Solid State Logic Fusion Violet EQ and

Despite its unassuming looks, Solid State
Logic’s Fusion processor is a brilliant piece of
kit. Designed speciically for digital studios, this
box of analogue tricks can sit across your main
mix buss, or a stem buss, from where it treats
your audio to some extra-special SSL
pampering. The results can be spectacular,
giving your mix the body, space and sparkle that
you’d expect from a high-end analogue console,
not a mid-range processor.
The Fusion hardware is reasonably
afordable, but this hasn’t stopped SSL from
converting the analogue processors of the
hardware into plugins that are afordable for all.
We looked recently at the irst two of these,
Fusion Vintage Drive and Fusion Stereo Image,
in
302, but now it’s the turn of the next two
releases in the series: Fusion HF Compressor
and Fusion Violet EQ.
Solid State Logic
Fusion Violet EQ
and Fusion HF
Compressor
£139
Individually, SSL’s Fusion HF Compressor and Fusion Violet EQ can add
polish to your mixes, but used in tandem they can make your mixes
“The very intuitive
readout makes it really
easy to understand
how the compressor
is responding”
HIGH-PASS FILTER
Removes very low
frequencies, which is
especially useful if boosting
lows elsewhere
FAT
Adds a gentle
resonance to
the HPF
cutoff for
extra thump
GR METER
This part of the visualisation is a
conventional gain reduction meter
LOW BAND
Select the corner frequency for
the EQ’s low shelving band
THRESHOLD
Dials in the compressor’s
threshold level, above
which processing is applied
CROSSOVER FREQUENCY
Pick the frequency above
which your audio will
be compressed
HIGH BAND
Select the corner frequency for
the EQ’s high shelving band
LISTEN
Solo the high band to
hear exactly what the
compressor is doing
CUT & BOOST
Each EQ band offers
9dB of cut or boost
WAVEFORM & GR HISTORY
Shows how the compressor has
reacted to the audio over time
ECO MODE
Reduce audio processing
accuracy to free-up
CPU cycles and reduce
latency issues
Fusion HF Compressor
Unsurprisingly enough given the name, Fusion
HF Compressor is a compressor that works its
magic on the higher frequencies in a signal.
The processor itself is very straightforward
indeed. A crossover splits your audio signal
into high- and low-frequency components,
with the high frequencies component being fed
to a compressor.
The high and low signals are then re-merged
and passed to a wet/dry balance mixer before
heading to the plugin’s output. This makes for a
very small number of controls – one to control
the compression threshold, one to set the
crossover frequency, and one to set the wet/dry
balance. Simples!
70 / COMPUTER MUSIC / April 2022
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