St John, USVI (June 2, 2022)—Producer/composer Rich Tozzoli recently headed to St John, USVI, for his annual recording retreat, teaming with keyboardist Bruce MacPherson, engineer Mike Dwyer and bassist Hank Skalka to compose and mix for a variety of TV shows with diverse sound palettes. He’s highlighting some of the key plug-ins they brought along to help get things done.
SONNOX CLARO EQ AND OXFORD ENVOLUTION
Claro is Sonnox’s latest EQ and features 20 Hz – 40 kHz frequency range, and 26 bands with three distinct views: Produce, Tweak and Mix. Each stepping up a notch in features, they allow you to keep it simple or go deep—but there’s another feature that we used to great effect on our trip. When you assign multiple instances of Claro, they can be viewed in relation to each other. The display will highlight frequencies that clash in yellow, and by using the Invert EQ button, boosting the frequency of one selected channel will inversely cut the other.
Heavyocity Symphonic Destruction Orchestral VI – A Real-World Review
Roland JD-08 Sound Module – A Real-World Review
Universal Audio Avalon VT-737SP – A Real-World Review
We used this on bass and drum tracks to quickly help us get our kicks and bass tight. We also used a ton of the UAD Sonnox Oxford Envolution, which is a frequency-dependent envelope shaper. By increasing the Transient knob and pulling back the Sustain, you can musically “cut off” the business of percussion loops. This allowed us to add in our own delays and reverbs to the leftover sound and create unique pulsing grooves. Super cool!
