easy to overdo it, like compression, or saturation, or reverb, or many things really. Or maybe they just didn't make use of any Learn functionality. I believe the problems we're hearing is because people are too heavy haded with these tools, or not selective enough, trying to fix what isn't broken.

I think if used selectively and with a more lighter approach these tools can be quite effective.

I get what you're saying but in my case I was fairly thorough, I tested them on roughly 20 different songs at a variety of dif. settings from barely touching to more heavy handed and wanted to make it work.

They deharsh the mix alright overall, and at first blush it sounded smoother, more 'neat' and polite, but there's always a trade off I find. In my case, wasn't worth it. At least with the plugins I've tried.

I'll put Unfilter on a single channel for a drumloop or instrument from time to time and it can work well enough in that context.

I'm open to this plugin don't get me wrong, I have other NFA stuff (esp. saturate and Generate) that impress me enough that my interested is piqued. If it saves time w/out compromising the music, I'm all for it.

[jens]

This appears very much like Eventide's answer

It's from Newfangled Audio, not Eventide.

[simon.a.billington]

This appears very much like Eventide's answer

It's from Newfangled Audio, not Eventide.

Oh yeah. Oops. I think New Fangled Audio was created by one of Eventides old key developers, which is why I got my wires crossed.

[simon.a.billington]

My issue w/ these fix everything in your mix plugins is that, to my ears at least, they sap out alot of the energy of the track. Esp. Zynaptiq Unfilter and Waves Equator(AQ?) which I really put to the test on a lot of stuff and ended up always taking off.

The best results I've managed by far for such broad stroke work is from DSM V3.

That said I 'm moderately intrigued by this one based on the name brand. Gearspace seems to love it but I tend to take reviews from there with a grain of salt as it seems every new plugin is always the next best thing, but I digress.

I think thats true also, but to an extent.

While I actually see alot of that happening I actually largely think that's because of user error. Meaning, that its all to easy to overdo it, like compression, or saturation, or reverb, or many things really. Or maybe they just didn't make use of any Learn functionality. I believe the problems we're hearing is because people are too heavy haded with these tools, or not selective enough, trying to fix what isn't broken.

I think if used selectively and with a more lighter approach these tools can be quite effective.

I get what you're saying but in my case I was fairly thorough, I tested them on roughly 20 different songs at a variety of dif. settings from barely touching to more heavy handed and wanted to make it work.

They deharsh the mix alright overall, and at first blush it sounded smoother, more 'neat' and polite, but there's always a trade off I find. In my case, wasn't worth it. At least with the plugins I've tried.

I'll put Unfilter on a single channel for a drumloop or instrument from time to time and it can work well enough in that context.

I'm open to this plugin don't get me wrong, I have other NFA stuff (esp. saturate and Generate) that impress me enough that my interested is piqued. If it saves time w/out compromising the music, I'm all for it.

Yeah I understand. There's always a trade off in the end. Although, from a given perspective, that it's fortunate that these artefacts are ALL OVER modern music, as it will make any far less significant trade offs we choose to go with far more transparent and more forgivable.

[jens]

This appears very much like Eventide's answer

It's from Newfangled Audio, not Eventide.

Oh yeah. Oops. I think New Fangled Audio was created by one of Eventides old key developers, which is why I got my wires crossed.

Well they're also distributing it. So it's an easy mistake to make and yet imo thus at the same time an even more important one to point out/correct.

[c_voltage]

Folks, can someone check if VST2 works here ? At Win platform (Win10).
Have experience that it scanned ok but did not appeared in DAW plugs list. (Studio One 6 \ Ableton 12)
Need just for confirmation \ for tech support.

VST3 works \ appears ok in list.

[simon.a.billington]

This appears very much like Eventide's answer

It's from Newfangled Audio, not Eventide.

Oh yeah. Oops. I think New Fangled Audio was created by one of Eventides old key developers, which is why I got my wires crossed.

Well they're also distributing it. So it's an easy mistake to make and yet imo thus at the same time an even more important one to point out/correct.

Absolutely. It's an important distinction to make.