CS-FX

Most recorded music used to be processed through a hardware mixer, and some production companies still use this technique today. These are typically known as consoles or desks, where each channel is made from a wide range of controls (called strips) that are vertically displayed. Besides knobs and faders, these channel strips also have equalization tools.

Dedicated to Windows users, CS-FX is an audio plugin designed as a channel strip, which features support for bypass, input and output gain, panning, inverting the output, and more. It also supports multiple cores.

To be able to use this VST channel strip plugin, you must have a VST host installed on your PC, like energyXT, VSTHost, Carla, VSTplayer, or SAVIHost. The downloaded archive contains a DLL file that can you can simply drag and drop in the main window of your VST player with the aid of your mouse.

You can use clipper (limiter), highpass, lowpass, punch and bypass filters, adjust and reset the input and output gain, adjust the bass, mid and treble equalizers, control and reset the pan, as well as set a low or high exciter (for enhancing signals via dynamic equalization).

Moreover, you can use a stereo doubler and phase meter, invert the output along with the left and right phase, as well as set the soft or hard NY compression (New York or parallel compression that mixes an unprocessed dry signal with a heavily compressed version of the same signal).

In CS-FX, you can also use a tape saturator (to make tape clipping sound warmer, less distorted and more compressed than using digital clipping), together with lim, drive and output 12-6dB switch.

Too bad that CS-FX hasn't received updates for a long time. In fact, it doesn't seem to be in development anymore. However, we didn't have any trouble getting it up and running on the newest Windows version in our tests.