Make Believe studios has releases Mixhead, a recreation of a somewhat secret weapon, the SPL Machine Head, a digital tape saturation emulator.

Its kind of a one trick pony, but it sounds really good. Warm, smoothing of the transients, capable of breaking up in a very pleasing and melodic way. I told myself i didnt need it, but ended up purchasing after demoing.

From what ive gathered, its the first ever product endorsement from Serban Ghenea, whatever that means lol.

https://www.makebelievestudio.com/mixhead

 

Collaboration with Metric Halo again

 

I look up to mastering engineer Brad Boatright, he's done great work and the insights he offers on his instagram are great. Very practical. He was singing praises of this plug so I definitely want to try it.

 

He supposedly uses the hardware rack version on "everything", so this is supposed to imply that he thinks it is a great emulation of the real unit. But what it more likely means is they sent him a copy and maybe some money to stick his name somewhere in the marketing.

There is a guy on Reverb selling one, and it is currently listed at 18K. The listing says he is going to reduce the price every day by $500, to "see what it is really worth on the open market".

Of course, on reverb.com you can cancel a sale with no penalty, and also "buy" something from yourself and then cancel it.

 

This was a quick buy after messing around with it for a few hours. Loving it on vocals and for mix bus I use it after my glue comp and color eq. And now throwing AA Wine at the end of the chain, things getting too easy now.

 

yessss! im loving wine as well. These two go really well together. I love how mixhead breaks up. Ive been slamming clipped phonk / trap beats into it and its niiiiice

 

I'm always amazed at the significantly lower CPU usage compared to the quality of their plugins.
Their sontec is the best emulation eq out there, but has close to 0 percent cpu usage.
The coder they have is probably a genius.
Yes, and this plugin is great too. It's like using the very good 'compander'

 

the lack of cpu hit is definitely a plus. i havent tried their sontec, will give it a go

 

im not sure who that is, but im still laughing

 

Hey guys.
I had a hard time to recreate a preset from this Mixhead plugin in Intensity from Zynaptiq.
Why? Because i try to use less plugins and i bought the intensity plugin recently.
Maybe this info is helpful, for someone who also has the Intensity Plugin and cannot use Mixhead.

They´re both doing some multiband (Upwards?) Compression, exciter, Saturation Magic. I can´t excatly tell.
Maybe someone can explain, what´s happening behind that?

EDIT:
Tested Machine Head also now.
AND: They all 3 do some Magic on my Lead Bus.
The Mixhead and Intensity is more "in your face" and punchy in the mids.
The Machine head sounds 90% the same with the same settings.
But it gives you more free space in the mid and sounds more "3D", more open.

So it depends on the case. I like them both

 

Last edited: Mar 10, 2025