Mutone

Mutone is big, warm valve limiting whose ratio rises with level: gentle on quiet passages, firm on loud ones. Bias sets how quickly it starts to bite, Colour how hard the valves are pushed, and Time is continuous rather than six fixed steps.

The controls

Input

How hard you drive the valves.

Threshold

Where the limiting starts: higher means more.

Time

From 1 (fast) to 6 (slow, with a long, programme-dependent recovery). Continuous.

Bias

How quickly the ratio rises: low is gentle and gradual, high bites sooner.

Colour

How hard the valves are pushed: from clean to rich harmonics.

Sidechain

Internal listens to the track; External listens to the key you send to DigMusiK's sidechain.

Best for

• Mastering and the mix bus: weight and warmth
• Vocals: rich, thick, expensive-sounding
• Acoustic guitar and piano: smooth dynamics with character
• Drum bus at slow Time: a fat, gluey sound

Starting points

Load Mutone, set these, then adjust by ear. In the plugin, Level match helps you judge the sound, not the loudness.

Hints and tips

• Mutone sounds best working 2 to 4 dB: let the valves do the work rather than the threshold.
• Time 4 to 6 on the mix bus gives that slow, breathing glue.
• Colour adds harmonics even when it isn't compressing much: use it as a warmth control.

Chains it works best in

Every Original works in a chain with the others and with members' hardware. These are good places to start.

• Mutone then Plush: the classic valve mastering pair: weight, then air
• Ferrum then Mutone: a rich vocal chain with weight and warmth
• Mutone then Kerb: warm glue with a safe ceiling

Sidechain

Set Sidechain to External to let another track drive Mutone's limiting.

Watch out for

• High Colour plus high Input on a full mix: it gets muddy. Ease one of them back.
• Very fast Time on dense material: it can flutter.