Type X

What it does

An emulation of the dbx 1BX, a 1978 single-band expander built to widen dynamic range. Quiet parts are pushed further down and loud parts held or lifted, set by an expansion amount and a transition level that decides where it engages. Added beyond the original are a modelled hum generator, attack and release, source filters, input and output drive with a soft clipper, a wet mix and a sidechain input.

In the demo

Jade shows the noise floor being expanded away first, then drives the input and filters until the piano breaks up. She sets up sidechaining in AUM with a second multibus instance, feeds hi-hats into a kick, and finishes on a rough vocal take with the Dverb preset.

Worth knowing

It works on the quiet parts, so a dense already-compressed source gives it little to act on. Sidechain routing depends on the host, and Logic on iPad could not do it at the time of the demo.