MIXING & EFFECTS

Low Lifter

TRIAL ONLY: Low Lifter comes as a trial version in FL Studio and needs to be purchased separately so you can use Low Lifter without Trial limitations.

Low Lifter dynamically adds harmonics to bass frequencies, enhancing their presence and creating the perception of stronger bass, even on devices incapable of reproducing deep sub frequencies effectively. This relies on a psychoacoustic principle that providing harmonics related to a missing or weak fundamental frequency will create the perception of a stronger bass presence, even in signals where no deep subfrequencies are present. It is important to note Low Lifter can also significantly boost low-end energy, particularly when processing full mixes. In this case, the Low Cut knob can be used to compensate for the energy increase while the low-end loudness perception is maintained.

Signal Flow

Video

Controls

  • Harmonics:
    • Pre Gain - Boost the lower frequencies before they are shaped. NOTE: When switched on, a lookahead limiter will prevent these boosted frequencies from exceeding 0 dB. This will allow you to maximize the lower band with better control of the harmonics.
    • Multi Band - Change between single-band and multi-band harmonics processing. Multiband processing is generally higher quality at the expense of some CPU.
    • Lookahead - Enable this for clean limiting of the low-frequency band before shaping. When turned off, zero-latency, instant-attack limiters are used, which can sometimes result in audible audio degradation. However, when shaping broadband transients, the resulting artifacts can be unnoticeable.
    • Slope - Harmonics decay slope in dB. How the added harmonics decay with frequency up the spectrum.
    • Invert polarity - Inverts the phase of the low band waveform, which can increase the low-frequency loudness perception when phase cancellation takes place. Flip it, do you hear more bass?
  • Diffusion:

    Randomizes the phases of the generated harmonics to avoid emphasis or cancellation of specific frequency regions. This is similar to how diffusion works in reverbs to make the impulse response as smooth and diffused as possible.

    • Depth - The feedback coefficient of a diffuser allpass network, effectively determining the phase rotation depth.
    • Mix - Linear output level of the diffuser, which is subsequently mixed to the non-diffused low-frequency signal.
  • Crossover:
    • Low gain (Switchable) - Gain level in dB for the low-frequency band after shaping.
    • Cutoff - Sets the crossover cutoff, which isolates the low band for later enhancement.
    • High gain (Switchable) - Gain in dB of the high-frequency band.
  • Mix:
    • Low cut - Cutoff of a final-stage second-order highpass filter.
    • Dry / Wet - Mix between the Dry (input) and Wet (effected) audio.

The science behind Low Lifter

Plugin Credits

Code & Graphics: Dario Sanfilippo.

User Interface: Miroslav Krajcovic.