New Music Gear Monday: Korneff Audio Amplified Instrument Processor Plugin

There are a lot of channel strips plugins available but I’d venture to say that none of them are like Korneff Audio’s Amplified Instrument Processor (AIP for short). It borders on the one-of-a-kind and is quickly becoming one of my personal favorites. Let me tell you why.

The Standard Modules

Let’s face it, what differentiates most channel strips from another is the EQ, and the AIP has 4 bands of fully parametric EQ based on the German Klangfilm tube equalizer of the 1950’s, which was one of the sweetest EQ’s then and continues to be on the AIP. It goes way beyond the hardware though, as it has up to 36dB of boost and cut using gain scaling, independently switchable high-pass and low-pass filtering, and two curve types (modern active or vintage passive EQ curve). On top of that, it also features circuit age modeling with 16 channel variances so you can dial in slight analog imperfections that happen naturally between channels on a hardware console.

Then there’s the compressor module, which features a VCA-style compressor emulation based on the classic dbx 202 VCA integrated circuit. Parameters include the standard Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release and Makeup Gain. Plus it’s switchable pre or post EQ and has adjustable nulling to control the amount of color and crunch when the compressor is hit hard.

The Fun Stuff

Dan Korneff is a great mixer himself so he made the AIP to his tastes, which include some interesting and very useful twists. One is the Frequency Dependent Gain Reduction module, which is another compressor designed to work on selected ranges of frequencies below 600Hz to help tame resonant bass notes or take the ring out of a kick drum.

Next comes the Insufferable Midrange Filter, a specialized notch filter built to take care of the annoying 2kHz “whistle” of electric guitars, vocal sibilance, excessive cymbal hash, and finger squeaks or pick noise from acoustic instruments. This provides 3 different octave ranges, a Frequency control and a Threshold control, as well as Listen and In/Out selectors.

Probably the coolest add-on is the Proprietary Signal Processing that provides different preamp modeling between tube, tape and solid state modeling. Although the On/Off selector is on the front panel of the plugin, the more advanced functions of the module are available on a second advanced page found under the Korneff badge. There you can go deep into tweaking the preamp sound right down to the component level.

But there’s more. There’s a stereo widener featuring a proprietary algorithm, and a real time analyzer so you can see the input response of your signal with the EQ curves superimposed on top.

That’s much more than you’ll find on most channel strip plugins, but even the common features are unique. Any one module would make the AIP worth checking out, but add those extra features and it should be on the “must have” list for any mixer.

The Korneff Audio Amplified Instrument Processor is priced at $169.95 and a trial demo is available. The plugin will work on both Mac and PC-based DAWs, and VST3, AU and AAX plugin formats are supported.

You can find out more on the Korneff Audio dedicated page, or check out the video below for an overview.

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