HARD TO BELIEVE IN MIXHEAD?

Another review from Sean & Dan.
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[@GaryCareyMusic]

Yeah....thanks guys, I've been working with the demo and thinking it must be my ears at fault for not hearing anything special! Glad to find out I'm not alone in being unconvinced. You're now my first stop for plugin reviews.

[@KeenanCrow]

Yeah if you review it as a tape emulation it’s obviously not there. People don’t like it because it sounds like tape. It sounds nothing like tape.

[@StudioLife101]

As saturation plugin...it's nothing any other saturation plugin can't do...💁‍♂️ It sounds OK...sure...but it's not magic or unique.

[@KeenanCrow]

@@StudioLife101 sure it’s just another flavor. But I like the flavor. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@StudioLife101]

@@KeenanCrow that's all that matters.👍

[@rossjohnmartin]

I actually love this thing, been using it on busses and it’s got a cool sound but it is subtle. Got it in a deal for £40 though. It also looks better with the smallest GUI option.

[@AH23794]

I love it. Final magic dust on a master

[@JoeyFTL]

How did you get the £40 deal?

[@SmokeM2D6]

My experience has been far different. I have all the tape emulations (SoftTube, all the IK ones, Chow) I even have a ZULU hardware unit, and I must say, that I enjoy this plug in alot, specifically on Bass, Drums, and Vocals. It works for me, and I am using it way more than my other tape emulations, and it is way lighter on my cpu than other tape plugs as well.

[@cristopherjohansson1323]

I agree. But I didn't get it the first try either, took some days and then it was like a aha moment for me. This plugin and the Crane Song phoenix is my favorite tape plugin and none of them sound like real tape lol.

[@wouterdesmedt1736]

Was waiting for this one. Glad to hear my suspicions confirmed. And getting a good laugh or two in the process. 😂

[@BukanIbuMu]

0:09 Keep rollin' rollin' rollin' rollin'.

[@ayokiff1073]

Honestly I run it through superplugin to oversample FIR and sounds really good to my ears. I’m not too scientific but I know folks have been saying it’s aliasing like crazy lol.

[@ruudheadz7095]

keep on reviewing, viewing, reviewing...👍

[@Rhuggins]

The secret is that it transparently gives you some extra headroom in a cool way. I like it personally but totally get the other side too

[@johnnyrenfield]

I did it all for the music 🤘💀🍻🔥

[@eds4754]

The algo from the original hardware is a 1:1 port of the old Magneto plugin from Steinberg/Cubase

[@StudioLife101]

Nooooo.....can't be....😂 Vintage Warmer used to smoke that one easily...

[@eds4754]

@@StudioLife101 has the exact same controls etc. Tbf if it’s good enough for Serban then no one should have any complaints. Not sure it’s worth more than £30 or so but maybe we’re spoiled for choice these days

[@AJOrpheo]

I think the box made sense back in the day. With everything being digital but restricted by much weaker computers than we have today, it would make sense to use a “plugin in a box” to offload cpu load, have a physical control, and give you the sound you needed. Other things like this were waves L2 box and the Weiss boxes. Also kinda funny how with Dante and the likes we’re seeing a return to the all digital setup with high end digital boards as the center. Or a Chad with a Midas Pro2 which I still think sounds better than some analog recording consoles. I love old Midas gear pre-music tribe buy out

[@StudioLife101]

I toured Midas analogue desks for years....never liked their digital boards, but I know plenty of engineers who love them. 👍

[@RayTheProducer]

GUI reminds me of the old BBE Sonic Maximizer. You two are mental 😅 (in the best possible way). Funny how we salivated after all these boxes back in the day, and now that they’re being sold for peanuts, we’re perhaps not quite as enamored. PS Softube Tape is still the champ.

[@StudioLife101]

👍😂

[@sparella]

Hey, you're trash talking my favorite two band EQ! 😊 Seriously though, I like what the all pass filter plus high shelf does to some orchestral instrument takes.

[@azoteapost8734]

Great one ! 😂just for the laughts!

[@sburton84]

I always find it wild that people think that an old piece of digital hardware that had a couple of 66MHz DSP chips can somehow produce a tape emulation as realistic as plugins designed to run on modern CPUs with 8+ cores each running at multiple GHz. It would have to be some magical algorithm that nobody since has ever managed to replicate, which seems awfully unlikely.

[@GingerDrums]

So you think it's wild that people prefer lo-fi clipping, in an era where the most successful music sounds lo-fi and clipped?

