Auburn Sounds has released Lens, a spectral dynamics processing plug-in offeringg multi-band compression, constant phase EQ and up to 64 companders working together on a stereo signal, and simultaneous control of sidechain and output EQ.
Having set out to design a mastering compressor, the Lens prototype proved an adept tracking compressor, auto-EQ, noise-remover, upwards compressor, and multi-band expander/gate. The ‘spherical nature’ of its sound steered company CEO Guillaume Piolat, towards the name Lens.
Once a signal is in the Lens spectral domain, compression, expansion and EQ are all applied by simultaneously with linear phase – whereby the phase response of the filter is a linear function of frequency, resulting in all input frequency components being shifted in time. Favouring simplicity in operation, Lens’ Selectivity section shows from 18 bands (less selective) to 64 bands (more selective). An adjacent Stereo Link control ranges between 0-100%.
All 64 compressors can be simultaneously manipulated from the Compressor panel, providing control over attack time of the compressor for high (20kHz) and low (20Hz) frequencies; release time for both low and high frequencies; stereo width of the compressor sidechain signal; and Link Bands – continuous transitions between full-band and multi-band for the gain reduction stage.
Similarly, all 64 of Lens’ expanders can be simultaneously manipulated from its Expander panel, providing controls over attack time for both low and high frequencies; release time of for both low and high frequencies; Relative Threshold – a specialised mode whereby the threshold of the expander is the average local energy, allowing for suppression of information masked by high-volume components in the same spectral frame; SC Width adjustment of the stereo width of the expander sidechain signal; and Link Bands that continuously transitions between full- band and multi-band for the gain reduction stage.
Sandwiched between those Compressor and Expander panels is a gain map, viewable in Compressor or Expander modes – the former lets users adjust the threshold of the compressor (by dragging the middle point), compressor ratio (by dragging the rightmost point), and compressor make-up (by dragging the bottom-left point), while the latter lets users adjust the threshold of the expander (by dragging the middle point) and expander ratio (by dragging the bottom point). It is also possible to simply speed up that already speedy process by right-clicking the threshold point to simultaneously set the threshold and ratio in both viewing modes.
The Comp Sidechain EQ panel displays compressor detection and compressor gain reduction as a graph – without taking into account the Input (output distortion stage), Dry (signal level at the Lens output) or Wet (signal that forms the Lens output when mixed with Dry) level sliders in the adjacent levels panel; while there is no EQ for the expander sidechain, Listen Mode can be used to audition the compressor sidechain.
The Output EQ panel displays the Wet signal after the compressor and expander is applied. As another graph, it accounts for Input and make-up levels but not Dry or Wet levels, since it is not the actual ‘output’ signal but rather before the Dry signal is mixed.
Lens’ Vintage panel offers an Even output distortion stage; a Stage input transformer distortion stage; plus Min Rate and Max Rate to remove spectral bands, emulating old hardware or saving CPU usage.
Lens is available to purchase directly from Auburn Sounds, via its dedicated webpage, at US$105 in AAX, AU, LV2, VST2 and VST3 plug-in formats for macOS (10.12 or newer), Ubuntu (18.04 or newer) and Windows (7 or newer) with supported sampling rates ranging from 11,025Hz to 192kHz.
More: www.auburnsounds.com
