As a mixer myself I truly love having a collection of plugins and analog gears at my disposal. They are like colorful paint palettes to my work. Sometimes I will run out of mixing ideas and will blindly try out different tools looking for inspiration. Audiothing Outer Space is definitely one of those tools that will inspire you with ideas in your creative process. Outer Space looks like a Roland RE-201 when you first opens it, the interface is very user friendly and clear. I personally have never used a real Roland RE-201 before, and I don’t think it is reasonable to compare it to the hardware because each hardware has a different tone. Let’s approach it like a brand new plugin that do stuff. First off, it has very simple parameters but they can all be used at the same time! It generates infinite possibilities on how you can approach it. It consists of a saturation box, spring reverb and tape echoes. It sounds warm, colorful, lo-fi and lush. Exactly what you looking for from a tape echo and spring reverb. It has a great old-school vibe straight out of the box. Wait...forgot to tell you it costs only $49 and you don’t need an ilok for it, it is a bang for the buck! Usually when I approach a brand new plugins I will try their presets first and see what it does. Not too many presets are included but they are all highlights of this unit, nothing too complicated that beyond useful.

                                                                  Features
I love the instant mono and stereo switching (add 15ms different between left and right signal) on the Outer space, it really speed up the process by flipping a switch, but I wish they have a ping pong function!!

1. “Randomize” function is very innovative, you can get some really crazy sound. You can right click the parameters and take them out from the “Randomize” function if you want to save some settings on certain parameters while “Randomize” the rest.
2. “EQ” defaults to process the Delay signal but it can also be switched to process both Reverb and Delay signal.
3. The built in Spring reverb sounds beautiful, it’s everything you can ask for. Highly usable in the mix, it is lush, warm, lo-fi & subtle. I found it sits better in a mix as you don’t hear the exaggeration of the bounciness of the spring. With the EQ you can easily shape it the way you want it, getting rid of the extra low and high frequency.
4. Mode selector could be a bit confusing, different mode represents the combination of reverb and number of delay heads, mode 1-4 are just delay only, and there’s reverb only mode. Reading the manual will clear that up for you.
5. Input and Output volume are great to overdriven the unit in conjunction with the limiter function to enhance the clipping effect. Activate built in limiter on the “more” tab will generate more soft clipping to the audio, resulting a dirtier, distorted sound.
6. Having 3 different tape heads (Input, repro & record) to choose is a very thoughtful design that generates slightly different tone between the heads. Here is my description for the 3 different tape modes, they are all lo fi sounding (high end rolled off with some saturation to it)
   1. RT: Smooth and light, less aggressive, less punch than New
   2. New: Very present and rich tone.
   3. Old: More modulation, more tremolo/vibration sound, thinner, inconsistent sound simulating an old tape.
7. Changing the wow/flutter it creates certain subtle pitch shifting and tremolo type effects, that create a certain color, vibe & motion to the delay then just plain filtered repeats.
8. “Noise” in this plugin is very fascinating, the EQ will shape the noise as well as the delay, the amount of noise can be adjusted by the volume control. The “Envelope On/Off” functions as a noise gate, when it it in On mode, any delay signal will activate the noise. I prefer this because It eliminate the annoying background noise across the entire mix, while you preserve the noise in the delay, that creates “pseudo-hardware” illusion.

Here is a tip to use it in a cool/weird way. Put the delay in sync mode, long intensity (feedback) and automate the repeat rate to get some kind of DJ scratching/pitching shifting effects, it could be cool in production or mixing.

                                                                      Cons
They should add Undo and Redo function that prevents pressing the randomize function by accident. The on/off button on the upper right corner is reductant when I have the bypass plugin function in Pro tools, it sometimes confused me on whether the plugin is activated. Lastly I couldn’t find the Pre-Emphasis function on the interface while it appears on the manual.

​Recently just received a copy of the LEVELS plugin made by Mastering the Mix. As a mixing engineer, I like all my tools to be simple and intuitive, so I can stay focused on the music. The first impression of LEVELS was the user interface is very user friendly and looks really good. It looks like a cool IOS app, very simple to use and self explanatory.

In the “Headroom”, I particularly like the fact this plugin is well designed from an user standpoint. It incorporates a few essential loudness units like LUFS, dBTP & dB. They are all 1 click away from each other, which makes it very easy to make sure your mixes or masters are following the loudness protocol.

“Stereo Field” is always essential to me in mixing, I used the “Mono”, “Left” or “Right” a lot to check how my mixes translate in a mono situation. The vector scope is really responsive which I like. It helps me to check if my mix or any of the tracks are out of phase and the width of it. The low pass function comes in handy to check my low end elements, e.g. kick and bass or synth, are focused in the center. 

“Dynamic Range” is a very new concept to me and I don’t think I have come across any plugins that has this in it. I think it’s a great idea and it’s a highlight of this plugin. 

LEVELS comes with a few well designed mastering and mixing presets to be used it different situations.  

All in all, LEVELS is a great handy tool that includes all the basic metering you will need. Visually, it looks cooler than any metering plugins I have, and I can double check all the parameters almost instantly. It is going to be on my master bus as a safety net before I send my mix out. Clients in the session with me are going to like this plugin because they can finally read it, it is that simple!