Kjaerhus Audio – The Gold Series

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Known for some great free plugins, they also have some awesome shareware plugins.

The guys at Kjaerhus Audio have surpassed themselves again with their "Gold Series" - a shareware set of VST plugin’s that build on the foundations laid by the superb "Classic Series", providing even more functionality, knobs, leds and colour-coded dials than you shake the proverbial stick at!

The Gold Series features an equaliser, compressors, modulation effects and one complete "Audio Channel" incorporating all the above. Each plug looks the part - with a classy gold interface, retaining the look and feel of an analogue equivalent, with all the buttons, knobs and dials in the right places.

I recall the Kjaerhus Classic Series had the look and "feel" of analogue rack gear and I’m glad to see the overall feel of the "Gold Series" maintains this, albeit with a superior polished gold finish – very nice indeed!

Each plug has been modelled using Kjaerhus ACLM technique, which involves breaking down the component parts of the plugs as if they were part of an analogue device. This technique means the plugs are modelled on each independent "circuit" to make up the final plug and I can testify to the excellent analogue type sounds achievable with the plugin's.

The "Gold Series" comprises the following VST Plug-In’s:

I have used these plugin’s for guitar, vocals, drums and bass tracks and I can say they are certainly worth the "Gold" tag. The audiophiles amongst you will certainly enjoy the advanced and extensive features each plug has to offer including the 4 different EQ styles within the GEQ-7 and the extensive compression options available in the Golden Uni-Pressor including VCA & Opto models which can be run in warm or smooth modes and a handy PDE to decrease the pumping we all strive to eliminate as well as increasing the volume!

Each plug-in also features A > B comparisons for testing the changes you make, 64 bit internal processing, support for sampling rates up to 192ks/s and zero latency. It is worth noting that my 2.2ghz Celeron managed to deal with these plugs effectively with little to no problem at all – a welcome change from CPU greedy VST plugin’s.

The Gold Series has a consistent look and feel and functions in a consistent manner meaning one can very quickly become familiar with the entire set. I would point out that this collection of plugs has a LOT of features, many of which are fairly advanced and bearing this in mind, may not be suited to the novice or causal hobbyist. Conversely, the more serious hobbyist/semi/professional user will love the options available and indeed, the quality the plugin’s do produce.

I particularly enjoyed the analogue sounds the Golden Modulator can produce with some very nice Flanger/Chorus effects achievable after some tweaking. The guys are Kjaerhus provide around 45 presets to get you started but prepare to tweak, tweak, and tweak such is the range of functions available.

The GMO features 2 LFO’s with 10 possible waveforms, allowing you alter the delay time/amplitude and stereo panning type effects separately. I utilised the presets and after some tweaking, achieved a fantastic analogue sounding chorus for acoustic guitar passages, which sounded nice and clean without sounding "tinny". I also made some cool retro "swirling" flangers, a must for psychedelic fans!

I also found the Golden Equaliser to be a most excellent plug. The ability to run the plug in one of 3 modes (stereo, full stereo and mono) depending on your needs is a very good idea. This means you can choose to run in stereo, linked stereo or mono modes depending on what you are doing.

The 5 band parametric equaliser may be a common thing in this day and age but the analogue tones one can produce certainly is not. The plug also features gain, frequency and Q controls, each colour coded with separate high and low cut filters. A very versatile plug indeed and one I will use time and time again.

The only gripe I have with this plug, being a user of Cubase would be the inability to enter a value into the control. I generally prefer to enter a numerical value and this also helps with those precise measurements but a small gripe with an otherwise great plug!

The Golden Compressor and expander plug is also loaded with features and modelled after a range of classic analogue compressors. This compressor is particularly useful and different from other compressors in that it can create different types of sounds from a smooth transparent sound to a warmer sound, more akin to the sound generated by classic tubes.

Alas, this compressor is far superior to many I have used (even those produced by VERY large software houses) and has so many features it’s hard to list. I did find the option to generate a "pumping" sound rather odd but if you need to do that, you can (though I generally spent years trying to avoid such a sound!!). One can also invoke A > B comparisons which allows you to "road test" sounds and ideas before you apply any changes to your audio – useful indeed.

So, what of the Golden Peak-Pressor? This is a high quality soft-limiter/peak compressor designed for peak-taming and compression. This can be applied during real-time tracking as well as mixing or live application due to the low latency with the plug.

I made use of the plug on some troublesome screaming solo passages from a fast paced rock composition and it handled the job well indeed, with the very short release time available, I was able to kill the precise note that was offending my ears with great accuracy. I also made use of the brick wall limiting available for a strange type of smacking effect on a bass drum which gave me a very cool and individualised sound, used more as an effect than the intended use.

This plug has all the features one needs for limiting and peak compressing, though I would say that as with many of the Gold Series, some advanced functions may be out of scope for the novice/casual user but again, ideal and indeed welcomed functionality for the advanced, more serious user.

The Golden Audio Channel is a complete solution in one plug = and what a plug! This baby features 2 compressors, 2 equalisers, a noise gate and a wide-band de-esser – all in one, space/time/processor efficient package!!

The quality of this plug alone is equal to each individual component of the Gold Series and is most definitely my personal favourite plug in the series. I utilised this single plug on both vocal and bass tracks and made extensive use of the compressor, de-esser and equaliser on the vocal track with the equaliser and compressor used on the bass track.

Even when we consider the efficiency factor alone we can see the power of this channel. The sound is very analoguesque (as per the rest of the set) and the only flaw I could see with this plug is the sheer volume of features available. I see this as a positive and negative in that the casual user or novice would be bamboozled by the array of features on offer but for the more serious hobbyist (through to a professional user), the benefits are simply superb.

If we consider the ability to run A > B comparisons on 2 equalisers, the possibility to compress/de-ess and gate and run the effect in real time, you can start to appreciate the power this plugin offers. The efficiency of resources is a MAJOR consideration here and I for one find this plugin absolutely invaluable (especially when one is restricted for insert effects – you effectively have 6 plugs in 1 – 2 EQ/2 Comps/De-Esser/Gate) and for a user of a 2.2 Celeron, this is MUCH appreciated!!!

The Bottom Line

The Gold Series is an excellent set of Shareware Plugin’s. The quality on offer and the look, feel and functionality is superb. I would suggest the plugs might not be for everyone i.e. the novice user would perhaps not appreciate and fully harness the power of these plugs but the more serious/semi-professional/professional user will certainly appreciated and utilise the power within this series.

The developer is forward thinking and close to his product. Indeed, Kjaerhus are currently offering a free, unrestricted trial on all the plugin’s, for 14 days so you can evaluate the products for yourself.

I would like to end by quoting directly from the Kjaerhus Website "…we could talk data, specifications, and features all day long, but it would not be the same as trying it out for yourself…" – I therefore recommend you give the plugins a whirl. The trials for each plug last 14 days, totally unrestricted and will allow you to evaluate each plug in full. Enjoy yourself and get those sleeves rolled up, ready to dig in the goldmine of features on offer!

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User-submitted comments


crux
Oct 19, 2005 04:30 am
Not an ad
After reading about their stuff here at HRC, i downloaded their free stuff and i have to say, this is not some plug, their stuff is great. Their classic compressor is all over my mixes and i cant really find any software compressor that is as easy and and as effective as this one. I use it for all my drum tracks almost.
The gold series can only get better.


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