I needed to make this video… || The Oven 

After you mentioned Dan Worrall, in a previous video, I checked his channel out. I've learnt more about signal processing, linear modes and EQ curves in a couple of hours of his videos than I have in years of reading mix engineering guides. Thank you for the pointer

Wierd, nobody complains about auto gain when using 1176 or LA2A, but a saturation unit by its nature is adding gain in various ways so when it is a complex saturation it would be very difficult to output compensate for the complex gain differences each part makes, why don’t you put it on a bus, and use the faders, which basically everybody does in the analog world no problem but in the digital world everyone expects the plugin to do ALL the work, strange dichotomy somehow…….

The Oven is just amazing!

The concept of not reading anything in the manual that explains what the controls do, then not knowing what to do with them, during a video, then putting it through Plugin Doctor, and deciding you've realised something worth telling people about a product that people spent months or years developing is fucking bizarre

Usually autogain is not perfect. But it gets you in the ballpark… combine an autogain button and an output knob and that’s it

My psychic plug-in powers predict a lot of comments about no auto-gain lol! The gain structure on this plug-in was just too fiddly for me when demo’ing it…

I think Brainworx should implement autogain setting to that bar they have on all of their plugins. Maybe even automatic input level calibration. Playback 10 seconds of material and it would calibrate based on that. So you could have for example roughly -18 dBFS before the actual analog emulation.

They added not only screws, but also presets 😉 Thanks for the review!

Gotta give some props for the the concept. I already pitched the complementary Grill strips and a Microwave processing units, and a softer Vapour station with wet dry knob, it will complete the Kitchen VST Suit.

very helpful! You saved me some time (and space on the hard drive).

This plugin is probably aimed at the huge number of users out there who simply can not afford boutique analog outboard. Most analog emulation is for this reason. That’s why peoples’ needs can be quite different from yours. I know folks who have made their studio their business have the option to just patch in tubes on a whim, but most people don’t. Kush makes plugins that get probably 90% of the way there, but there’s just nothing like actual voltage. That doesn’t mean you can’t make stunning music in the box though, and all these new harmonic sturation plugins are a great tool to get there. Also. Yess EVERYONE needs to start implementing autogain. Acustica puts autogain in like 1/2 of their plugins and when they make a good one on introductory discount and it lacks autogain, i palm my face. Acustica is another company that insists on making knob interfaces that look exactly like hardware no matter if it’s the best design choice. Some of their stuff sounds freaking amazing, and i have a badass machine finally so i can run them. So i do like them. But please Acustica, always always do autogain, you’ve done it before, keep doing it!

I think this track is called "Rant Storm" by "The Dude"

Great plugin when you learn how to use it. But agree about the points Dan W made in his video about the layout of switches, etc. Hopefully, they will clean this up in v2.

I think that being confused is not such a bad thing. We should be able to mix with our heads, hands, ears, eyes and whatever other parts you can think of if it contributes to the process. On the other hand, I don’t have to know what goes under the hood, just like we don’t care what’s under the hood when we drive or use a washing machine. Knowledge is always beneficial and I don’t underestimate it by any means. But it is helpful to close your eyes once in a while and simply listen to the sound of what it does. Spend those 7 seconds adjusting the output level, suffer through the overdone GUI, set aside your confusion and simply LISTEN. After all this is what we do. As much as I’d agree with Dan and your video about the auto gain feature, as a sound engineer there was almost zero attention paid to the actual sound of the plug in. And that’s a shame as it makes your video more emotional rather than informative.

Ozone 10 has a really good auto gain that you didn’t see when you did that review. It’s the Gain Match button that auto-gains the whole ozone chain in real time

As for the TMT part of it, you can disable it by switching the Stereo Mode to Digital. So you kind of get both worlds in a way. I do enjoy the TMT on their channel strip emulations for exemple (which I use all over my mixes), it induce some small variation for every instance of the channel strip that induce non linearity in the equation, which I personally really like and I find a great addon in the digital world.

I love these unfiltered points of view. The Oven is one of the few PA joints I haven’t bothered to pick up. From what I heard here, the saturation is nice and musical. But I also really enjoy the recent Sa2rate plugin for the same purpose.

Saw Dan's video before this, great job. I will wait for a sale and possibly pick this up in the future

You just saved me allot of time thanks ❤

Since Reaper took it upon itself to add plugin oversampling which some developers haven't done, maybe Reaper could implement a plugin autogain feature as well? That would be killer!

This has become my favorite saturator. It's great after reverb, It's great on harsh sources like a high hat at times. It's great on Hammond B3's I also like it on kick and the drum bus. I mostly use it on a parallel bus and I like to use the presets as a starting point. The presets really show what it can do.

