Musik Hack, the developer behind the Master Plan, Fuel and SweetEQ plugins, has launched HyFi, an online mastering platform that the company claims can deliver “professional results with minimal effort”.
HyFi’s workflow is intentionally simple and fairly similar to other online mastering services: drag-and-drop a mix into HyFi on desktop, tablet, or mobile, wait a few moments and download a mastered version.
After uploading a track, you can adjust its loudness and tonal character and reprocess the master if you’re not happy with the results. (The first change is free, but subsequent changes cost one credit each.)
The Character setting offers three options – Bright lifts the high end, Warm boosts the low end, and Glue applies “gentle and cohesive” dynamic control – while the Loudness control gives you a choice between Balanced, Full and Loud options. HyFi also includes an A/B comparison tool with gain matching and a reference track.
HyFi's mastering is powered by the same technology as Master Plan, a plugin from Musik Hack that we described as “a hugely impressive modern mastering tool” in our 2023 review. The company says HyFi is designed to preserve the character of a mix rather than fix it, promising “clear, loud and subtly saturated” masters and avoiding the “aggressive EQ curves and heavy-handed changes” applied by some of its competitors.
HyFi accepts WAV, MP3, FLAC, AIFF and AAC files and exports masters as WAV or MP3. Finished masters are stored for 30 days as standard, but you can extend this to a year for one credit.
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Avoiding the much-maligned subscription model, HyFi instead uses pay-as-you-go credits. Each credit is equivalent to one minute of processed audio and credits cost between $0.33 and $0.50, depending on how many you purchase. New signups receive 10 free credits, and existing owners of Musk Hack plugins can use their loyalty discounts on HyFi credit purchases.
With the launch of HyFi, Musik Hack is entering a well-established market for automated online mastering populated by scores of platforms offering a simple and inexpensive way to polish a finished mix and make a track sound ready for release.
Many of the most popular services, such as LANDR and Cloudbounce, utilize AI-based mastering, but Musik Hack doesn’t claim that HyFi uses AI under the hood, relying instead on the DSP behind its Master Plan plugin. Though HyFi only currently offers mastering, Musik Hack tells us that the platform will eventually expand to encompass other audio processing tools.
HyFi is available now. Find out more on Musik Hack's website.
