Make Believe Studios CGII

Description

Every mix engineer knows the moment: the mix is done, it sounds great at moderate level, and then the client asks “can you make it louder?” — and the mastering chain either delivers or destroys. CGII by Make Believe Studios is Chris Gehringer’s answer, built with Metric Halo from the workflow of one of the most successful mastering engineers in history.

The problem CGII solves is the central tension of modern mastering: commercial loudness versus musical dynamics. Push a conventional limiter and you get level at the cost of punch, depth, and low-end life. CGII’s two-stage approach sidesteps the tradeoff. First, the Density processor increases perceived loudness from the bottom up — lifting masked micro-detail, bloom, and low-level clarity without affecting the peaks at all. Your transients stay intact because Density never touches them. Then the Loudness processor adds transparent RMS gain with harmonic excitement, giving the master energy and character rather than just decibels.

In practice, this means you can hit competitive loudness targets while the mix still breathes. Even on mixes that arrive already loud, CGII can add that final few percent without the unpleasant distortion and flatness that conventional limiting introduces — Gehringer designed it for exactly the real-world material mastering engineers receive daily.

The end-of-chain toolset is complete: a transparent true-peak lookahead limiter with 0dB, -0.1dB, and -1dB ceiling options guarantees zero inter-sample overs for streaming delivery; the DC-block filter removes residual offset; dither covers 16 to 24-bit output; and the nixie tube meters display every loudness value that matters — LUFS Integrated, Short Term, Momentary, True Peak, and holds. Place CGII last in your master chain and your final processing is done.

Workflow details matter in mastering, and CGII respects them: many presets included for starting points, resizable UI, Metric Halo’s cross-platform preset manager, and user-selectable oversampling up to 16x for the highest internal precision. The two-knob interface means you spend your time listening, not menu-diving.

Use it beyond the master bus too: Density brings life to dull submixes, Loudness adds harmonic excitement to individual buses, and the true-peak limiter is the most transparent safety net you can put anywhere in a chain.

CGII runs as AU, VST2, VST3, and AAX (64-bit) on macOS 10.10+ (Intel/Apple Silicon) and Windows 7+, in all major DAWs. iLok account required (free; dongle optional), with two activations per license.

Loud, clear, and musical — with great power comes great responsibility, and CGII puts that power in your hands.

Every customer receives their own individual license key. Instant download delivery via email.

The credentials behind CGII are the real story: Make Believe Studios’ design, Metric Halo’s DSP engineering, and Chris Gehringer — Sterling Sound partner and one of the most trusted mastering engineers in the business. You’re not buying an algorithm; you’re buying his workflow. A free iLok account authorizes it (dongle optional) with two activations included.

A practical starting point: set your ceiling to -1dB for streaming, dial Density until the mix blooms, then add Loudness to taste.

Your individual license key is delivered instantly by email and activates via iLok License Manager on your machine, in the cloud, or on an optional dongle.

Mastering engineers: the combination of Density, transparent limiting, and true-peak safety makes CGII a legitimate final-stage chain in a single insert.

With great power comes great responsibility — use it wisely, and your masters will thank you.