Anything involving big changes to the top end of a track after mixing all day.. is a trap!! Haha. Ear fatigue is real. I trust my high end only with fresh ears. It’s the first thing to go south for me after a couple hours. First phase fatigue; my track is too harsh, it’s annoying me. Second phase fatigue: my track is too dull!! Need to boost 5k 😬😂
"That's it, it adds a bit of Hhhh or Hssshh to your track" I'm ded 😂 got this plugin yesterday and it's a nice little add-on if you don't own analogue gear as long as you BEHAVE and keep that thing below 25%
In fairness though: Surely this is always going to sound bad if you're adding it to tracks which are already produced? Shouldn't it be tested out on some kind of dry signal which actually needs more brightness?
Tend to find that, used minimally on a vocal for example for just a bit more brightness, results are much better. Wouldn’t ever think of using it as an overall exciter on a mix
So glad I now get to add more "Hugh" and "Heeugh" in my mixes. Thank you for this. I already had the plugin before this video but it made my day to hear this.
I've tried this on a couple tracks over the last few weeks, and I have to say I like it a lot. Works pretty well on seperate channels rather than the master channel as well.
Before even watching this video, I do want to say I personally absolutely LOVE this plug-in! Edit: Now after watching, I absolutely agree with you! This is not some magic fix to make your mixes better. But man if used correctly does it help IMMENSELY. I added it to a vocal bus to brighten them a bit and it does it without any intense harshness. And this was after layers upon layers of mixing and adding it a few days ago. Love you brother! Great review
His tests are sometimes flawed. Slate is going to have a comparison and they might put it in their site like the stress. He should guess that blind test.
The fact that I actually looked up “Sandstorm - Darude” and noticed it wasn’t this, had me rolling 😂😂😂 It’s even more funny because I know what that song is😭😭
I went to use it on my laptop after installing on desktop, only to discover it only works on one computer. Oh - and it's shit. Acon free dynamic is way better.
Agreed. Went to download it and after creating two separate accounts, was taken to a "download page" not for the plugin but for the thing you have to get to download the plugin and...said NO THANKS
I really love this plugin. It makes my lousy cello pickup sound awesome. I really like super crisp, transparent, sharp sounds. Wish this plugin would be available as AUv3 for iPad and iPhone for my Loopy Pro setup.
Loved this plugin before my new laptop where it’s too annoying to install again. I use Fresh Air on some snares and vocals recorded through dark microphones. It’s fantastic when you use it appropriately. I no longer use it on full mixes because that does go a bit overboard usually. You can’t slap it on everything carelessly, sprinkle it in on some individual sounds
If this is based on the "Dolby A trick" then it's using multiband parallel compression in the highs and high mids. This is why it doesn't get as harsh as regular "exciters" which add harmonic distortion to enhance. You can create this same effect with FabFilter MB (or any multiband compressor) by compressing only the highest frequencies and adding small amount of "wet" to your "dry" signal .
I feel that this could add just that tiny bit of sparkle in certain productions. Totally not something I'd throw on everything but if I have a particularly dull instrument track it might help brighten it up a little. I feel on vocals this is dangerous as it is very easy to get that glassy harshness in the high tones like a broken dome tweeter.
I’m guilty of adding too much brightness like a lot of newer producers. I will say a tiny bit on vocals recorded through my Shure SMB7 is great, but I don’t need any recorded through my Lewitt 440
Great video. I've been using this plugin when mixing. Mainly I've been using it on individual tracks with automation to bring attention to certain sound at certain points of the mix. Just a little bit of excitement when a new sound comes in to bring your attention to it and then back it off. Like he said though very easy to over do it
For anyone interested in the Dolby "exciter" effect, it's possible to achieve it with the compander section in U-he Satin also. Press "Bypass Tape" then choose "A-Type Mod" as encoder and "None" as decoder. Set the effect to taste with the mix knob if you want to place the plug-in directly on a track or create a aux track and mix it in that way.
