Make Believe Studios – MixHead (Windows)

MixHead is an indispensable plugin that can be used at any stage of the recording process, and the efficiency of the code allows it to be used in multiple copies, not for fear of overloading the processor.

For years and years I’ve been staring at photos of classic and modern sessions, always trying to learn what I can about my favorite producers, mixers, and engineers. I’ve probably spent hundreds of hours staring at photos, studying the racks and searching for unique pieces of gear.

I eventually stumbled across a quote from Michael Brauer, about about a certain someone being 100% “in the box” except for a single piece of hardware, which led me to the discovery that I am proud to present to you. The MixHead.

Make Believe Studios MixHead captures the lightning in a bottle that this unique box offered. Knowing what we do now, and with myriad tape plugins at our disposal, some of the design approaches taken with the original unit may seem backwards or counter-intuitive today, but they are approaches that still work, and are quite fun to experiment with. We even added a few requested features like tenth of a decibel HF Adjust and a new 3.75ips lo-fi mode.

In practice, you may find that the 30ips setting sounds like it has more distortion than the 15ips setting. That’s fine. You may hear some interesting phase interplay at in the higher frequencies that you wouldn’t normally associate with tape. That’s also fine. You will also find that the input and drive controls are highly interactive, and that the HF Adjust is great for adjusting the top end in a way that sounds natural.

MixHead wasn’t created to do what your other tape plugins do. It resurrects and modernizes an outboard hardware DSP box previously relegated to the dreaded digital graveyard.

MixHead is an essential plugin that can be used in any stage of the recording process, with an efficiency in the code that allows multiple instances without worrying about overtaxing your CPU.