The core of every mixing console is its sound. It doesn’t matter how good it looks or how good the workflow is if it doesn’t sound right. And in the end, it’s only what the listener hears—the result of your production, the song and the sound—that will be remembered.
At Softube, we have modeled, analyzed and listened to countless of mixing consoles and outboard gear over the past twenty years. And we spoke with many mixing engineers and producers to figure out what they want and why they prefer certain tools when they work. They talk a lot about workflow, but probably most importantly; they talk about how the workflow influences the sound. A turn of a knob needs to feel right, the action needs to correspond to the change in sound.
They also talk about how they want to be able to “paint with wide strokes”, but need to be precise and “corrective” other times. The creative process often starts with large strokes and gets more and more detailed.
We wanted to capture all of this: the sound of the favorite tools, along with the workflow that they prefer, into a single channel strip for Console 1 - Core Mixing Suite.
Core Mixing Suite
Core Mixing Suite is our idea of the perfect channel strip. It is an amalgam of processing, derived from decades of DSP knowledge, featuring processors with both “wide strokes” and “precise adjustments” right there at your fingertips.
The Core Mixing Suite input features a Tape emulation and filters with adjustable slopes. Three main studio compressors: FET, Opto and Bus Compressor, together with a vintage style parallel EQ and a modern precise and corrective EQ let you craft your mix before outputting to the famous Console 1 Drive section.
In addition to this, we decided to expand on the Shape section with more tools, such as a new mono compatible panning algorithm, and a new type of dual dynamics processor that allows you to easily adjust the dynamics for low and high frequencies separately.
Most tracks won't need all this processing, but when you need it you know that you have it without having to leave Console 1.
The first processing step in the Core Mixing Suite is the Tape/Preamp processor. It brings the analog sound of running through the inputs of consoles and tape machines to any DAW.
To overdrive the Tape/Preamp stage, use Input Gain so that the input level reaches above 0 dBFS. The output volume can be used to level match when the Tape/Preamp stage is bypassed. Core Mixing Suite provides 3 different processors.
Core Tape
Core Tape softens the transients and adds cohesiveness and tape shine to the track. The algorithm is the same as our Tape plug-in, and it uses the default setting (Type A with 15 IPS) with no audible tape modulation.
Core Modern Preamp
Core Modern Preamp shapes the tone with a gentle presence lift and subtle saturation to emphasize the high mids.
Core Vintage Preamp
Core Vintage Preamp creates a rounder tone with some gentle compression and harmonic saturation as you drive it.
The filter section in the Core Mixing Suite consist of a low pass and high pass Butterworth filters with selectable slope (6, 12, 18, 24, and 48 dB/octave). Butterworth filters are designed to be maximally flat and have a more linear phase in the passband, in order to be as transparent sounding as possible.
High Cut: Sets the cut-off frequency of the high cut (low pass) filter. From 20 Hz to 30 kHz.
Low Cut: Sets the cut-off frequency of the low cut (high pass) filter. From 10 Hz to 20 kHz.
High Cut Slope/Low Cut Slope: Sets the order/slope of the filters, ie. how steep they are. 6, 12, 18, 24, and 48 dB/octave.
The Core Mixing Suite provides three different Shape sections.
Core Shape
Core Shape is the default Console 1 dynamic shaper and it contains two different processors to shape your sound: a transient shaper and a gate.
Transient Shaper is the algorithm from the SSL SL 4000 E strip, while the gate is a new algorithm based off of many of the greatest gates of the 1980s. It features an adaptive release circuit that changes the release envelopes based on the character of the audio. The adaptive release circuit is more stable than a regular release circuit and will be less prone to "flutter" between an open and closed gate.
Gate: Adjusts the threshold where the gate should start to reduce the sounds.
Ratio: Adjusts the ratio of the gate, from 2:1 to 20:1 (hard gating)
Range: Sets the maximum amount of gain reduction.
Release: Sets the time it takes for the gate to close.
Punch: Decreases or increases the onset of the sound, for example to soften recorded brass with super loud transients, or to add more punch to a snare drum.