Prefacing this by saying I have not watched the whole video and I know this is your first impression on the plugin, but after spending some time with this plugin i find having two output stages really convenient. I use flow to compensate my gain and the output to make any final tweaks I want to make to the level, if any. This plugin does alias to my ears, but in a way that is not horribly unpleasant and sometimes i'll use it when i want a flavor similar to what i can get from Decapitator. I've mostly used it on tracks and busses, I haven't used it for MIxbus/mastering applications. It's a good saturator but not great, not quite a one trick pony but also not quite a true Swiss Army Knife saturator.

Been cooking with this plugin.

Thank you for this funny moment 🧡

LOVE the UX design comments on this! I often wonder what sort of workflow improvements could made if audio software wasn't so focused on being skeuomorphic.

2000: Innovations 2022: Interface contest

I got this for a dollar under the subscription I have with them. I ran it through plugin doctor after not being hugely impressed exactly as you have and came up with the same result near enough haha. Not really living up to the hype I've seen. But I'll keep giving it a try on stuff when I need a hint of character!

Yay another saturation plugin.

I am demoing the UA version of the oven. I am using it is in mono stereo side chaining on the master bus coming out my summing mixer back into my master channel and it sounds great. Is there other plugins that can do the job yes. I think the oven is easy to use each band is dip or peak so that is nice. The stereo side chain is really sweet. I also like the bettermaker mastering eq but the oven does just a good job and it seems more analog to me or the highs are not so sharp sounding when boosted. I finished up the mix and sent it for mastering and they barely touched it. So I think when UA puts it back on sale I will snag it up. I am more an analog guy but some of these plugins recently have been amazing like the neold u17 v76 and u73 blew my mind how they sound. Thanks for the review.

You really need to read the manual for this one. Flow is not just output gain. It’s attenuation between the first and second saturation stages and is what you’re supposed to use for gain matching.

Digital and analog don’t have to be different nowadays, mainly because of computing power. That’s why you now have a lot of digital plugins that successfully emulate analog gear, and people want exactly that.

Please do a review of tim Patrick L-bus compressor

Good fideo. Thanks. I like Dan Worrall's fideos too.

I'm waiting for a unit that has a "pizzazz" control. Cause all I really want to add is a little "pizzazz".

No auto-gain always makes me immediately suspicious, like “does this do anything other than make things louder to trick me into thinking it sounds better?”

Solid review. That’s exactly what it seemed to be from the demos. An EQ with the knobs given cute names. Nice business idea but nothing we can’t do a million ways without spending more money. Having to guess what the controls do is phoney, it mask’s the simplicity of it.

I don’t think it was intended to be anything new or revolutionary but rather a selection of curves and harmonic generation merged into one unit with simple controls designed to make life easier for a very reputable engineer who knows what sound he wants. It therefore can’t be compared to anything as its basically subjectivity in a box.

No autogain = bye. It's not difficult, it's just a "simple" formula to consider whatever you're adding to the original signal.

Use more plugin doctor, please, it is good for this kind of analisis

This is the only PA plugin i really like and use in my mastering sessions

I think the only use for this oven is to be able to make freshly cooked food for your plugins in your DAW!

waw, that sounds BIG. That saturation sounds super analogue to me (whatever that means)

so autogain isn’t that hard if the output is roughly changing in volume along with the input. i made a reaktor thing that divides the rms by the signal (which i’ve used in other stuff, cool bit of dsp), and then you separately mix the rms and divided signals for dry and wet, and then they’re multiplied together. setting rms to dry and div to wet gives you the tone of the effect with no gain changes, or you can do the opposite for the gain change with no tone change. issues arise when you have say a delay or reverb or such where the volumes are not so closely correlated, you can get loud spikes when a sound goes from really quiet to loud, since the rms takes time to rise and so the divided signal spikes, and while multiplying by an rms signal is better than listening to the divided signal on its own, spikes could still be an issue, so you just need to figure out changing the smoothed signal faster on impulses and then backing off on the attack when it’s steady. but it’s not that complicated for a distortion/eq/etc. hopefully that’s a decent enough explanation that a plugin dev would be able to figure it out 😂

I tried to like this plugin, it definitely does what it says, it is cooking the sound, filling it out with a very warmed up sound. But ultimately this approach wasn't for me. Maybe it would be great on bass. I also think, if they had autogain on this, alot of amateurs wouldn't buy it because they wouldn't appreciate what it's doing. Once you level match it with perceived volume, it doesn't appear to have added anything groundbreaking, but for mastering purposes it has added a whole lot. I think it's a well executed plugin, even sounds close to the hardware, just doesn't fit into my methods. But if you need to cook your sound, this is a great tool for that in the plugin world.

