New York, NY (November 2, 2011)—Metric Halo’s ChannelStrip plug-in played multiple critical roles on every track of Dee Does Broadway, the forthcoming release of Broadway show tunes by Dee Snider.
“Metric Halo got it right,” said Brett Chassen, a session drummer who played on the album and was responsible for recording and mixing it. “There’s a good reason why ChannelStrip has been around for a long time. It has a maturity to it that you don’t find in most plug-ins. Most plug-ins have very little tolerance for messing around. If you start spinning virtual knobs and flipping virtual switches, they don’t just sound wrong, they sound broken. They get all strident and glassy.
“That doesn’t happen with high-end analog hardware. You can spin knobs and flip switches, and while it may not sound right, it certainly doesn’t sound broken. ChannelStrip is like hardware in that way. It has character and strength that makes it sound and feel solid, no matter what you do with it.”
That has led Chassen to use ChannelStrip for the guitars on Dee Does Broadway to provide presence and immediacy. “ChannelStrip is responsible for that,” said Chassen. “With other plug-ins, I wouldn’t dream of boosting something like 1.5 kHz. But with ChannelStrip, it’s like turning up the gain on an analog equalizer. If the part suits it, the boost sounds right.”
Chassen boosts 1.5 kHz when he needs a guitar to poke through. He also boosts frequencies near 500 Hz for guitar leads. He said, “It gives them a nice fullness that cuts through the track without becoming boxy.”
“It’s just inspiring to use,” he said. “You find yourself playing around to see what you can come up with.”
The forthcoming album is due out in Q1, 2012 on Razor & Tie Records.
Metric Halo
www.mhlabs.com