Sustain: Decreases or increases the sustain of a sound, for example increase to bring out more room sound from the drum overheads track.
Tambourines and hand claps... they can really take a chorus to the next level but can be extremely difficult to place in a mix. Before you start to EQ the life out of them, play around with the Sustain and Punch controls. In many cases that's all you need to do. (Together with some healthy amount of low and high cut of course...)
Core Panner
Core Panner is a novel algorithm that allows you to place a mono or stereo sound source in a room, but without applying a room sound or reverberation. Using Pan and Depth, you get realistic panning, similar to that of binaural panning methods, but without sounding phase-y in mono. It’s mono compatible and “safe to use” for mono compatible mixes. If you are in doubt, you can easily check the mono compatibility using Console 1’s Width control in the output section.
Use the panner as a widening tool on mono sources! The panner widens mono sources if Pan is set to anything else than 0 degrees. But make sure that you insert the Console 1 plug-in as “Mono To Stereo”, otherwise the widening won’t work!
Pan: Position the sound in the left/right sound field. Pan at 0 will preserve the stereo image as it is, while moving it to the left or right will widen the stereo image and also give the listener the sense that the audio source is being placed left or right. A little goes a long way, it's seldom necessary to pan more than 30 degrees.
Depth: Increase Depth to give the illusion of a sound source being pushed further away in a room. It softens the transients while applying filtering to the source. It does not change the apparent volume of the track.
Mono In: Convert your stereo audio to mono before being processed. This is helpful if you want to place the audio in a certain position in the stereo field, but it’s too wide to start with. It's also a problem solver if you have a stereo file with audio only in one channel.
Swap L/R: Swap the left and right channels. This is useful if you have a recorded stereo mic and just want to switch the left and right channels, for example if you want the drums or the piano to be “seen” from the audience or player’s perspective.
Please note that the Console 1 plug-in needs to be inserted as a Mono-to-Stereo or a Stereo plug-in for the panning to work!
Core Dual Dynamics
A secret trick for fixing problems in a track or bus with a wide frequency range is to apply subtle expansion on one part of the frequency range while compressing another. It’s similar to multiband compression, but with the addition of the expansion part.
With Core Dual Dynamics you can gate/compress low and high frequencies independently to get low frequency rumble under control or slightly attenuate the high frequencies for de-essing or “tape” like effects.
On a drum bus, reduce the Lo Dynamics and increase the Hi Dynamics (with Auto Make-Up on) to tighten up the low end and bring out the sizzle of the cymbals.
Lo/Hi Dynamics: Adjusts the ratio of a super-soft knee processor, going from gate/expansion at -100%, to 1:1 at 0%, and finally compression at 100%.
Auto Make-Up: Turn on to boost the band when it compresses. This is very useful if you want to enhance the tail of a kick drum or the room sound in the overheads. Turn it off if you want to de-ess using the Hi Dynamics band.
Crossover: Sets the crossover point for the high and low bands.
Speed: Increase or decrease the attack and release times of the processor.
Lo/Hi Solo: Solos the current band.
To use the Dual Dynamics as a HF Limiter or de-esser, turn off Auto Make-Up, set Crossover to 1-5 kHz, and increase Hi Dynamics.
Core Mixing Suite includes two very different equalizers with two different purposes. The Vintage Equalizer is smooth and musical, to be used for the broad strokes when you want to balance the mix and get it to feel right, while the Modern Equalizer is precise and flexible and lets you do the corrective work needed for your tracks.
Core Vintage Equalizer
The Vintage Equalizer is a passive and parallel equalizer design, which means that the band interaction is different compared to modern solid state equalizers. This effect can be seen when you have overlapping bands: two bell bands with 6 dB boost each don’t sum up to 12 dB of gain like a “standard” digital equalizer, but less than that. You also get a better separation between the bands when their center frequencies are close. Many engineers say that parallel equalizers are more musical and vibe-y, but can sometimes be quirky to work with because of the band interaction. Precision work is often easier to do with a standard equalizer, such as the Modern Equalizer.
