There are a handful of Equalizers for your DAW that are truly what I would call “next generation” EQ’s. EQ’s so advanced and far beyond what we have been used to for decades that they really are in a league of their own, leading the way in innovation, sonic intelligence and graphic interface. Bloom is snug in this category.
Made by Oeksound in Helsinki, Finland, Oeksound calls Bloom an “adaptive tone shaper.” Somewhat analogous to both an EQ and a multiband compressor, it analyzes the character of a signal and applies corrections to the perceived tonal balance for a more even and refined sound. It also lets you shape the tone and character of a track, for example, by adding warmth, brightness, or clarity. And it starts working right away, removing excessive resonances to smooth and make your tracks more pleasant sounding before you’ve moved a knob.
Tonal adjustments made with Bloom are dynamic and context-aware. This, together with its carefully designed user interface, makes the plug-in quick and intuitive to use and helps keep the material sounding natural, even when making radical changes. The real time GUI shows you the areas cut or boosted as they are happening.
Visually, Bloom looks like a combination of a four-band Paragraphic EQ with the traditional controls of a compressor. On the left side you have Attack and Release dials, and an Amount dial, which would correspond to a compressor on the Threshold control. Once you hit number seven on the amount control, you are in Squash mode, and the sound is nicely compressed.
On the right there is a four-band EQ section divided into Low, Low-Mids, High-Mids, and Highs as you might expect. These bands feature sliders like a multiband compressor that set both the amount and the frequency. The bottom row has Quality selection, (Normal, High, Low Latency), Squash Cal, Wet Trim, Mix percentage and Output / Bypass switches, so you have even much control of the blending and the amount of processing.
The controls offer a massive amount of variations between the amount of compression applied, and the variability of the EQ interface. Presets are a great starting point and are organized by the major food groups, Bass, Cleanup, Drums, Guitar, Imaging, Keys, Master Bus, Orchestral, Vocals. Each category has multiple presets, like “warm pop vocal,” or “violin warmer.” More than enough to point you in the right direction, and as you get more proficient on the plugin, you will find it to be very powerful and efficient as both a problem solver and a tone enhancer.
I highly recommend this plugin for both professional and novice users—all will find it very effective towards improving their mixes.
