FM | TESTBENCH
IK Multimedia MixBox
MixBox is a custom channel strip plugin that lets you build a rack of effects from a single plugin screen. Many channel strip plugins concentrate on a standard combo of EQ and compression. IK’s heritage in modellin more music gear means you also get studio effects like delay, reverb and modulation, plus guitar amp elements such as cabinets. All of this makes it a versatile, creative effect-hosting unit that will appeal to musicians as well as just producers and mixing engineers. Let’s open the lunchbox on this tasty Italian collection of mixing effects, with its huge set of devices, resizeable interface, and standalone mode that lets you load eight separate racks of eight devices, all at the same time…
Starting the stack
We’ll use MixBox over a synth part to start off with. When we open the plugin up the rack is empty, but there’s a world of possibility here. We start off by loading a British EQ into the first slot, and using this SSL-style parametric device to reduce the lows, provide a broad boost to the mids, and notch out some harsh frequencies around 3kHz. We can choose a new unit for the chain from the top of the second slot. Next we’ll tame the sound a little with a compressor…