NAMM 2024: Oeksound is one of those companies that makes plugins that make your music sound better, but you're not always quite sure how or why. The company's new Bloom processor looks to continue the trend; after reading and rereading its press release, we're still not sure what it is or how it works. But knowing Oeksound, it will work.
Oeksound doesn't release that many plugins, but they have all made a big impression. 2018's Spiff was was originally designed as a corrective vocal processor, but turned out to be an equally useful tool on almost any sound source. And as for Soothe2, well that is one of the great plugins of our time, one that we described as "a dynamic EQ plugin that no producer should be without".
Big pressure for Oeksound on this latest release, then. Bloom is, according to the company, an "adaptive tone shaper". Which, yes, might have you going 'whhaaaat???" but basically it sounds like it makes your music sound better, er, depending on how it sounds in the first place.
"It analyses the character of a signal and applies corrections to the perceived tonal balance for a more even and refined sound," says Oeksound, brilliantly saying everything and nothing in one sentence.
Bloom does seem to do 'stuff' in various frequency bands, though, so we could call it, broadly, an EQ, although we suspect that description is not quite correct, either.
"Four frequency balance sliders can be used to further shape the tone to taste, enabling both fine adjustments and radical transformations. These sliders change the overall tonal balance that Bloom is working towards, rather than making absolute cuts or boosts as found in an EQ."
Which leaves us bemused, especially after Oeksound itself concludes: "Bloom steps away from explicit problem-solving and towards colour and tone-shaping. It can be used to fix audio, but also to sculpt it creatively."
Which ultimately means you probably need to check it out to understand it, though you can watch a NAMM Show floor demo video from Sonic State for now (see below).
Oeksound hasn't revealed how much Bloom will be or when it will be available, just saying "soon". So get more info at Oeksound's website.
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