I Heart NY 2

Slaps So Good

The team behind Baby Audio set out to make the hardest hitting compressor in the industry. The kind that makes your tracks slam and sing. To achieve that extra edge, IHNY-2 works in parallel. This allows you to compress more while retaining the dynamics of your dry track.

• Engineered for a modern and ultra-aggressive compression sound, perfect for adding power to your tracks

• Hosts parallel signal chain internally for a fast and obstacle-free parallel compression workflow

• Majorly upgraded V2 of their first ever plugin (I Heart NY) – offering surgical control and a range of additional features

Mix harder

Contemporary mixes need punch. And to achieve maximum impact, without killing a track's dynamics, engineers turn to parallel compression (a technique that blends a dry track with a heavily compressed duplicate). IHNY-2 hosts a plug-and-play parallel configuration so you don’t have to set up any extra routing in your DAW.

The plugin is purpose-designed for slamming your tracks in parallel and will hit harder than your typical go-to compressors. It is not subtle, but a dedicated tool for adding energy and “slap” to drums, mix buses or even the master bus (if you dare!)

IHNY-2 is an evolution of Baby Audio's very first plugin, I Heart NY. The original was a favorite with many users and was picked for the SOS Awards by Sound On Sound Magazine. V2 ships with added features, surgical control – and improvements in sound.

Configuration

IHNY-2 splits the incoming audio into two duplicates. One remains untouched by the plugin (Dry track), the other is subjected to all the goodness IHNY-2 has to offer (Wet track). You balance the two signals on the vertical axis of the XY pad, while setting the compression amount of the Wet track on the horizontal axis. This allows you to operate the most important controls of the plugin in just one motion.

IHNY-2 has an autogain algorithm working under the hood to give you a consistent output as you move the node around the XY pad – but if you find that it's too loud or too quiet you can use the Autogain slider on the front panel to nudge the behavior.

While moving the node around the XY pad, you'll see a value displayed under the "AGR" abbreviation (Adjusted Gain Reduction). This number takes into account the current Gain Reduction and Dry/Wet balance to give you a value for the compression intensity. For a good starting point, Baby Audio recommend you aim for AGR levels between -10 and -20.

Features

• Tweak Panel: HNY-2 is meant to be as fast and intuitive as its predecessor. But if you need to go deeper, the Tweak Panel gives you full control over the compressor. Here, you’ll find a number of new features that weren’t included in V1.

• Attack + Release: Sets how fast the compressor engages and disengages.

• Ratio: Sets the compression intensity from mild to aggressive.

• Punch: Heavy compression tends to suck the transients out of a signal. The Punch control works to emphasize attack transients in the compressed track, helping it cut through even at very high compression levels.

• Harmonics: Imagine a saturator that behaves like a compressor – that’s Harmonics. This feature introduces harmonic saturation controlled by the gain-reduction, meaning more compressed parts get saturated harder.

• Shape: Adds the custom ‘smiley EQ curve’ to bring out the lows and highs and make the compressed signal more present. (The smiley EQ curve is what sets “New York Compression” apart from regular parallel compression. IHNY-2 can do both).

• Tilt: Makes the compressor work harder on either the low or high end of your signal – which can be useful for controlling bass heavy material and letting the high end breathe (or vice versa).

• Lo + Hi Preserve: Prevents the low and high frequencies from being compressed above/below the cutoff points. This is a great way to preserve the kick while squashing the rest of your drum bus.