Re: Metric Halo Channel Strip Crack
Teodolinda Mattson
ChannelStrip is the recognized leader in console-style channel strip audio processing for digital audio workstations. As the first plug-in to offer the combination of exceptional audio quality, incredible DSP efficiency and a comprehensive user interface, ChannelStrip lets users work as efficiently and interactively as they would with a dedicated, world-class mixing console. ChannelStrip comes with more than 100 presets included to help you get your mix started. Use the presets to compress your drums, EQ your vocals, get your sessions ready for mastering and much more. With ChannelStrip you get an unparalleled EQ, Gate, and Compressor, all in one easy to use interface. ChannelStrip is the critical mixing tool for thousands of top engineers and producers world-wide.
Finally, with some help from Steve, I was able to program MTPro to control Metric halo Channelstrip with a Midi controller, in this case a Midi Fighter Twister. Metric halo Channelstrip can only be controlled via mouse, that makes it a little tricky.
I wanted the rotary encoders have direct access to the knobs in the channelstrip, no other clicks or moves involved. So the tricky thing was to send the mouse to a certain screen position, then click down, then move the mouse, then release, all that with one single command. So timers are heavily used here. The MTpro file is attached at the end, as is the file for the Midifighter settings. If someone wants to adapt it, consider the screensize, mine is 1440x900; also the position of the plugin window is crucial. I put it in the upper left corner. After restarting MIO console I have to position the channelstrip exactly there, but only once. All the channelstrips of all channels will open there, and so can be controlled from the Midifighter.
It works pretty good. Not as smooth as real midi controlers, but good enough. And the midifighter can be color coded to match the plugin, so the colors of the EQ match between computer screen and controller.
In addition it features visual metering and spectrum analysis, phase inversion, channel delay to correct timing issues (not to be confused with a delay effect) and a very basic limiter to tame unwanted peaks.
The user interface of the ChannelStrip is resizable, although not freely. You may select between 3 different sizes. Personally I find the 2 smaller ones too small and the largest one just about right.
Correction (17th June): Metric Halo kindly got back to me and pointed out that I had actually missed a feature. It is possible to link controls by hitting the small L button in the top left corner of the plugin. Linking also works with the Multiband Dynamics and Multiband Expander plugins. Sweet!
A sustained theme with the plugins in this pack is a good use of visual feedback, and the Transient Control is no different. It visualizes exactly what you are doing which does help to figure out the controls. This can be especially valuable for someone who is new with these kinds of plugins.
Tip: To make full use of MH Transient Control, make sure you pull out the advanced envelope controls panel. It is hidden by default. There are many useful controls in there that will give you extremely precise control over your transients and sustain.
There really is very little to complain about here! Of course there is always room for improvement and further features, but to complain about such a high quality package of plugins would just seem ridiculous.
Nonetheless the MH De-Esser is so good that I bought it separately. There are people raving about the Channelstrip, Character and Dirty Delay, but heardly hear them picking up on the De-Esser which I think is very underrated. The attack and release behaviour is so smooth that it can be even dangerous applying too much of it!
I have been a user and fan of Metric Halo's hardware and software for quite a few years now, having gotten my first Mobile I/O 2882 +DSP [Tape Op #34] almost a decade ago. My two 2d-upgraded 2882s are still the hub of my home studio setup and allow me to achieve superb sonics and complex routing scenarios with very little rack space needed. However, despite the excellent sound of the +DSP plug-ins, I found myself using them more and more rarely, since they run in their own accompanying software and not directly in Pro Tools. Metric Halo recently released a seven plug-in bundle for both AAX (Pro Tools 10) and AU formats, so now I can get the best of both worlds - MH sound directly within my Pro Tools work environment.
ChannelStrip 3 is the new version of Metric Halo's long-revered flagship plug-in. There are four separate sections available in ChannelStrip, each individually activated through nice, big, square buttons at the top of the GUI - gate, compressor, EQ, and hard (brickwall) limiter. Sidechaining capabilities on both the gate and compressor are extensive, either from an external source or a filtered version of the signal itself. You can open up a window to the right which gives you a graphic representation of the adjustable compressor knee and EQ/filter curves being applied to the sidechain. The compressor has four curve settings: smooth, warm, fast, and "MIO", named for the hardware box that runs the +DSP plugs. I found myself preferring the MIO setting most often for its flexibility; it sounded really good whether it was set to be grabby or to be smooth. Look out for auto-gain on the compressor, by the way! It can make your signal very loud very quickly if the threshold gets set low.
