Review: Boost Dynamic Processor by Sample Magic

Sample Magic is an impressive all-encompassing online platform for Electronic music. They offer an extensive catalog of Samples, Presets, Artist, Labels, and Plugins. The Plugins they offer are not your run-of-the-mill. They’re really different, offering you possibilities to affect your music in ways you have never dreamed of.

They also created plugins to simplify your work that you’re glad someone finally thought of. Their new plugin, called Boost was designed as a mastering tool, meant to give your track or instrument a polished finalized boost.

This is a welcome product because although the loudness war is over all, we all want our tracks to level off with the status quo.

Overview

At first glance, the Boost GUI looks like a vintage rack. It is effectively a Master processing chain. There are knobs for Compression, Color, Stereo, and Limiter. The color knob works as a Multi-band compressor bringing out the highs or lows evenly. The stereo knob functions as an Imager spreading out the track. There are buttons for what type of limiting you prefer; Boost or Brickwall.

There are also preset groups to choose from. Light, medium, heavy, extreme, tracking, instruments, dance, and rock. Each group offers 8 genre-based presets. After trying some of the presets my first impression is how significantly the presets affect the sound. It´s powerful!

I’m not left wondering if it´s really having an effect or not. Each setting offers a completely distinguishable sound. There is definitely something for everyone here. In all, the plugin adds punch and clarity with many different approaches. The kick is instantly compacted and the sound finds a new definition.

The instruments have all found their place in the stereo field. Nice! If you´ve ever tried to master, for example with something like Alloy it can be daunting and just dialing parameters up and down can ruin your track.

Boost plugin could be the remedy. Here we have all the important elements of mastering, not just tracks but also stems. There are great sounding, style-oriented presets to tweak, it´s all under one hood so it´s easy on the CPU and it only costs around 105€.

Conclusion

Boost is a nice Plugin! It does exactly what it is supposed to. It offers great finalizing solutions. I can see it making my life much easier in a lot of cases. If I were out to break the mold, though, this might be too easy. If you are out to make sounds, and recordings that are different and original you’re going to want something you can manipulate on a higher level. That said If you are producing genre-based music Boost offer satisfying results.

Boost is available for Windows and MAC in VST (32/64-bit), and Audio Unit (32/64-bit) plugin formats, and for its price worth a try, you will not be disappointed.