Slate Digital’s MO-TT is based on OTT, a legendary preset found in Ableton’s multi-band compressor that delivers “over-the-top” compression and brings tracks to life. Offering a faithful recreation of the OTT sound, MO-TT (short for “more than OTT”) adds a host of extra functionality and makes the sonic character of Ableton’s famed preset available to non-Ableton users.
In developing MO-TT, Slate Digital have studied OTT in detail, working with care and precision to emulate its show-stopping sound with fine-grained accuracy. But they weren’t content with merely recreating this phenomenal dynamics processor: instead, they’ve improved on it, bringing producers new opportunities for sound-shaping that weren’t possible with OTT.
Let’s dive in and see how this dynamics processor works. MO-TT provides two views to the user, Easy and Advanced - we’re going to start with Easy. In the middle of MO-TT’s interface we have three frequency bands: low, mid and high, with individual amount controls for each below that let you tune the amount of compression for each band. At the bottom left of the window we have useful controls for software clipping, and for choosing between Soft Knee and Hard Knee, and RMS and Peak Detection.
The handy buttons on the left-hand side enable producers to quickly dial in presets without messing around with complex submenus. OTT instantly produces the classic OTT sound, Hip Hop adds a bass-heavy tone that’s perfect for hip-hop production, and Vox is designed to give vocals punch and character. Producers can access many more presets in the folders that sit on the left of these buttons, choosing from settings for your Master channel, drums, bass and more.
Moving over to the right hand side of the interface, we can find an overall Amount control that lets producers easily dial the overall mix up or down. Below this there’s dials for Tone, which shape the sound of the output by boosting or cutting the low and high frequencies, and a Timings knob that handily combines the Attack and Release settings into one control. These can be controlled individually and applied to each frequency band in MO-TT’s Advanced view.
Once we switch the view to Advanced, MO-TT opens up a whole new range of possibilities for dynamics processing. This view makes the frequency display visible behind the individual bands, giving producers a perspective on exactly what’s going on within their audio signal. It also allows you to control the individual levels at which both upward and downward compression are applied, using the orange sliders on the multi-band interface.
If you’d like even more detail on what MO-TT is doing to your sound, there’s a control at the top left that enables you to open up a full-scale frequency analyzer. Below this is a control for crossover slope that lets you choose between 12, 24 and 48 db/oct. Moving further downwards, we’ve got Sidechain controls, and sliders that adjust the Input Gain, Stereo Link, Clipping and Knee.
There we have it: Slate Digital’s MO-TT is a powerful recreation of the OTT sound that packs advanced functionality into an easy-to-use interface. Music makers can gain access to this next-level dynamics plugin, in addition to every other plugin from this exciting manufacturer, with Slate’s All Access Pass.