Baby Audio has lifted the lid on its brand new compressor plugin, the IHNY-2, which the company says may just be the ‘hardest hitting compressor in the industry’.
The new IHNY-2 IHNY-2 splits the incoming audio into two duplicates. One remains untouched by the plugin (Dry track), the other is subjected to everything the IHNY-2 has to offer (Wet track). Users balance the two signals on the vertical axis of the XY pad, while setting the compression amount of the Wet track on the horizontal axis. This allows you to operate the most important controls of the plugin in just one motion.
IHNY-2 has an autogain algorithm working under the hood to offer a consistent output as you move the node around the XY pad – but if you find that it’s too loud or too quiet you can use the Autogain slider on the front panel to nudge the behavior. While moving the node around the XY pad, a value is displayed under the AGR (Adjusted Gain Reduction). This number takes into account the current Gain Reduction and Dry/Wet balance to give you a value for the compression intensity.
Meanwhile, the Tweak Panel offers users full control over the compressor, along with some new features not found in the original version of the plugin. These include Attack + Release, which sets how fast the compressor engages and disengages; Ratio, which sets the compression intensity from mild to aggressive; and Punch, which helps to emphasise attack transients in the compressed track.
Also new is the Harmonics feature, introducing harmonic saturation controlled by gain reduction.
The plugin is designed with modern genres in mind; for example, optimised for loudness and impact, without a loss of clarity. However, some of the inspiration behind the plugin is also drawn from the past. Particularly to the affordable DBX units of the ‘80s and ‘90s.
The launch of the new IHNY-2 Compressor follows the news earlier this year that Baby Audio was releasing free plugins for iPhone and iPad.
You can also read Headliner's review of the Baby Audio Taip plugin here.