Denise’s latest ‘single use’ plugin looks to add harmonic presence to bass sounds. Si Truss goes XXL
CONTACT WHO: Denise Audio WEB: deniseaudio.com KEY FEATURES Bass enhancement plugin. FORMATS: PC/Mac, VST/AU/AAX
Recently acquired by fellow US-based developer Baby Audio, Denise Audio designs plugins around a ‘single use’ mantra – essentially, every plugin in the company’s range is designed to do one specific thing, simply and effectively. In the case of Bass XXL, that intended function is enhancing bass sounds to add presence that works across any speaker system.
Bass enhancement is, of course, nothing particularly new. In hardware, dbx’s 120 Subharmonic Synth was a go-to tool for many dance producers back in the ’90s, and in the plugin realm, the likes of Waves’ MaxxBass and Submarine, Brainworx’s bx_ subsynth and Leapwing’s RootOne all aim to add power to your bass sounds – each of them using a slightly different approach.
Bass XXL is an overhaul of Denise’s previous Bass XL plugin. It uses what the developer calls a “proprietary algorithm designed to supersize the low end”. In practice, this involves creating harmonic overtones above the root note of the bass, which create the effect of more perceived low-end weight.
The plugin has three main controls. Root sets the pitch used to create the new harmonics. This can be set to a fixed frequency or pitch, or follow an incoming MIDI signal, in order to match the frequency of a bassline. Next, Harmonics alters the intensity of the new harmonics created, while Boost blends these in with the dry signal, acting like a dry/ wet control.
Down the bottom of the plugin’s UI are a set of controls to help further refine the effect. A pre-delay control creates a gap between the dry sound and the harmonics, which is handy if you want to preserve the ‘pure’ harmonics of the source sound. The Mono control is useful for maintaining mono compatibility. Finally the Range and Slope controls will adjust how abrupt a
