Wave’s next NX plugin should be 1 plugin with a decent library of consumer listening environments. Cars with stock speakers, cars with competition sound systems, boomboxes, home theatres, THX theatres (that’s be slick), phone speakers indoors / outdoors, ■■■■■■ mono Bluetooth speakers on a kitchen table, and any other common listening environment/system where real people hear real music and audio.
I picked up the CLA Nx plugin and I’m blown away. Legit, the Nx technology is very cool, especially for those of us who don’t have the greatest acoustics in our home studios.
The sound is extremely impressive, and someday I hope to pair it up with a Woojer vest or Subpack, as I imagine that would pair up well with Chris’s Ocean Ways, making for a intense listening experience, without rattling my house with 15” subwoofers.
As cool as the Ocean Way & CLA-10s are, I’m almost getting the most use out of that silly little boombox. Obviously having all 3 sets of speakers are what makes the referencing so effective. Small, Medium, & Large scale speakers, it’s prefect. But I’ve been identifying more problems with the boombox than the other sets, and it’s been really helpful finding the holes in my mixing game.
I think that one of the most powerful things about the plugin is the 1 button switch to change the system you’re listen on. I want that single button switch to put me in a car (CLA’S car, lol, just playing), or living room with consumer grade audio gear, and a variety of other very average listening environments to reference the mix in the real world, without leaving the studio.
While I get, that this might not be as marketable as Mix LA, Ocean Way Nashville, or Abbey Road in terms of the grand scale and prestige of those studio environments. However, I believe this would be super efficient in terms of legit utility. Yes, I could bounce my mix, and go play it in my living room, or in my mini van, but being able to check that at the click of a button, on my headphones… I’d give you my $29.99 tomorrow. If I bounce the mix, then go and listen, I have to remember the issues I perceived, then go and attempt to fix them, then bounce it again, then leave again to see if the problems are fixed. That’s a ton of back and forth time wasted. Where the NX technology would allow you to put the Studio out in the real world, to tweak those issues and hear real-time feedback on the improvements.
All that to say, I think there’s a lot of potential in NX. Not just to put us into other studios, but also to move our in the box studios out into real world scenarios for referencing.
Sidenote • While I’m aware that consumer level headphones are not really ideal for any serious mixing work, I’d love to see some extra headphone modeling for common / popular consumer brand headphones. They’re probably the ones who would need the most help flattening out their frequency response as well. Right now I’ve only got a set of Beat’s by Dre Solo3’s. I’m sure I’m not the only one out there with subpar headphones that could benefit from a custom eq curve.