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Oeksound is one of those companies that makes plugins that make your music sound better. The company’s new Bloom processor looks to continue the trend.

Oeksound doesn’t release that many plugins, but they have all made a big impression. 2018’s Spiff was originally designed as a corrective vocal processor, but turned out to be an equally useful tool on almost any sound source. And as for Soothe2, well that is one of the great plugins of our time, one that we described as “a dynamic EQ plugin that no producer should be without”.

Big pressure for Oeksound on this latest release, Bloom. According to the company, an “adaptive tone shaper” – basically it sounds like it makes your music sound better, or, depending on how it sounds in the first place.

“It analyses the character of a signal and applies corrections to the perceived tonal balance for a more even and refined sound,” says Oeksound, brilliantly saying everything and nothing in one sentence.

Bloom does seem to do ‘stuff’ in various frequency bands, though, so we could call it, broadly, an EQ.

“Four frequency balance sliders can be used to further shape the tone to taste, enabling both fine adjustments and radical transformations. These sliders change the overall tonal balance that Bloom is working towards, rather than making absolute cuts or boosts as found in an EQ.”

Which leaves us bemused, especially after Oeksound itself concludes: “Bloom steps away from explicit problem-solving and towards colour and tone-shaping. It can be used to fix audio, but also to sculpt it creatively.”

Which ultimately means you probably need to check it out to understand it.

You can watch a NAMM Show floor demo video below via Sonic State:

Oeksound hasn’t revealed how much Bloom will be or when it will be available, just saying “soon”. Find out more info at Oeksound website.

Today, Behringer introduced the Spring Reverberation 636, an unofficial copy of the Grampian 636 spring reverb, in Eurorack format.

The original was used in genres from rock to spaghetti western soundtracks to dub. Here’s what Behringer has to say about it:

“Emulating our heroes is one of the many things we can have fun with as musicians which is why we wanted the SPRING REVERBERATION 636 to be as faithful as possible to the original Grampian Type 636 used by Pete Townshend and legendary reggae dub master Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Now you can have their legendary secret ingredient added to your setup so you can create your very own masterpiece, or to just have fun with.”

Behringer appears to have translated the original design into Eurorack form factor fairly literally, resulting in a large hardware effect that takes up a lot of rack space – 72HP – while only offering three controls. The design also doesn’t add any modular CV control over the effect.

The 72 HP width may also strike some synthesists as awkward, since it’s wider than Behringer’s 70HP Euro synths, like the D, and narrower than the 80 HP width of the Neutron and Pro-1.

Unusually for the company’s products, the Behringer Spring Reverberation 636 is more expensive and takes up more rack space than some readily available options. Other solutions generally mount the spring reverb in the case, so the panel is only as big as needed for the controls. For example, the Doepfer A-199 Spring Reverb Module offers more control in 8 HP, for about $50 less.

Because of these design decisions, the Spring Reverberation 636 may appeal more to people interested in an inexpensive copy of the Grampian 636 than to synthesists interested in a hardware reverb unit.

The Behringer Spring Reverberation 636 is expected to be available within 1-2 months, priced at $199.

What do you think? Watch the video, and then share your thoughts on the Behringer Spring Reverberation 636 in the comments!

Today, Behringer shared a preview of the CZ-1 Mini, a minisynth that copies the sound engine used in Casio’s famous vintage CZ synth line of ’80s.

The CZ-1 Mini adds an analog filter not found on the original, which used Phase Distortion Synthesis, Casio’s response to Yamaha’s implementation of FM synthesis.

“The momentum keeps building as we introduce CZ1 Mini,” Behringer says, “an extraordinary reproduction of Casio’s CZ synthesizer engine, combined with an analogue filter. With its exceptional phase distortion synthesis, the sound the CZ1 Mini produces is unparalleled.”

Behringer says that the CZ-1 Mini is ready for beta testing, and that it has a target price of $99.