Todays review victim is Kush Audio Pusher, as the company themselves say it’s an outwardly expanding distortion generator. “It’s a sound sculptor’s dream, an artist’s tool that bends the rules of physics to generate genuinely new musical distortions and transient colorations“, is what the Kush website states. Let’s see if we agree about this.

Around the end of last year Elektron announced the Analog Keys which they describe as their flagship analog synthesizer. For many it is the same as the Analog Four but with keys. Before we begin with this review I wanted to tell you that I already own an Elektron Analog Four and know it like the back of my hand. So in that regard I may skip over parts that I’m overly familiar with and will make a comparison between the two models.

In the line of focusing on one of the emulations of hardware compressors modelled for Universal Audio by Brainworx we’ll look at the Shadow Hills mastering compressor plug-in. The plug-in combines two compressors in series being an optical and a VCA compressor in stereo or dual mono mode.

Recently we did the review for the Kickstart Plugin from Nicky Romero and The CableGuys. A nice little plugin we liked. So we thought to look at some more plugins from the CableGuys. This is a german company well known for their plugins volumeshaper, midishaper, filtershaper and the curve2 synth. Today we test the FilterShaper plugin, which is in its third incarnation now and has got some nice tricks up its sleeve.

Novation is a brand every producer, from bedroom to mastering studio, has heard of or used equipment from. They make absolute outstanding synthesizers, both as hardware or software solutions. Recently they released a few new hardware machines, like the Bass station II, which we reviewed earlier. Novation also released the Mininova synthesizer. A synth that grabbed our interest and we were happy to take a closer look at. Novation Mininova, is it mini or is it big?

The new Bass station II is the successor of the well respected Bass Station that came to light 21 years ago. I still remember the original Bass Station as a good sounding analog synthesizer, and a brilliant small midi controller that had its twerps with the pots but made up for its characteristic sound. During the renaissance of the analog synthesizer we have seen a lot of reissues but also some new designs with innovations that simply weren’t possible a few decades ago. The Bass station II is one of these. It still has the hands on approach you’d like to see with programming a synthesizer and added functionality for further tweaking with use of a function switch.

U-HE DIVA – which stands for (Dinosaur Impersonating Virtual Analogue Synthesizer) has been out for a while now and its latest incarnation is version 1.3. This update brings you the new digital osc which faithfully recreates a famous synth that was introduced at the end of the 90s. Famous for the classic ‘so called’ Super Saws. Also theres a new UHBIE filter this is an emulation of the OB-X/SEM filter and an arpeggiator.

Last week we reviewed the KICK Synth plugin by Nicky Romero and Sonic Academy. Earlier this year Nicky released his first plugin called Kickstart. This plugin will be looked at today. Kickstart by Nicky Romero & The Cableguys is a plugin that can emulate the sidechain effect that is so populair in dance music styles for years now. The key to this whole proces is called volume ducking, through different volumeshapes you get different swings in the sidechain effect.

Here it is, the KICK Drum Synthesiser Nicky Romero artist edition plugin by Sonic Academy and Nicky Romero. The name says it all, this plugin is intended for making kicks. And that’s what you get, big fat kickdrums for a wide variety of genres.