ChannelStrip's EQ has six bands, each of which can be switched to one of six filter types (high shelf, low shelf, high cut, low cut, band-pass, or peak). The peak setting is fully parametric, and you can change the slope of the band-pass and shelf curves, but I was a little disappointed to discover that you can't change the high or low shapes - they are set at 12 dB per octave. Over in the display graph pane (which can be hidden to save screen real estate), clicking on the magnifying glass icon switches on a very accurate real-time spectrograph overlaid on your filter curve, with different colored traces showing post-EQ peak and average frequency analyses of each channel. This is one area where it is evident that this bundle was designed by the guys that made SpectraFoo, one of the best software tools available for analyzing audio.
At the end of the plug-in's signal path, the peak limiter has a simple threshold control, which effectively makes your audio louder as you decrease the value, by chopping off the peaks and raising the average level.
Bluntly put, ChannelStrip 3 just sounds incredible. Each of the sections does what it does so effectively and flexibly that I feel like if I lost all of my other dynamics and EQ plug-ins somehow (unlikely, I concede), I would be perfectly happy using ChannelStrip for all of my gating, compression and EQ needs. It's extremely transparent when necessary, but the compression section can be made to impart various colors by tweaking the knee and curve settings. The EQ is both surgical and musical - and extremely responsive even at relatively low dB settings.
One more thing that I think is worth mentioning is that the interface of ChannelStrip is remarkably elegant. It isn't a skeuomorphic representation of some classic piece of gear, but it is highly intuitive, and honestly, it's just plain beautiful to look at. The use of color is more functional than flashy, and parameter values are easy to read and enter manually. My only small complaint is that the "shadow" of some of the knobs slightly covers the knob's label, making it a little tricky to read everything clearly. However, since you can resize the window in a way that actually enlarges all of the controls (a unique function I hope to see in more plug-ins in the future), this becomes less of an issue. Plus, in addition to mouse scroll-wheel support, all of the functions of the Production Bundle plug-ins are very well integrated into both the HUI and Eucon protocols, so control surface users can take advantage of physical knobs and labels.
The two plug-ins in the bundle that share the most GUI- wise with ChannelStrip are Multiband Expander and Multiband Dynamics. Each of these split your signal into three bands at crossover points of your choosing - frequency-dependent expansion or compression can then ensue. I found the interface of both of these plug-ins extremely straightforward and was able to use them very effectively. In addition to plenty of finely-tunable gating use, I used Multiband Expander as a noise-reduction tool by tweaking the crossovers to only let through the business frequencies of a noisy guitar amp track. Multiband Dynamics was great for quasi-EQ'ing a dull drum-machine track, bringing it to vivid life. I also effectively employed it in a couple of mastering projects and found it easier to wrap my brain around than other multiband compressor plug-ins that I own. Part of it is that it's a manageable three bands, and also the extensive graph displays help you understand exactly how it's affecting your audio. There is a brickwall limiter at the end of the circuit as well, to get the overall volume up, but I found I liked bypassing this and using one of my other mastering limiters slightly better. If you don't have another mastering limiter, though, this one will most certainly do the job.
Precision DeEsser is another frequency-dependent dynamics processor, and its functionality goes way beyond taming vocal sibilance. It excels at that, but the range of controls, from width and sharpness of the detection band to the time constants of the compressor circuit, allow for some seriously effective and transparent de-essing. I also used it to tame hi-hats, remove some midrange harshness from a questionably-recorded trumpet track, and soften the attack of a very bright piano. I do wish the center frequency went lower than 2 kHz, but for grabbing specific lower frequencies, you can always use Multiband Dynamics instead.
TransientControl will be familiar to anyone who has used the SPL Transient Designer [Tape Op #21], but it gives more advanced control over the detection of the transient and sustain envelopes. It also shows a process meter, providing a graphic idea of how the processor is treating your signal. The basic controls are Transient and Sustain - the former increases or decreases the amount of attack the signal has, and the latter lengthens or shortens the tail of the sound. You can get similar effects using standard compression and expansion, but this sort of processor has its own sound, and is great for easily adding a little more punch to a bass drum or sustain to a snare track, or for taking the pick noise of a plucked bass track down a little. A comparison to the UAD SPL plug-in is inevitable, since the basic controls are identical, and I have to say I find the UAD more effective. Also, interestingly, I found Metric Halo's +DSP version on the hardware box to sound a little better, partly because the range of the Sustain control goes down to -1000% instead of the -300% on the Production Bundle version. That extended range allows for much more effective envelope shaping, allowing you to almost eliminate any room sound or printed reverb on a track, for example. (Metric Halo reports that this is a bug and will be fixed with the next update.)
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