Acustica Audio Coral2 mastering suite: vintage circuits meet modern algorithms
Once more, Acustica Audio presents a suite of analog-modeled gear to aid against that ‘sterile’ sound. Designed primarily for the purposes of mastering, Coral2 includes colored recreations of an equalizer, compressor, eliptical filter, preamp and an M/S Baxandall-type EQ. Acustica describes Coral2 as “extremely transparent”, with broad EQ curves and a gentle dynamics section which apples “ultra-soft clipping” and preserves transients.
The eliptical filter controls the stereo spread of selected frequency ranges, making it suitable for use when mastering for vinyl. As for the Baxter equalizer, which is based on a vintage circuit from the 1950s, it’s meant to work as a finishing EQ on the master bus (employing Mid/Side processing), but it also good for tracking and mixing duties.
As usual, each module is available as an individual plug-in or contained within a single channel strip plug-in. Acustica is also giving away a free, simplified copy of the Baxter EQ through its Aquarius plug-in manager application.
Coral2 is also the second Acustica plug-in to make use of the developer’s recently introduced AI presets which simulate mixing decisions by real-life producers. AI presets are applied by choosing a preset and running a snippet of audio through the plug-in. It gets analyzed and the plug-in is adjusted accordingly. The technology is in its early stages but I think it carries quite a bit of potential.
Price and availability
Acustica is selling Coral2 for EUR 89, down from EUR 199. A trial version is available for testing and the plug-in can be downloaded in all the usual formats for compatibility with any DAW on Windows and Mac.
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