It worked great on the Jazz song. Especially "HHSSSSHH" knob in the cymbals! You should make a plugin where al the knobs are named after the sounds you think they make: "Wait let me crank the "HHSSSSHH" knob a little bit more
I’m enjoying it so far. Nice to accentuate claps and hi hats in a hip hop beat. Certainly not for every situation, but then again, few mixing tools are.
i would love it if someone would make a plugin or hardware unit for bass enhancement that worked the same way exciters do, but instead of having bands, it would have a resonator for every A440 12TET note within a certain range of low frequencies (maybe from E0 to E3 or so to encapsulate both downtuned basses and the lower strings of guitars). then instead of say, programming in a sine wave sub to follow what a bass guitar is doing, this would automatically add that by resonating with whatever the fundamental is at that moment.
I use Maag EQ4 for “air” in a mix. I have a thousand plugins and nothing from Slate. I can’t even remember what they did that irritated me but it was something. Because I’ve clearly unconsciously avoided them haha
@@stolencoats63 I think he's referring to a trick where 2 of the 4 'cards' that were installed in the Dolby 301A were removed from the device. This disabled the processing of the low and Mid frequency bands but left the upper bands intact and led to this silky air enhancing. Dolby later released the 361 which required a different hack ie removing resistors to disable the two lower bands and use the two higher frequency bands. www.audiothing.net/blog/the-dolby-a-trick/
Pretty entertaining. I don't want to be the skunk at your garden party, but an equalizer is exactly what this is, and nothing more. You can prove this to yourself by feeding white noise through your DAW. No Fresh Air, ruler flat on the analyzer. Fresh Air on, a boost, from 2K to 20K ramping up 5 dB, or from 8K to 20K, up 5 dB, or with both knobs engaged, 10 dB. It's right there for your eyes to see. If the waveform rises, and it does, that is a frequency boost, which is the textbook definition of what an EQ can do. The exciter in Logic Pro does the same thing, only it is much more versatile and can be configured many different ways. Still, what it is doing is EQ, Speaking of textbook definitions, when someone tries to sell you something and tells you it is something different than what it really is, or has capabilities that are different from what gear you already have, but in reality it really doesn't, that's the textbook definition of SNAKE OIL. So any EQ can do this, meaning no one needs this. Epic fail, Slate.
One of the most troublesome plugins to install. BUT here's a simple tip which worked for me. I'm using Windows 10 & Reaper btw. When you install Fresh Air I had a Fresh Air.vst file install into my vst3 folder. This didn't work but what did work is simply to copy the Fresh Air.vst file & paste it into the same location. Then rename it Fresh Air.dll. Simply changing the last 3 digits of vst to dll made it work for me. Good luck!
Fair review. A problem with all exciters and spatial plugins is, that people may wanna overdo it. You slam on an exciter and the longe you listen to it, the more you add later on and without a little experience you're maybe not pulling back.
Tried this plugin earlier on my vocal - I found the exact same thing where it was addictive at first - my mic isa but dull and this added that presence - but then when I closed logic and came back to it I was like damn that was way too much treble 😂 but overall I’m liking it so far! Def adds presence.
I love this thing, but im addicted to the dolby sound especially on background vocals, def leppard style. I tend to use parallel multiband to do a similar things, but of course this is quicker but easier to overdo.
For me the issue was not allowing the license to be registered in the computer itself! I don't want to connect to the internet each time i want to use one damn plugin 😩
It's doing something. It sounds like it's adding sheen according to a pink noise curve. Apparently, in the software community, there have been some algorithms in psychoacoustics that can model sound according to appeal of human hearing. So, this is probably some kind of variation of that algorithm. Izotope is working on something as well. Ever since they came out with the Sculptor module in Neutron 3, I've seen this AI powered EQ'ing coming to plugins. Gullfoss, Soothe, Sculptor, and others are using these new spectral algorithms. Anyway, I could be totally wrong, but I doubt it.
This plugin works great with rhythm guitar. I've tried it on other instruments and it was not so cool. But in my case, DI electro guitar with some EQ and this plugin sounded really well.
The snake oil as I see it: ""We've combined several advanced parallel processes under the hood to *MAGICALLY* elevate blah blah blah"". This isn't Disney. This isn't Marvel or DC. We're vibrating air, no "magic" to it.