A behind the scenes look at our plug-in development process
Sonimus has always been firmly committed to audio quality and fidelity. We design our plug-ins so they not only sound good, but also are easy to use, versatile, and most importantly CPU light so they don’t limit the creativity of our users. So how do we approach the development of our products — what happens behind the scenes?
In this article, we would like to share the philosophy and creative process that come into play when developing our plug-ins. Stay with us and we’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
1- The Vision
The first step in our process is defining what it is we are bringing to the market. Whether it is an equalizer, a dynamic processor, or a console emulation, we carefully consider what could be a relevant and interesting addition to our collection that could benefit and improve the audio quality and workflow of our customers. We feel an immense sense of pride in our community, and we are always listening and reading their comments and ideas and taking them into consideration to implement in future releases.
Once the decision is made we start a comparative analysis of analogue equipment that could help inspire our product. Because we do not emulate a specific piece of gear, we don’t really need to focus on a specific unit to model. Instead, we take the most interesting and useful features obtained from our analysis and surveys and come up with a preliminary design with a clear idea of what the audio objective should be.
2- Modeling
Up next is the modeling of the selected audio features. This step consists of writing code that emulates the behaviour of electricity passing through electronic components to get an equivalent effect in the digital domain. In other words, turning hardware into software – but we don’t stop there! We ensure that we always take these models beyond their original capabilities and design plug-ins by combining all the desired audio qualities.
We use advanced digital signal processing techniques to achieve the best sound in our products. Throughout the years, we have developed our own tools and methodologies to create our plug-ins. One of the strategies we use is Intensive Curve Analyzer (Anzerson®) combined with mathematics associated with the real models to obtain the right processing for our signal.
With all this data we are able to construct a prototype of the plug-in with a preliminary layout and start shaping its sound. It also allows us to start considering the ergometry of controls that the plugin will have: switches, knobs, meters, etc.
3- User Interface
Always based on the premise that less is more, we work with designers to obtain visuals and layouts that avoid an overload in the GUI. This simplification gives the user a quick understanding of what to do and how the plug-in works.
During this designing process we also pay attention to the skin of the product. We take into consideration the materials, age and style of the reference gear so we are able to deliver the desired visuals and feeling for the plug-in.
4- Final Assembly and Testing
Once everything is ready, it’s time to assemble everything together. The UI gets rendered with the code and controls and we start testing the behaviour of the plug-in and analysing its psychoacoustic effects. This then leads to a series of iterations of going to previous phases to obtain the right feeling for the plug-in. It might be adjusting the visuals in the UI, the sensitivity of the controls or even changing the whole layout. As tedious as it may sound, we must not forget that the final objective is achieving a product that provides the highest audio quality and the simplest yet most useful interface possible.
Finally, we prepare a beta product to deliver to our testers that will be trying it in their own machines within different DAWs, and getting a feel of how to integrate the new plug-in into their workflow. Then, we collect their feedback and notes and we do the final tweaks for the official release.
All these stages follow a strict quality control that goes along with our motto: “If it’s not perfect, it’s of no use”.
We hope you enjoy learning more about our creative process and we look forward to showing you the future products that we are currently working on.
