I’m using a recursive cascade IIR topology with pretty strict headroom management. Because cascade gains are additive, I re-stage the chain: increase preamp headroom, spread high-energy formant shaping across narrower bands, and tighten Q to reduce cross-band interaction.
The goal is phase-consistent transients without the summation artifacts you tend to get from envelope-style blending.
In practice, it’s closer to a “perceptual compiler” than a spatial engine: it aims to keep mixes intelligible, non-fatiguing, and subjectively powerful even after aggressive streaming compression or on tiny transducers. By managing minimum-phase temporal coherence (IIR, not linear-phase), it tries to preserve the somatic intent of a mix through the codec-decay that usually destroys presence in fast-upload pipelines.
I’m using a recursive cascade IIR topology with pretty strict headroom management. Because cascade gains are additive, I re-stage the chain: increase preamp headroom, spread high-energy formant shaping across narrower bands, and tighten Q to reduce cross-band interaction. The goal is phase-consistent transients without the summation artifacts you tend to get from envelope-style blending.
In practice, it’s closer to a “perceptual compiler” than a spatial engine: it aims to keep mixes intelligible, non-fatiguing, and subjectively powerful even after aggressive streaming compression or on tiny transducers. By managing minimum-phase temporal coherence (IIR, not linear-phase), it tries to preserve the somatic intent of a mix through the codec-decay that usually destroys presence in fast-upload pipelines.