While we all love our effects, softsynths and beatmakers, when it comes to the crunch we ultimately spend more time alongside our trusted workhorse mixing tools, working long into the night trying to get the perfect balance of elements. While in the past we’d approach each process individually, from EQing, compression, limiting etc, this year has seen a flurry of products that instantly yield topnotch results across numerous mixing situations. Foremost in our mind is LOLCOMP by Mixing Night Audio. The second release from the company that was birthed from the mighty Grammy-winning producer Ken Lewis’s ‘Mixing Nights’, what the MNA team managed to concoct was nothing short of miraculous for resolving many of our mixing headaches. Its five curated chains for fixing and caressing different elements of the mix, as well as its uniquely intuitive (and ‘gamified’) UI made it stand above many of its contemporaries. As opposed to other compressors and processing tools, LOLCOMP allowed you to remain completely in a creative headspace while still applying some deft compression chains, as used on many of Ken’s Grammy-nominated releases.
Another masterful release came via CM favourites Leapwing Audio, whose StageOne 2 adroitly updated its original stereo-field coraller StageOne with masses of new additions, including multiband processing and a snazzy stereo visualiser that improves the workflow tenfold. The original’s soundstage-controlling algorithms have been expanded also, with Width, Depth, Mono Spread and Center Gravity being joined by Phase Recovery – this enables the plugin to smartly detect out of phase components and work to re-align them instantly. The visual feedback is both mesmerising and a technical boon to those who struggle to pinpoint exactly where the issues lie in the audio spectrum. When it came to our review, we said, “StageOne 2 is an exceptional update that only improves on an already excellent plugin. It feels like a Swiss Army knife of stereo manipulation that could be used to refine and enhance individual tracks or an entire mix, and on lower settings in particular, it sounds incredibly natural and transparent.”