Oeksound Bloom — A Mix Real-World Review

New York, NY (May 28, 2024)—Finnish software developer Oeksound refers to its latest plug-in, Bloom, as “an adaptive tone shaper,” designed to automatically optimize the tonal balance of audio in real-time. Its processing, the company adds, “makes the sound more balanced by automatically cutting unwanted elements and boosting where necessary.”

The plug-in is designed for use on individual tracks, buses or full mixes, and its bright pink interface packs a lot of functionality into a single control screen (there’s a second page that’s exclusively for preset management). Even in its default setting, Bloom starts to work as soon as it sees a signal. I found that it improved virtually every track and bus I tried it on, albeit subtly.

The main display shows, in real-time, the frequencies at which the processing is affecting the sound and by how much. You see constant boosts and cuts in various frequency ranges. Various user-adjustable parameters allow you to customize how Bloom affects your audio. An Amount knob controls how much overall processing gets applied. The area between about 2 and 5 o’clock—roughly the upper third of its travel—is called the Squash Range. In it, Bloom starts compressing the signal. Outside the Squash Range, Bloom’s processing is strictly frequency-dependent, but inside, it’s also level-dependent.

Attack and Release knobs impact the processing whether Squash is active or not. Adjusting the control labeled Squash Cal changes the compression threshold by 25 dB in either direction from unity. I used Bloom’s compressor mostly when I wanted to get creative with a track. It was quite capable of everything from light attenuation to heavy crushing.

SPLIT IT UP

Oeksound calls the four large vertical sliders in the center of the interface Tone Handles. Controlling boost or cut for four frequency zones, they allow the user to change the tonal balance of Bloom’s processing. In addition to a main slider, each zone features an on/off switch, a Tone Frequency Control (center-frequency adjustment) and a Solo button.

A pair of horizontal sliders called the Low and High Handles allow you to reduce the frequency range that gets processed. By default, the Handles exclude frequencies outside their range from being processed, but you can change that to exclude what’s inside. Also available are Low- and High- Cut Filters, which impact the frequency range at the plug-in’s output.

oeksound Bloom Tone-Shaping Plug-In Debuts

Bloom offers several Stereo modes. In addition to Linked Stereo, the default, you can set it to L/R Split or M/S Split. The M/S capabilities are particularly useful when using Bloom on the master bus (or during mastering) because you can set the Tone Handles independently for each channel within each zone. In either L/R Split or M/S Split, Bloom lets you vary the balance of processing between the two channels.

A pop-up called the Quality Selector offers three choices: High, Normal or Low Latency. The settings impact global sound quality, CPU usage and latency. I heard a noticeable difference between the Normal and High settings, so I used the latter as much as possible. The Low Latency setting is best when applying Bloom for live sound or on input when recording.

BLOOMING SOUND

I really like Bloom; it’s a well-designed plugin that almost always improves the overall sound of a track. Applying it to multiple tracks can have a tangible cumulative effect. By adjusting its tonal controls and applying its compression, you can use Bloom for creative sound shaping, as well. The price seems a bit on the high side to me, but Oeksound offers a 20-day free trial for potential users to audition thoroughly before committing.