The Vintage Equalizer was designed to be musical. At first glance it might look like the band's default Q values are extremely wide. However, all bands cover a “full” frequency range the primary idea is to use the Gain controls to broadly shape the sound.
The peculiar shape of the low shelving band is an artifact of the parallel design: if you boost the low shelf you’ll see a dip above the boost frequency. That is a typical behavior for parallel designs, seen for example with the Pultec “low end trick” as well as in the greatest of all passive parallel designs, the Manley Massive Passive.
Low Band
Type: Shelf, Bell and Cut.
- Shelf is a parallel shelving filter with that typical “dip” before the shelf. You can exaggerate or soften it using the Q control.
- Bell is a parallel bell filter.
- Cut is a 12 dB/Oct high pass filter that is processed in series with the rest of the EQ.
Q: Sets the Q on the Shelf and Bell filter, and the resonance of the Cut filter. Only available from the plug-in user interface or the Mk III hardware.
Freq: Sets the frequency of the low band, from 20 to 500 Hz.
Gain: Sets the gain of the low band (in Bell and Shelf mode), from -16 to +16 dB.
High Band
Type: Shelf, Bell and Cut
- Shelf is a very smooth and musical "air" filter that can make a track stand out. Remember, a little goes a long way!
- Bell is a parallel bell filter.
- Cut is a 12 dB/Oct low pass filter that is processed in series with the rest of the EQ.
Q: Sets the Q on the Shelf and Bell filter, and the resonance on the Cut filter. Only available from the plug-in user interface or the Mk III hardware.
Freq: Sets the frequency of the high band, from 1.8 to 20 kHz
Gain: Sets the gain of the high band (in Bell and Shelf mode), from -16 to +16 dB.
Low Mid and High Mid Bands
The vintage equalizers have two bell shaped mid bands with a parallel design.
Q: Sets the bandwidth of the bell band, from 0.2 to 2. The nature of these eq bands makes the Q values rather in-exact, so use your ears. It might have been better to just say that the Q goes from super-wide to sort of normal.
Freq: Sets the frequency of the bell filters. The first mid band goes from 100 to 2000 Hz, and the second goes from 500 to 8000 Hz.
Gain: Sets the gain of the bell bands, from -16 to +16 dB.
Core Modern Equalizer
The Modern Equalizer was designed for versatility. All bands have a full frequency range (20 Hz to 20 kHz), Q values that range from super wide to super narrow (0.2 to 30) and two extra mid bands. The extra mid bands are accessed by pressing Shift and adjusting the mid band’s knobs.
High and Low Bands
The outer bands are fully flexible bands with bell, shelf and cut types as well as adjustable slope and Q when applicable.
Type: Shelf, Bell and Cut.
Slope: Sets the slope of the Cut filter: 6, 12, 18, 24, 48 dB/octave.
Q: Sets the bandwidth/Q on the band, or the resonance on the Cut filter. From 0.2 to 30.
Freq: Sets the frequency of the band, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz.
Gain: Sets the gain of the band, from -18 to +18 dB.
Mid Bands
The modern equalizer has four bell bands. Two of them are only accessible from the Console 1 plug-in UI or the Mk III hardware. All mid bands are equal and features Gain, Frequency and Q controls.
Q: Sets the bandwidth of the bell filter, from 0.2 to 30.
Freq: Sets the frequency of the bell filter, from 20 Hz to 20 kHz.
Gain: Sets the gain of the bell filter, from -18 to +18 dB.
Traditional per-channel console compressors are often quite limited. They need to be compact so that they don’t take up a lot of space in the channel, they can't cost too much to manufacture, and they need to suit a lot of use-cases. With Core Mixing Suite we are moving away from the traditional console compressors and instead include the actual "mainstayers", the one you find in every well-equipped studio.
Since Channel Mk III allows you to use dual compressors, you can now setup your vocal chain with both the FET and Opto compressors, or take advantage of the dual slots for every track if you want!
All compressors have these built-in Console 1 features:
Wet/Dry: Turn up to blend in the dry signal with the compressed signal.
Make-Up: Set the amount of make-up gain after the compressor, or use the "Auto Make-Up Gain" mode.