[@sburton84]

​@@GingerDrums Yes, if you want analog lo-fi effects then modern plugins emulating that are going to be much more accurate than a copy of a 20 year old digital device, and if you want digital lo-fi you can just use plugins that do that directly instead of ones that try to emulate ancient hardware that's trying to badly emulate tape.

[@KeenanCrow]

It’s not designed to emulate tape. That’s not the goal.

[@sburton84]

@@KeenanCrow The hardware that's described as a "Tape Saturation Processor" and that the manual literally says "precisely reproduces the analogue tape saturation effect" is... not designed to emulate tape? 🤣

[@KeenanCrow]

@@sburton84 yeah but talk to the guys that made the plug. The reason people are still using that hardware unit is precisely because it failed at what it was supposed to do (tape saturation) but it excelled at being its own thing.

[@TheMixClub]

I tested it out!! then deleted it after 20 min. Agreed with what you said.

[@jjwhittle8873]

SPL definitely weren't involved, and were pretty livid about it by all accounts.

[@ramspencer5492]

In case to see what you guys say about this one. There's always rave reviews of it but the audio examples I heard on the videos (KZbin compression and what else was in their mix)....I was like mmm... Am I hearing subtle weird bit crushing artifacts? Aliasing maybe?

[@BukanIbuMu]

Well, it is supposed to be some kind of aliasing. Because the Mixhead is an emulation of a digital tape saturator unit.

[@ramspencer5492]

@@BukanIbuMu that just seems like a really bad idea to me in 2024! 🙃🤣

[@mvsr990]

Nulling two pieces of audio, aside from the obvious (top and bottom end being lopped off with the 3.5IPS setting and the HF boost boosting) all it seems to do is add some nasty digital crunch on the high end.

[@diysounds2532]

I think digital tape emulation was even included in som DAT recorder if I remember well. Might what magnetic tape was emulating init ?

[@StudioLife101]

I don't remember that....what a mad idea. No one missed tape for years in my experience....we were too busy enjoying cutting and pasting and enjoying the silence...😂

[@RealHomeRecording]

@@StudioLife101 yep.

White noise studio did also Review on it, and at the 48 seconds mark he shows an interesting comment from SPL complaining they didn't give the code and that they're pissed. I don't know where the comment's from though. I like the sound it does, but the UI gave me nightmares so I didn't get it after the demo. Seeing the names of the presets, it feels like all their buddies that were beta testers got a shot to feature in this section, a bit useless. You didn't mention the easter egg (and main commercial argument) about Serban Ghenea :) (which i don't really really care) Keep on making honest reviews ! ❤ Just a question wasn't the fatso kind of the same thing?

[@StudioLife101]

Fatso was actually analogue with digital control...👍

@@StudioLife101 Ooooh I see. So as plugins, the fatso is a digital emulation of an analog emulator with digital controls, while the mixhead is a digital emulation of a digital emulation, both emulating analog stuff. Fucking hell seriously 🤣 I don't recall seeing a top tape saturation in the long videos ? I haven't checked those in a while :)

[@StudioLife101]

😂😂 Good point....tape emulation top 5 needs to happen. 👍

[@ItsMetabtw]

I appreciate the honesty. I was looking forward to demo’ing this since I LOVE their Sontec plugin. Well I didn’t even need 3 hours to hear a shittier aliasing version of other saturation plugins I already have. It doesn’t even sound like tape to me, outside of a head bump I suppose

[@filecciabilly7899]

This Mixhead dose on trick my other pony’s can’t do 😂 it will be on my mix buss and master buss. It adds a openness and punch in a way that I can not achieve with arsenal of high-quality plug-ins

[@StudioLife101]

Describe 'openness' for me...cos I don't hear that at all....

[@filecciabilly7899]

@@StudioLife101 It separates or balances the harmonics. It adds puff to the kick while not adding to much density e.g I have every high end plug in out there …. Now that said sure Mixhead will not fair with over compressed SHiT …..lol … if you have a very balanced mix not over compressed … it will open up even more. The full price for Mixhead is SHIT but $99 borderlines Roll Balls …. Still Shit but better…….👍

[@StudioLife101]

@@filecciabilly7899 I'm still not a believer in the term 'open up'....cos that means at top end...and I don't think that's what you mean...👍

[@StudioLife101]

@@RayFerretti I saw....not surprised. It's not unique as we said...👍

[@DerekPower]

Now I know why they call it Mixhead 😁

[@blackswanstudios6632]

Nice to see an honest video about this one. There are much better saturation tools out there that more transparently gives you extra headroom and level. And the built in compressor sounds like an old school digital plugin compressor, killing the punch of the kick. That part really doesn't sound analog! It adds a lot of level, but once you level match the before and after signal this one is nothing special. I think there's one reason and one reason only why audio 'influencers' have been so eager to hype this: The original hardware unit has been used, famously, by Serban Ghenea.