When I saw this plugin, I wasn't sure shall I laugh or cry... at first it looks like a playbox for kids. What comes next, The Dishwasher? As an experienced user, the terms cook or sizzle really don't mean anything to me when it comes to audio mixing. While it might be an OK oder good plugin, this is what put me off right away. Well I probably don't need it anyway. Doesn't look like it can achieve something that I cannot do with plugins I already have. They could have at least done a switchable user interface. Burners and sizzle for the BBQ chefs amongst us, and an understandable one for boring people like me. Thanks for the video Wytse! 👍

We’ve all been using non-technical descriptive terms to describe elements of audio for a long time; we use words like “boomy”, “silk”, “air”, “harsh”, “boxy”, “muddy”, etc., all the time, often without even thinking about it, but those terms have all been generally accepted (and understood) universally for a long time. Whether these terms were invented as studio “language” for engineers to more easily communicate with clients who aren’t as tech savvy, or perhaps vice versa, there’s no doubt that they’re common terms… It’s one thing for someone to come up with their own new descriptive terms that, while possibly laughable (in a face-palming sorta way) are also relatively harmless…but when these terms, which are often so ambiguous (like “flow”…🙄 okay, c’mon now, seriously…WTF is “flow”?) are being used on gear (and plug-ins) to REPLACE the technical descriptions of the controls, it just makes our job more difficult, or, at the very least, distracting, and, it’s pointless. I’m not saying that this piece of gear (or the plug) is bad, or even that it’s worthless, do-nothing snake oil, as it obviously does do something with implementing saturation on different levels, and, I’m sure it could be very useful for certain applications… but as you mentioned in the video, its use of novel and ambiguous terminology for the controls/settings just makes it unnecessarily hard to figure out. (Yeah, I still can’t get over “Flow” to describe output gain…Jeezus-Tap-Dancing-Christ, that’s REALLY dumb…)🤦🏻 IMHO.

Is there not a manual that says exactly what each knob does, thereby removing any confusion that seems to be the main theme of this review? Does one need to run it through plug-in doctor to know?

Let's talk about your mic setup...sounds amazing

LoL the perfect track for this Plugin, when I use The Oven, I feel like Everything is Upside Down...I don't know what's going on....

The older I get the more I know I need tools I can just understand. This thing might sound amazing for all I know. But I won't be using it, and that's ok. Will leave that to others to work it out and love what it can do.

Please do a full unmastered track session using the TC Electronic Finaliser, been waiting years for you to use it again.

Usually PA plug-ins I enjoy! This one however I never seemed to click with

Being discouraged due to not understanding what its doing, is like mixing with purely with the brain (analytical) and not with your ears. lol Sometimes you just gotta jump in and enjoy the ride. The song you used was sweet whos by?

Comment for da algorithm Streak count: 98 2 more to go!!😱

SOME of PA's stuff is really good. Not all though. And then some stuff you might think at first to be rubbish turns out to be quite useful, perhaps when illustrated by someone else. Also 'misusing' a device can render unintended but 'sonorific' results. This 'Oven' thing comes across, to Me, as a tonal flavour device; after the jokey nonsense is overlooked. I'll not be rushing out to get, but it might be to some other's taste.

Yep thought the same

I can't remember the name of it but there's this utility plugin that you can get, cheap, that inserted before and after a plugin will autogain any plugin.

Most of your questions would be answered by simply using the delta function in the Reaper FX window. Way better than Plugin Doctor, as you *hear* what's going on isolated. Benefit #2: gain compensation is a breeze.

I'm looking for a developer for a patchwork like vst/au host for one or a small chain of plugins which includes a softube style in and out meter and auto gain. So just a warm coat for all plugins you want to keep from misleading your ears and keep your gainstaging 'plan' in effect (no pun). I don't understand why hosts like ableton, cubase or logic don't provide this functionality in the DAW. Set your level at minus 12,15,18 dbfs and Logic does the rest and shows for each plugins the amount of compensation used to achieve this level. I bet people would appreciate this and it's saving so much time and certainly is something AI can handle as long as you know what's happening. I'm a gainstage and level OCD freak but know as well it takes time and keeps me away from going forward with ideas. So anybody knows the right developer for this kind of projects hit me up. I don't want 40 instances of A/B or Perception (which are great tools but not for this purpose.

Hahaha What a great remark about analog and digital engeneers :D Cant stop laughing on that. BTW video is "as it should be" or even better!

Hello!!! :) Can you make a video on JST maximizer? Curious as to what your take on it is - if you have the time of course!

What a discussion about autogain. Simply smack the autogain plugin from Hornet plugins behind it and it's done!

Arc De Soleil - Time and Bottles song 🙃

That must be a slowww cooker. Also, its not that difficult to implement level matching, just focus on your delta channel. ie bringing in or out a signal that only represents a change in the input signal ala phase inversion.

I learned from machine That One can auto gain with bass rider or vocal rider.

