Type B

What it does

An emulation of the 1970s aural exciter, hardware studios once rented by the minute to add presence to dull tape recordings. Signal splits in two, one path through a drive stage tunable in kHz, the other through a filter and harmonic generator, and the two can be swapped. A direct switch, colour, wet boost, soft clip, an emulation of the unit’s noise with an optional envelope, and oversampling sit around it.

In the demo

Jade works on soloed drums first, tuning the exciter until the kit cuts through the band, then puts it across a finished master and tunes it to a lead vocal. She also plays a track it does not suit, an already bright mix where the same settings turn harsh.

Worth knowing

Turning the direct path off strips low end, so on bass it takes care. This is the companion to AudioThing’s Type A rather than a replacement for EQ. A Mac and PC version is sold by AudioThing.