RECORDING November 2022 - 24

-Review by Bill Stunt
BABY Audio
IHNY-2
A refined version of BABY's first " baby "
BABY Audio celebrated its third birthday with the release
of IHNY-2 (VST, AU, AAX), a retooled version of its very
first plugin, the I Heart NY parallel compressor (Reviewed
January 2020). The new version ups the ante of the BABY
Audio vision to " make the hardest hitting compressor in
history. " As with the original, IHNY-2 offers a straightforward
parallel path for blending ultra-aggressively compressed and
unprocessed audio. Version 2 adds further surgical control
to sculpt the effect to taste and boasts a sonic overhaul.
Babyface
IHNY-2 continues the BABY Audio paradigm, blending simple
controls with a deep level of sonic manipulation. An animated
glowing orb dominates the display for visual feedback. This is
overlaid with an X/Y pad that controls the wet/dry blend on the
vertical axis and compression intensity on the horizontal. Intensity
acts as the threshold setting and is married to the auto makeup
gain algorithm, but you can override that with a dedicated slider.
There is also a master output slider to manage gain staging.
Cool Tools
For the obsessives amongst us (that would be just about everyone
who identifies as an audio engineer or producer), you
can surgically dig into compression parameters plus various EQ,
saturation and transient shaping tools with the Tweak tab. True to
the BABY Audio ethos of " more music, less math, " these simple
controls reveal their function intuitively with simple graphics rather
than hardware-like virtual knobs and number-based settings.
The attack and release control is a simple representation of
a curve with slopes that you adjust with a click and drag. Ratio
adjustments are made similarly with a dedicated icon. Harmonics
is a saturator linked to the amount of gain reduction-more
compression equals more saturation.
Smile Away
The Shape control adjusts a smiley EQ curve, often used in conjunction
with parallel compression. Tilt is an EQ that, depending on
which way you adjust it, makes the compressor work harder or less
at the bookends of the spectrum. Lo + Hi Preserve is a set of pass
filters that prevents compression above and below its settings.
24 RECORDING November 2022
Hurts So Good
The simple graphic controls get you away from " painting
(tweaking) by numbers, " encouraging you to just " paint " and
focus on what you hear. And what you hear is fantastic. There
are sonic echoes of a certain era of the VCA-based DBX compressors
that provided some inspiration to BABY Audio. That
signature " slap " is emphasized, amped and enhanced by the
analog warmth of the flattering Harmonic control. With the extended
control set, you can also conjure up sounds akin to
vintage opto and classic bus compressors of various types and
topographies. I Heart how flexible it is.
Drums and Buses
Inserting IHNY-2 on a drum bus results in instant audio joy.
Adjusting the aggressiveness of the compressor and finding the
perfect parallel blend is quick and, in many instances, requires
little further tweaking despite my inner obsessive insisting on
digging into the extended controls to create a " tailored to the
tune " set of parameters. Getting the same results without IHNY-2
would require a compressor, at least two EQs, a transient
shaper, a saturation plugin and complicated bus routing, if
supported in your DAW.
Just in terms of workflow, this plugin is a winner, but the
sound of IHNY-2 closes the deal. Though its love for aggression
suggests use on slamming rock tunes and club music of all sorts
(for which it is fantastic), I found IHNY-2 entirely at home and
effective on softer tunes with a wider dynamic range.
Though a bus is an obvious insert point, IHNY-2 works wonders
on individual instruments and voices. There are 150+
well-curated presets to get you started on just about any source.
Let's Celebrate!
Happy Birthday to Caspar Bock and BABY Audio. Thanks for
the birthday present. It made me happy. Slap happy, in fact!
Bill Stunt (stunt@recordingmag.com) is a recording engineer,
producer and recording musician living in Ottawa.
Price: $69 More From: babyaud.io
Each control is subject
to a set of Key modifiers.
Holding the command
key allows for fine adjustments,
for example.
Other enhancements
include up to 4x oversampling, a " wet signal only " solo function,
optional tooltips, and " save as default " and " reset to default " buttons
at the top of the resizable interface.
http://babyaud.io
RECORDING November 2022

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