Mastering The Mix’s FUSER plugin is “like having a personal mixing engineer”
The smart unmasking plugin is designed to bring sonic clarity to messy mixes
Mastering The Mix Fuser. Image: Mastering The Mix
Plugin developer Mastering The Mix has released FUSER, a smart mixing plugin that is designed to resolve conflicting channels in a mix.
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FUSER helps you create a more coherent mix by assisting you in setting volume balance, phase optimisation and mid/side-specific sidechain ducking. The plugin uses features Conflict Detection and Resolve Conflicts to provide you with a starting point in creating a clearer mix. The brand says FUSER is like “having a personal mixing engineer suggesting the perfect fixed for your unique song.”
Mastering The Mix offers some examples of where best to use FUSER. If the kick drum and bass parts of your mix are clashing, you can use the plugin’s Sidechain feature to quickly duck the bass and make room for the kick drum every time it hits.
How does this differ from sidechain compression? The company says that FUSER “achieves transparency by attenuating the frequencies and stereo position where conflicts occur,” but leaves the rest of the signal untouched.
Once you identify conflicting channels, you’ll put FUSER on the effects chain of the submissive channel, such as bass, and route the sidechain to the dominant channel, such as the kick.
The display panel lets you see the sidechain signal and the submissive signal playing together. A red glow will highlight mid channel conflicts, and a yellow glow will show you side channel conflicts. When you see any conflicts, hit the Resolve Conflicts button, and FUSER will get to work. You can then adjust the amount of processing using nodes, like in a graphic EQ, and alter parameter settings.
Check out the overview video below to see how FUSER works.
Reviews from the pros are already in, with multi-Grammy-winning mix engineer David Yungin Kim (credited on Chris Brown, Kendrick Lamar, Ariana Grande and Nas records) saying: “As a mixer primarily in the hip-hop genre, I find it extremely important to have thumping low-end and clear, crisp vocals. I thought I was doing a decent job until I got my hands on FUSER.
“With FUSER I am able to get that next-level knock and clarity that I’ve been looking for my whole career. It’s really an amazing tool and it should belong in everyone’s plugin folder.”
FUSER is available for £49 and has a free trial available.
Learn more at masteringthemix.com
