brian Gerstle
Last updated
6/15/09
With so many applications and plug-ins on the market today, I think it’s really important to know as much as you can about what’s going on “under the hood”. That being said, I’ve written a few plug-ins of my own (nothing too crazy yet) that have really helped me get a grip on what’s going on in some really popular plug-ins today.
Allow me to introduce mueBass. It is designed to use psychoacoustics and clever filtering to enhance the bass of an input signal. As opposed to normal EQ, this plug-in uses non-linear distortion to generate harmonics that cause you to perceive much lower frequencies. This technology is already in place to enhance the playback capabilities of small-transducer speaker setups, but I decided to make a plug-in adaptation for use in mixing.
Software
This video shows me using mueBass in Logic Pro. You can see and hear when I’m bypassing the effect to showcase the perceptual low-end boost. The boost is mostly perceptual, although you can EQ the lows via the Bass Level slider. I chose not to EQ in this example.
In this video, you can see and hear me play with the different parameters of the plugin.
Click on the link below to download audio samples with and without the effect. You can also download the actual mueBass AU plug-in component (just make sure you change the extension to *.component).
To use mueBass, move the component file into the following directory: Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components. Once there, it should register as an AU plug-in for your DAW of choice (the DAW must support AU plug-ins for this to work).
For a more detailed description on how the plug-in works, go here.