Techivation has just released T-Exciter: a plugin to bring excitement to your music creation. We’ve been keeping tabs on this British company.

T-Exciter is the second plugin we tested from the new British company Techivation. Their plugins focus on production and mixing, and what’s more, they just released this exciter plugin to use on just about anything in your music, or a full mix.

Using the many presets and easy to look at user interface, we ran through the T-Exciter on some things we had recorded and some soft synths. Let us show you what we heard.

Much of the music these days seems to happen via smartphone, laptop speakers, or small headphones. Translating low-end information on these small speakers can be difficult to manage as a music creator. Adding a little excitement to these elements – whether subtle or not – helps drive them through. This is where the T-Exciter shines.

Exciters have been around for years – both in hardware and software – even mixing engineers like Andrew Scheps will make sure his voice has an exciter plugin either on it or alongside it.

Installing and opening the T-Exciter was easier than ever. Kudos to Techivation for another clean and clear user interface. The controls are simple: On/Off, A/B and Menu at the top left, In and Out faders on the sides, Exciter button in the middle, Mix and Width buttons at the bottom left and Effect modes to the right.

The menu contains all the goodies, presets, saving, loading and changing the scale size of the GUI (graphical user interface). This is where I decided to jump in with a preset called ‘Vocal – Softer Air’ on one of our Live from Happy Performances by Wallace which was reduced to vocals and acoustic guitar.

As for sound, I needed focus and presence to use the T-Exciter and I think you should too. Turning that arousal knob too far would be a step in the wrong direction. If I may offer some advice, exciters are best used in small doses. Just using a small amount will help bring out that voice in a mix or increase the perceived loudness of an instrument.

Back to Wallace’s performance, I found that minimal use of the T-Exciter gave the vocals and guitar a new air. The vocals were much more present and the neck of the guitar stood out. However, this was a full mix – tried and tested – so I wondered if I bounced/printed this and listened on a phone, would it be too bright?

Moving away from that, I place the T-Exciter on an Arturia CS-80 software synthesizer. This is where the magic happened by adjusting the mix and width knobs and changing the effect modes, I was able to make this synth more exciting and it floated nicely in the highs.

An exciter’s focus should probably come from the production and mixing phase of your music creation. Adding it to the synth was cool, but got me thinking if I could add it to the backing vocals of a song I’m currently mixing. Also, I thought the T-Exciter would be welcome on the percussion to make it bright and shiny. Automation of the T-Exciter plugin on a chorus would be ideal.

The T-Exciter is priced at $39 with an introductory price of $29 (42 AUD) or right now you can get the full Techivation Plugin Bundle 40% off at $124 (181 AUD) and you will get their next release too.

For more details, visit the Techivation website.