Recording - April 2018 - 42

Plug-In Outlet

Electronics
Drum Enhancer
Review by Paul Vnuk Jr.
The new DW Electronics Drum Enhancer is a drum-focused
channel strip plug-in created by Audified in conjunction with
Drum Workshop, better known as DW. I am not sure who
proposed to whom, but this marriage of software and [drum]
hardware has given birth to a plug-in combining Audified's
circuit modeling expertise, the drum building knowledge of
one of the world's leading makers, and tuning and preset
advice from DW's roster of endorsees and artists.
DW Drum Enhancer is not your standard preamp-EQ-compressor-gate-output fader channel strip in
appearance or function. It does contain many if not all
of those parameters under its hood, but they are grouped
together in preconfigured drum-centric macros.

Walking the beat

DW Drum Enhancer is a single window plug-in with a few
additional drop-down menus. The GUI is laid out as matching
left and right silver panels split by a faux vented tube in the
center. The left side starts with a ±12 dB Level-In knob and
a Phase flip button. Next is the Gate, complete with an LEDequipped Threshold knob and hard or soft Knee settings.
A similarly simple Compressor section is next, with Threshold,
Mix, and ±12 dB Makeup gain control. Also on the left side
is a large control dial that I am going to come back to in
a moment.
On the right side is the EQ, with Low-Mid-Hi controls (±12
dB each), a Pre/Post-Compressor switch, and a set of fixed
frequency High- and Lowpass buttons. This section also contains
a Saturation control that we will get to in a moment, a detailed
42

RECORDING April 2018

meter section, and a ±12 dB Level-Out control. All four effects
can be individually bypassed.
Metering is handled by a classic VU-style meter that can
show input, output, gain reduction, or saturation levels. The
second (and default) option is to see all of the above at one
time, via four individual 10-stage LED meters.

Dialing it in!

While this plug-in contains almost everything one would
expect to find on a modern SSL or Neve channel strip, you'll
notice some major omissions. There are no parameter choices
for compression ratio, attack, or release, or EQ frequency selection.
This is where the Drum Type Selector dial comes into play.
The dial has four sections, each devoted to a drum type,
with three choices each. There are sections for Kick, Snare,
and Toms, each with a choice of Modern, Heavy, or Vintage.
The final section, labeled Other, offers a choice of Room,
Overhead, or Bus. When one of these is selected, the internal
parameters of each and every section-compression type,
attack, release, knee and sidechain, EQ type, Q settings and
frequency, gate attack and release, and the filter settings-are
tailored to the selected drum and style.
Audified and DW do not give any more than hints via preset names as to what is going on behind the faceplate. This is
a by-ear device, where you choose which Drum Type works
best on a particular sound, followed by fine-tuning to taste
with the front panel controls.

Saturation and settings

The large knob on the right side of the plug-in is the Saturation
dial. Just as DW is known as a firm of experts in all things
drums, Audified's techs are experts at modeling analog
saturation-shown off in the U87 Saturator, U73b Compressor,
STA Effects, ampLion Pro, and more.
There are five saturation choices, paraphrased from the
manual as:
1. Presence: boosted mid-high frequencies
2. Vintage: smooth, rounded highs and extended even-order
harmonics

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - April 2018