DeEdger — Manual

Some of the most difficult problems in mixing and mastering are not spread across the spectrum — they sit in a single band. The sting of a ride cymbal, the bite of brass, the overshoot of a picked string, the sibilant edge that survived the de-esser, the harsh resonance of a kick beater. These are the moments that turn an otherwise excellent take into a fatiguing one. Static EQ can dial them out, but it takes the character with them: the same band that carries the hardness also carries the detail, presence, and life of the source.

What such material asks for is something narrower than an EQ and gentler than a compressor — a tool that isolates a tunable frequency region and acts only on the brief, bright overshoots within it that the ear interprets as harshness. The detection has to be independent of absolute signal level so that the same setting works across quiet verses and loud choruses, and the reduction has to leave the underlying tone, dynamics, and air untouched. In effect, a finely tuned resonance tamer: minimal in its footprint, surgical in its target, and stable enough to "set and forget" once the band is dialled in.

DeEdger introduces a new way of reducing the hardness of audio signals without negatively altering the original signal qualities.

The plugin operates in a threshold free manner, thus can comfortably handle any input signal level, type, and dynamic range. Where other plugins might under or over process, DeEdger only applies processing if any hardness is detected. Once detected, the hardness will be smoothed with remarkable elegance. After initial setup, DeEdger can be left in a "set and forget" configuration without further attention.

Intricate time and frequency dependent mechanisms allow DeEdger to provide a very transparent process throughout. Developed and fine tuned by a professional mastering engineer, the initial concept focused on the demands of modern audio mastering and has also turned out to be equally useful for mixing.

Additional options can be accessed using the standard context menu. This is opened by Right-clicking on a blank area anywhere in the UI. A click outside of the menu closes it.

• Shortcuts… — opens the keyboard shortcuts configuration dialog.
• User Interface Scale — selects one of the three size presets defined in the settings dialog.
• Instance — rename the specific plug-in instance.
• Copy State (Ctrl + C) — copies the current control states to the clipboard.
• Paste State (Ctrl + V) — pastes the control states from the clipboard.
• Share State — opens a dialog with sharing options via e-mail or forums.

Default shortcuts:

• Active (toggle): E
• Delta (toggle): D
• Depth (− / +): Q / W
• Q (− / +): A / S
• Frequency (− / +): Y / X
• Focus Listen (hold): Alt (Option on Mac)

Step keys increment or decrement the parameter using snap values for stepped control. Focus Listen is a hold key — the effect is active only while the key is held down.

DeEdger was conceived and developed by Jan Ohlhorst.
Documentation by Shane Johnson.

Software evaluation by:

Ady Connor, Aleksi Vuolevi, Andrew Boult, Audiobomber | Castlemastering, Bob Olhsson, Cyril Meysson, Dan Suter | echochamber, Dan Worrall, Dax Liniere | Puzzle Factory, Dean, Dennis J Wilkins | Studio 12 Below, Diogo C. Borges, Eden Puder, Eric Recourt, EvilDragon, Greg Reierson, Gregg Janman | Hermetech Mastering, Helmut Erler | mastering.heyrec.org, Ilya Orlov, Janne Hatula, Jean Dante, Jeffrey Rippe, Jerry Anthony Mateo, Joe Caithness Mastering, Joseph Lyons, Justin Perkins, Laurent Sevestre, Michael Wynne, Miro Pajic, Murray Campbell | Beatworld, Niklas Silen, Nil Hartman, Pete Grandison, Resoundsound Mastering, Rich Prewett, Richard Pentrose, Robi Bulesic, Roland Löhlbach, Ruairi O'Flaherty, Sean Diggins, Sergey Makeev, Thaddeus Moore | Liquid Mastering, Titanio Studios, Valentin Zvukofor, Vitaly Zolotarev.