New Music Gear Monday: Audio Thing Type A Enhancer Plugin

If you ever recorded to magnetic tape, then you know that tape hiss was something that most everyone hated. It wasn’t too much of a problem on loud program, but it really stuck out during a quiet section of a song. When Dolby noise reduction first came on the scene it was a godsend for many producers and engineers for keeping the noise down, but there was a neat little mixing trick that was developed using the Dolby A units unlike they were intended. That’s what the Type A plugin by Audio Thing emulates.

The Dolby A unit actually had 2 processes. It broke the frequency band down into 4 bands and compressed them according to how loud each was during recording (the lower the level, the brighter the sound). During playback the opposite happened, with the 4 bands being expanded and combined to provide about 10dB of noise reduction.

Somewhere along the way a clever engineer needing something extra to bring a vocal out of the mix decided to add the Dolby A only in record mode, and that provided a very cool top end enhancement of the sound. This became known to many as “stretch.” Audio Thing’s Type A gives you that stretch sound enhancement without the hassle of the hardware.

The Type A plugin is laid out just like the old Dolby A hardware unit but provides a lot more sonic possibilities. The front panel includes an old-style VU meter, In/Out switch, Direct on/off, and 4 band on-off switches. To the right there are Input, Mix and Output controls.

Page 2 of the plugin allows you to switch the meter to monitor either input or output, Attack and Release controls for the compressor, and level controls for each band. There’s also a Noise control to add some noise back into the signal for added realism.

I can remember stretch being used primarily on vocals, especially background vocals, and you can get that same vintage sound with Type A. There’s so much more you can do with it though, since there are more parameters to tweak as needed.

If you’re looker for an enhancer that doesn’t work or sound like one, check out Type A. It’s normally $59 but now on sale for $38.50. Hear examples of it in action and learn more about the noise reduction process on the Audio Thing site, or check out the very informative video below.

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