Side-Chain Filtering: The filters in the Filter section can be routed to the sidechain of the compressors. This allows you to tackle tasks such as filter out the lowest frequencies so that the compressor doesn't trigger from the energy of those sources.
Core FET Compressor
The fastest compressor in the west? One of the true classics, with its famous British Mode ("all buttons in" mode) and a nice, healthy, amount of distortion. This is the compressor that puts your vocals front and center and makes it stay in focus. Even though it's famous for the drum-crushing British Mode, it is an extremely versatile compressor that can be used for almost anything. The Core FET is a version of FET Compressor Mk II specifically designed for Console 1.
Compression: Sets the amount of compression.
Ratio: Sets the ratio of the compression, with additional "low ratio" modes and the famous British Mode ("all buttons in"). 1, 1.5, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 20 and British Mode.
Attack/Release: Sets the attack and release times, from FAST to SLOW.
Core Opto Compressor
If FET is the fastest compressor, the Opto would be the smoothest compressor in the world? The Core Opto Compressor, based on Softube's OPTO Compressor, is the classic tube compressor with the famous T4 gain reduction element. While most other optical compressors are rather slow to react to changes in audio, which makes them sound “punchy”, the optical T4 gain reduction cell which the Opto is modeled from has an attack that’s both very fast and smooth at the same time, which makes it suited for just about anything, but especially vocals and bass. If you ever need a punchier compressor sound, you can always slow down the attack and release times with the Time control, which will let more transients through and give the drums or vocals more bite.
Compression: Sets the amount of compression.
Ratio: Switches between COMP (compressor) and LIMIT (limiter) ratios. In reality, there's very little difference between these two modes, but we kept them for sake of authenticity.
Time: Slows down the attack and release times. This feature isn't included in the original hardware, but different units of the hardware can have different behaviors in the gain reduction cell (T4), and this control can make up for some of that difference. Ranges from ORIGINAL to SLOW.
Core Bus Compressor
What would a mixing suite be without a bus compressor? Adapted from Softube's fastest selling plug-in ever, the Bus Processor, Core Bus Compressor gives you that classic bus compressor sound.
Compression: Sets the amount of compression.
Ratio: Sets the ratio of the compression, from 1.3 to 10:1.
Attack: Sets the attack time, from 0.1 ms to 30 ms.
Release: Sets the release time, including the famous "auto release". From 0.1 to 1.2 seconds, and above that "Auto Release".
Knee: Adjusts the sharpness of the knee, from hard (0.0) to soft (10.0). Default is Hard.
Range: Sets the maximum amount of gain reduction, from 0 dB to 60 dB. Default is 60 dB.
When the Console 1 was first released, the included SSL SL 4000 E drive section quickly became a favorite among mix engineers and producers. After the original release, we added a bunch of consoles, all with different flavors of the Drive. And since we are true distortion nerds, we analyzed all the different drives and their characteristics while asking engineers which drive type they prefer and for what purpose, and decided that we wanted to make our own, new, drive.
Core Drive
The Core Drive was designed to add energy, push the mids forward and make your source audio come alive. It is based off of Bus Processor’s “Enhanced Drive” type and tailored for Console 1. The Character will push the high frequencies harder when you turn it clockwise, and low frequencies harder with a counter clockwise turn.
It can be used as an exciter, to push a track forward in a mix. It can shave off loud transients on a snare or guitar track, or help low frequency sources such as kicks and basses translate on smaller speakers.
Drive: Sets the amount of distortion. At 5.0 (12 o'clock) distortion will start at around 0 dB, increase to get more distortion.
Character: Shapes the tone of the distortion, turn clock-wise to get a more emphasized high mid, turn counter clock-wise to get the opposite effect. It is neutral in the 12 o'clock position.
Anton Eriksson – signal processing & lead developer
Niklas Odelholm – signal processing & product design
Fredrik Jansson, Arvid Rosén, Oscar Öberg – signal processing
Johan Bremin – presets & quality assurance
Markus Krona, Niels Nielsen – quality assurance