sonox inflater

[Flange]

Can anyone please tell me about the sonox oxford inflater? What exactly is it? a limiter? compressor? Are there any cheaper or free options that do the same thing as its hugely expensive at 115 english pounds.

[timday]

It's kind of a compressor/limiter but does not work in the normal way. The blurb says stuff about it increasing the chances of samples being louder using a probabilistic thing. Tbh it is not entirely clear to me how it works from the manual.

In general if used judiciously it can make your stuff sound a lot bigger and fuller seeming but in a very clean way. It seems to my ears to destroy the dynamic range less than a limiter might. It does sound very good in this mode. If you crank everything up you can get a kind of analog sounding limiting out of it but I think it sounds too distorted if you do that.

Generally I use it in the mastering chain, it's too much for individual tracks or stems. I guess I'd say get a demo version and if you feel you like the sound that much buy it.

[Flange]

Thanks for the info

[timday]

It's kind of a compressor/limiter but does not work in the normal way.

It is neither of those. In it's essence it is a distortion unit from the 'harmonic exciter' category. It creates harmonic distortion to programme material you put through it and it does so according to very specific algorithms. In doing so, it makes the sound 'bigger' and 'louder' without actually raising it's volume or peak loudness. By adding harmonic distortion it adds perceived loudness. In addition it also has a clipper (that part can be seen as something that limits dynamic range i suppose, but not in a way a compressor/limiter does)

I was going to argue with you over this because this is an internet forum but then I realised you are completely right.