From Intimate to Explosive: Shape Tension and Feel with 1 Knob.
Magma StressBox shapes the musical tension and feel of your sounds, bringing new life into flat tracks. Turn right for explosive punch and energy, turn left for intimate control and focus.
Each twist transforms your track’s feel, adding drama, contrast, and movement in a single knob. Learn more »
$79
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Magma StressBox is also included in Waves Creative Access subscriptions and select bundles.
“With StressBox, I get colorful grit and glue - it brings the mix elements forward and makes everything feel more alive.”
Tony Hoffer
(Air, M83, Phoenix, Beck)
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This thing may look quite simple, but I’m actually impressed at how the expander manages to maintain the same level of energy for the most part. That couldn’t have been that easy.
Great sonics too.
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What a cool plugin! I had high hopes for what they’d release this year and this thing is unexpectedly cool.
You summed it up well about the expander, and I hope this plugin introduces more people to expansion. Everyone talks about compression, but expansion is just as useful. This makes it easy.
In an age where we have seemingly limitless feature-rich plugins, I’ve come to really love simple ones that have a sound. You know what they do and grab for them when you want it. The classic RVox is still like that to this day.
And here we have another one-knob compressor (with one-knob expander) that is equally cool as Rvox but totally different:
The compressor is wild. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I believe it has a really soft knee. As a result, at 100% mix I often find I don’t like to go more than 1.3:1 ratio! Although I just used it, with more, automating on a track that had reverb in the background. Over several bars, I increase the ratio and it pulled forward the ambience in a delightfully squishy way. Super cool effect.
And of course, the compression in this plugin is spectacular for parallel compression. It’s amazing what it can do on a drum bus, dialing up the ratio and lowering the mix percent.
Lastly - I know looks don’t matter, but… I think the UI is beautiful, and that adds to the experience. Kudos to whoever did the UI art for it, it’s gorgeous.
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Actually, it’s entirely possible that the knee might get harder the more compression we apply. I can’t say for sure, but I do know that this seems to be the approach of one knob compressors you may find on mixing console channel strip, among other places.
I’m also thinking this kind of design would make a good basis for a guitar pedal. Minimal controls, maximised flexibility, plenty of VIBE.