[@snubdawg1386]

please can you tell me which plugins are much better then this, so i can try them out

[@user-xg2il9bu1g]

UAD Studer A800 and UAD Ampex ATR102 plus the T-racks tape emulations are my go-to for this kind of thing - and they’re a lot cheaper than this

[@snubdawg1386]

@@user-xg2il9bu1g thx

[@blackswanstudios6632]

@@snubdawg1386 As for tape emulation, yes as someone mentioned the IK collection which is better in that department, Satin as well (in fact I like that even above the UAD Studer tape), but as for the whole saturation/add perceived loudness thing, I prefer black box hg-2ms (if you know how to set it optimally) and even Fieding DSP Reviver which simply lets you dial in the odd and even harmonics. I don't need the EQ curve that the MixHead imposes, or the sub par compressor it has nor do I need the built in kick punch eraser. I've come to the conclusion that the Serban thing + lack of level matching is what has been selling Mixhead, not some kind of groundbreaking magic.

[@sparella]

​@@snubdawg1386This plugin is a waveshaper. If you want a fully featured waveshaper then Melda MWaveShaperMB is the one. If you want easy waveshaping and harmonic manipulation, MSaturator is free.

[@DavidSJ_DAP]

I had my doubts about this one...thank you for validating them...

[@KozmykJ]

Koz puts his Nerd specs on 🤓 Aye think you'll feined that that's 3.75 ips not 3.5 ... 😜

[@StudioLife101]

Ahh....yes....my blind ass can't see that tiny screen..👍 😂

[@YEE941]

Hard to believe 🤣🤣🤣🤣 yall are hell

[@johndoe-cb5ck]

So what learned is that Dan needs to get out more....and maybe he'll find that special someone

[@StudioLife101]

😂😂

[@steverachmadofficial]

Have you tried to crank it up?? It can't!! The sound gets completely destroyed a very very ugly way I haven't heard before 😝For the keep up the good work. You guys are hilarious 😊

[@StudioLife101]

Yep...it gets nasty...

[@rusj5273]

You guys crack us up and informative at the same time. #KZbin these guys need an Award.

[@StudioLife101]

Cheers 🤘

[@SuperHk303]

You guys are great, much love

[@StudioLife101]

Appreciated and reciprocated 👊

[@SuperHk303]

@@StudioLife101 Legends :)

[@patrickanthony3572]

This plugin has a cult like following because of an endorsement by a famous producer. You be damned if you were to criticise it. Thanks for taking a strong leadership approach and calling this out objectively.

[@AH23794]

Endorsement from a famous engineer. One of the best. And the one who used the hardware religiously. Get it right

[@StudioLife101]

@@AH23794 I can guarantee the rest of his signal chain and his talent did the heavy lifting....not this.

[@patrickanthony3572]

⁠@@AH23794He is famous for his talent, he is not famous for using one specific piece of gear. This will not give you his ears, room, monitoring system, signal chain, and years of experience.

[@ronson795]

Finally an honest review. The Gearspace thread about this is a joke. If there wouldn't be the "Serban uses this on his mixes" thing nobody would've cared about another saturation plugin. Totally overrated.

[@Mike_Benz_]

😂

[@DJAdalaide]

Is it Mixhead or shithead?

[@StudioLife101]

Well....😂

[@hettovennik2887]

you beat me to it

[@jemwand2530]

Just because some Sabian Garnish uses it doesn't make it fairy dust.

[@BukanIbuMu]

He is the king of the Billboard 100 chart.

[@jemwand2530]

@@BukanIbuMu No Man, you are thinking of Serban Ghenea, totally different.

[@AH23794]

​@@jemwand2530um. That's who endorsed it🤦🏾‍♂️🤦🏾‍♂️

[@patrickanthony3572]

@@BukanIbuMuSo using this plugin will get you into the Billboard 100? I hope that works out for you. It’s okay to take inspiration from others, but tread your own path along the way, find your own sonic signature. ✌️

[@jemwand2530]

@@AH23794 Oh, he endorsed it, did he? Well, silly old me for being so unedumicated!

[@tekis0]

Too rich for my blood at $179.

[@manvince]

Absolute shit in my opinion.