Is 2 stages. Tube and solid state. The hardware one. The plug in “emulate” the real deal

For EQ and Saturation, I go for Kush Audio Bliss.

OMG, Steven Wilson !

The entire bottom section is Plugin Alliance's adaptation they place on almost all of their plugins. The upper part does next to nothing, this oven doesn't even warm up for delivery. A money rip! Surprised Plugin Alliance is supporting something like this.

i had exactly the same reaction as you bud , what the ... does that mean and what is it doing? and i had watched the walk through video FIRST!

I really copy you on that autogain request, but sorry, if you don't understand the controls, or what that thing is doing, please RTFM.

It is what it is I guess, raise the temperature, start the cooking, burn the parts, raise sizzle and let it flow.

It sound great, warm and subtil, but the parallel mix is not corrctly calibrated and an autogain is cruely missing. And there is no real MS treatment, only Mide Side Monitoring

When developers can recreate voltage with dimensions then we be closer to the analog system Digital is flat once this is discovered then things will much better

Damn....This thing needs like 16x Oversampling! Would it even accept it and respond properly to it with reaper or meta plugin?

The problem is that Plugin Alliance can put anything out and people will think their mixes will never be the same without that new plugin regardless of how good it sounds

Maybe you should be radical : Autogain required in the plugin to be reviewed on your channel

Yes, but how do you apply for a patent on a non-physical thing?

It seems every control is designed to just make everything louder, and if there was an Autogain function, the plugin wouldn't do anything.

I enjoyed your thoughts. And this version of Sandstorm is really nice. I look at this and think: just how many of these 'the last thing you'll ever need' plugins are we going to see? Wasn't the Black Box supposed to be THE finishing tool? You wonder how anyone got anything out in the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. Sans 'magic' plugins.

At 2:50 you mention using a controller, it would be nice to showcase plugins using a cool controller, perhaps like the mp controller

This one I believe is truly Snake Oil!

What is the track you are using for the demo?

Hey man, I love your reviews and value them greatly. Something I would REALLY like to see/hear is your remix of “Sandstorm” using only native Reaper plugins versus your favourite non-Reaper plugins. Choose a listening panel to do a listen-only review to the result and THAT would make a great snake oil video! Cheers and thanks for all your great work.

I've heard from reputable sources that the TMT stuff doesn't make any sense

I love “The Oven” especially for Mastering. Its very subtle yet musical saturation its adding to the source moreover when its a bit lifeless and just to spice it up! There are so many plugins you could load to do the auto gain for you if not being build in. Yes it should be build in, but its not a problem if they didnt nowadays…… we are all professional enough not to get fooled with levels anymore right? Cheers 😊

notification gang

The problem with these fast video reviews of any gear, is that more attention is set on the negative side of things, . And the result is 99% of the comments made down below, focused on the negative things, while at the same time nobody even wondered how come the presenter is hardly talking about how it sounds…😏. I have both the plug-in and the actual unit 😁 And they both sound amazing and sweet!!! You just need to give yourself time to learn how to get that sweetness out of the unit. And to auto-gain or not to auto-gain that is NOT the question. That can be fixed. We don't mind working a bit harder to get an amazing sound out of a box. Plugin or hard box. Plus I would lways suggest, RT_M before you start tweeking...

There's only one developer that actually does Autogain right, because it is virtually impossible to do right in a single plugin. So...the answer is, have several plugins that do it in different ways, and use the one that works.

Everything is an EQ as they say. And its true, you only can manipulate 2 things - freq response and THD.

TMT is dope cause slight channel to channel variations actually allow you to get more information in the sonics because you're not overlapping the exact same filters over and over again. And Dan is an alright reviewer, pretty biased in my opinion just like you are.

AutoGain = If OriginalOutput < PluginOutput, lower PluginGainVariable by difference else, increase PluginGainVariable by difference Literally one to two lines of code to achieve auto-gain

Hornet sells a plugin that just does autogain. Have you ever done one of hornets plugins? I believe it's a very small company that doesn't charge a lot for their stuff. Worth checking out.

well, you sold me on plug in dr.

I really don’t want auto gain all the time. Maybe a switch for auto gain if I prefer

I will always say that all analog emulation developers should look at Liquid Sonics Seventh Heaven as a great example of enulting something into a modern UI

I think we should sometimes read the manual

It just takes 5-10 mins to skim the manual to figure out what the controls are. Reading plugin manuals is something that should be encouraged more actually.

I have gear from Hendyamps. Chris Henderson is a hardware genius. His gear is specifically tone gear, there’s nothing precise about any of it. Would be shocked if the plug-in actually does anything close to the hardware. The hardware is 6k lol

8:38 your output level is down and not in the middle, I think that's why you have the volume discrepancy