Intro
The elysia nvelope is a Discrete Class A stereo impulse shaper. It does what a compressor/expander could do if it had a small brain and a bit more sense for musicality. It allows you to take full control of the transients and decay of your track in a level independent way!
Elysia is a German company established some 15 years ago, by no other than the designer of the famous SPL Transient Designer! The nvelope is, in that respect, the true heir to the original Transient Designer unit and being a "next-generation design", it pushes the sonics even a step further.
It improves on the level of control by introducing frequency dependant processing and it improves on the transparency and musicality of the signal chain by offering a new, discrete Class A circuit design throughout the unit.
In other words, the design of all the Elysa boxes we've seen so far is a work of art.
Controls
Attack
Attack controls the level of either amplification or attenuation of transients - sharp changes in loudness at the very start of percussive sounds. Turn it clockwise to achieve a more snappy, punchy sound, or counterclockwise to get a more compressed, attenuated transients. The elysia nvelope excels at separating the attack away from the rest of the signal and boosting or attenuating it.
Attack frequency
Attack frequency controls a high-pass filter in the sidechain of Attack processing. This allows you to only augment or attenuate the high-frequency "snap" without introducing low-end "thumping" or making it dull. For general-purpose, full-band attack control, turn it fully counter-clockwise. With elysia nvelope you can select from a wide selection of frequencies for this important parameter.
Sustain
Sustain controls the amount of amplification or attenuation of the background, low-level sounds that follow the transients. Use it to tame excessive ringing of acoustic drums, clean up voiceover recordings or augment otherwise boring sounds by bringing up the instrument's release and reverberation. The elysia nvelope excels at separating the sustain away from the rest of the signal and boosting or attenuating it
Sustain Frequency
The Sustain Frequency controls a low-pass filter in the Sustain's sidechain. Use it to for example only tame the low-end rumble without affecting a nice natural reverberation. For general-purpose, full-band sustain control, turn this one fully clockwise. With elysia nvelope you can select from a wide selection of frequencies for this important parameter.
Centre section buttons on the elysia nvelope
The centre section of the elysia nvelope is full of additional controls, in order:
Active
Active buttons are true bypass switches,
EQ
the EQ buttons turn the nvelope into a two-band shelving EQ, more on that later,
Fullrange
The fullrange button makes the unit behave like a classic transient designer. The attack frequency is still active and lets to control how much the low end affects the signal processing, but the sustain frequency is out of the signal path in this mode.
This allows you to focus the processing on a specific frequency band that's limited on both the high and the low end of the spectrum.
Link
The Link button links the controls of the left and right channels of the elysia nvelope for precise stereo control.
Autogain
and last one is the Autogain function. This is only available when the nvelope is operating in the fullrange mode. Use it to avoid clipping when using healthy amounts of processing on an already high-volume track, as it drops the volume of the processed audio in proportion to the attack and release gain settings.
elysia nvelope EQ Mode
So, back to the EQ mode. By engaging the EQ mode switches, the elysia nvelope becomes a two band Class A shelving EQ! In this mode of operation, the Attack section controls the High Shelf and the Sustain section controls the low shelf.
Outro
The elysia nvelope is available at mix:analog! Simply make a reservation and try it out on your own material!
Until next time, bye!