Add a Touch of Refinement
By Graeme Hague
29 May 2014
In the never-ending battle to bring warmth and analogue-like quality to digital recordings Plugin Alliance has brought a new weapon, the bx_refinement plug-in. Bx_refinement is designed to remove harshness, which developer Gebre Waddell of Stonebridge mastering believes has become increasingly prevalent in mixdowns thanks to the digital environment and our nasty habit of over-compressing everything. As you can tell from the controls and parameters on offer, bx_refinement takes an entirely different approach to the problem and, suffice to say, we’ve put our hand up for a review copy to find out just how it all works. Plugin Alliance has also released an update to its bx_saturator plug-in, now called the bx_saturator V2. While retaining all of the key features of the original, including M/S processing, the ability to add saturation or distortion to targeted frequencies, and increase perceived volume without clipping, bx_saturator V2 promises improved smoothness of the sound and the anti-aliasing, while reducing the CPU requirements significantly. As always with Plugin Alliance products, the website at www.plugin-alliance.com offers extensive info, downloads and video walk-throughs of the plug-ins.
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