Add a drop of Smooth Operator to your mix, and you can soak yourself in hi-fi. Prepare to meet the chosen one in frequency balance plugins.
You may know BABY Audio as the makers of some unique software. Plug-ins like the Spaced Out FX generator and the Parallel Aggressor parallel compression saw the company’s journey start with a bang. Get ready to meet your new mix assistant, the Smooth Operator.
This time the team is tackling frequency balancing and spectral compression. It boasts a lot of features that aren’t usually under the same hood, let’s break down what makes the latest addition to the BABY Audio’s lineup so impressive.
The Smooth Operator is sold as being an EQ, spectral compressor, and resonance suppression all in one interface. There’s a couple of words there that you may not have come across, so let us explain.
Spectral compression is basically a multi-band compressor with a lot of individual bands and intelligent processing. This is all done in real-time which makes for a more accurate response to what’s going on. Unlike your average compressor, it doesn’t just react to ‘the loudest sound’. It manipulates the building blocks of your input signal with a super fancy algorithm. It does this by digitally breaking up the audio by your sample rate and putting back together as it leaves the plugin.
Smooth Operator is also able to really get into your audio as well as automatically eliminating nasty frequencies. This technology is commonly found in audio restoration, but BABY Audio is giving you something with powerful creative expression capabilities.
The Smooth operator is great on instruments, vocals, and mix-busses. It is great at bringing out clarity, smoothness and is a great alternative to plain EQ. Grammy-nominated producer/mixer Preston Reid said “I’d recommend smooth operator not just as a utility for smoothing, but as a creative tool. This thing can do just about anything but your taxes for you lol.” Reid has worked with Ciara, Toni Braxton, and Lil Uzi Vert.
Head over to the BABY Audio website for a full rundown and more testimonies.
