Excite Audio and KSHMR partnered to create a plugin that silently makes a lot of noise!
This plugin doesn’t help solve tasks like compression, distortion, etc., as it’s merely a workflow utility tool!
I know it might sound boring at first, but make sure to read through the whole thing because this tool is going to have a terrific impact on people who’re adopting it.
GUI
The plugin consists of two versions: a Leader and a Follower. The Follower is a simplified version of the Leader, so I’ll focus on describing the latter.
The GUI is simple. An empty chain where you can load your plugins and sort them in any order you wish at any moment.
Each instance of your plugins comes with an RMS meter that shows the difference in volume between the input and output, Dry and Wet knobs, and an Input knob.
The plugin browser is excellent as it offers a categorization that will help you a lot in picking from your list. There are several categories like Dynamics, Equalizers, Reverb, Delay, Stereo Imagers, Utility, Distorters, FX, etc.
If you haven’t sorted your plugins this way yet, then this is going to save you a lot of time.
You can also search your plugins by name, though.
The preset list is empty because… you have to create your chains with your plugins!
As long as you touch any parameter in any plugin in the Leader, all the followers will sync to it. However, you can later fine-tune the settings in the follower without affecting the Leader if you need.
How I use it
One of the examples made by KSHMR in how he uses this plugin is about Auto-Tuning several vocals stacked on top of each other individually.
That’s indeed a great application, but I’m far more interested in using KSHMR Chain as a sort of Non-Linear summing tool by loading it at the beginning of each channel with a saturator or similar and seeing how the whole mix reacts to different distortion algorithms with a simple click.
That was a technique I implemented for some time but then dropped it because it was too time-consuming because of all the clicks I had to do going through each instance to get the fine-tuning I was looking for.
This plugin is also wonderful for all those producers and engineers that don’t have anything like the Audio Effect Rack from Ableton, which is a great way to copy and paste plugins from track to track.
However, as an Ableton user myself, I’ve still found a couple of applications where it will speed up my workflow.
Conclusion
This plugin is filling a role that no other plugin has ever done (as far as I know).
The more people get their hands on it, the more usages will be discovered as the potential is right there.
What I want to see in a future upgrade is a feature allowing to switch between a Dry/Wet knob going from 0% to 100% and the current two-knobs version. However, it’s also true that the RMS meter helps with getting an output that nicely matches the input volume.
Here you can buy Excite Audio KSHMR Chain
