David Bendeth’s The Hoser XT
$149.00
Note for M1 Mac Users: Some or all of the plugin(s) in this bundle are not yet compiled to work natively on M1 Macs. We are currently in the process of rewriting them so that they will, but it will take some time. In the meantime, it should work under rosetta on M1 Macs.
The second in the series of David Bendeth signature plugins. Modeled off of a Ward-Beck Systems M462B hardware EQ unit, The Hoser makes a great channel EQ to give that cohesive feel to your mixes.
The Hoser takes advantage of some of the benefits of working in the digital domain, all while staying true to the analog sound. It is really the best of both worlds.
When you buy Hoser XT, you get its little brother, The Hoser, for free.
Analog Sound – CPU Friendly
When we built The Hoser, we had two objectives:
- It must sound just like the hardware
- You should be able to use this plugin on every track without worrying about your CPU overheating.
After much trial and error, we finally accomplished this. The plugin stays true to the analog sound, allowing you to add extreme amounts of gain without adding the harshness of digital EQ. It does all this while using small amounts of processing power, to preserve your CPU for other plugins. It’s really the best of both worlds.
3 Channel Modes
While we were using the hardware, we couldn’t help but wish that we could use it in a mid/side configuration. It was just begging for it. So what was stopping us from making the plugin work in mid/side mode? Nothing, that’s what.
You can also process your left and right channels separately, which is a great way to add some stereo width to a mono track, or match the tone of a stereo source.
The Hoser vs The Hoser XT
When you buy The Hoser XT, The Hoser also comes with your download, but what is the difference?
The Hoxer XT
- Separate Mid/Side and stereo control, as well as standard stereo/mono mode
- Comes with The Hoser
The Hoser
- More compact design
- stereo/mono mode only
19 reviews for David Bendeth’s The Hoser XT
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sonhvo –
I jumped on the $29 sale the other day and decided to use it on two mixes. I’ve been reading the reviews and had to give it a try at such a low price.
Well…I now see what everyone who’s used this plugin means when they say this EQ actually feels like it does something to the sound, in a good way. I put it onto a snare top track, using mid-side and was immediately struck as to how responsive little adjustments were. I was impressed at how this EQ literally created a rounded off, warm but precision tone. I was actually floored. I own so many plugins but only use a couple EQ (one being the Plugin Alliance bx-2098 (Neve).
I continued to use it on other tracks (guitars, bass, kick, vocals) and it did the same thing to all of them – it created this wonderful, warm but accurate sheen that made the tracks more cohesive. It was really eye-opening and I really wished I had gotten this plugin years ago. I also used it to master those two songs (mid-side) and again, so incredibly impressed at its sound and flexibility. I’m a convert of this EQ. I’ve been recording and mixing for 10 years now. I’m not a seasoned 25+ year pro engineer but I’ve been recording for that many years and this plugin will become a welcome staple addition to my go-to plugin list. Thank you Boz Digital. Knocked it out of the ballpark with this one.
Jim Gibbons –
I have owned this EQ, Hozer XT since it came out. It sounds great and I use it for Mastering sweetening and Mixing. The high end is especially inspiring with its quality. I use it for Mid Side and straight LR. I recently mastered a batch of 3 hour DJ producer tracks for streaming. I used the Hozer XT regularly on those dozen tracks for a continuous Memorial Weekend stream in place of the regular 4 Day Party. The streams were a great success with compliments on the quality sound of each Producer DJ track. I have hundreds of Plugins to choose from. But there were only a couple of other EQs that were part of the template. Fab Filter ProQ 3, Sly Fi Axis were two of the others. The Hozer Xt has such a quality sound that I used it regularly for sweetening, correcting, and mid-side work. With the highs, it is silky smooth. Because I am a long-time user and early buyer it does not show up in the account. I hope to get that corrected to download newer versions. I have most of the other plugins as well. I was using the +10db channel strip recently with a country band mix as well as the Manic Compressor and Hozer XT. Oh, and the Imperial Delay. All excellent and useful sounding.
kevinsparks –
I don’t understand how another eq can vary so wildly from others, but the Hoser can bring a dull drum track to life without any other plugins. Pretty amazing.
Razzia –
This plugin actually does sound excellent. I don’t profess to have golden ears, but most of the time the difference between an emulation EQ and a decent fully parametric EQ is pretty much negligible to me. To my ears though, Hoser actually is pretty exceptional. While I’m guilty of rolling my eyes when people talk about how things sound “musical,” I think it’s appropriate here. You can really crank the gain on the filters in Hoser and it still sounds good. Or you can crank the input gain and get some nice, subtle saturation.
Boz has quickly become one of my favorite developers. His plugins really feel–or sound–like they had a lot of TLC put into them.
EunKyue SOHN –
I recently got this EQ. I use Fabilter Pro-Q2 as a surgical EQ. I wanted GO-TO general toneshaping EQ with analog favor.
This is totally I wanted. CPU Usage is very Low!!
I don’t know why this is not so famous! GREAT EQ!
Nice work!
hanstheman –
I love this EQ!!! Especially the top end, just amazing! And it’s pretty nice on the cpu considering how good it is! Well, no other EQ out there to compete honestly!
RickSpyder –
WOW, HOLY CRAP, SWEET, are fitting superlatives for THE HOSER. It constantly suprises me in everything i lovingly feed it. The silky top end is the best i’ve ever heard.THIS IS A MUST HAVE and for the money!!! come on, Crack a cold, open a project and treat yourself. If your wife sees the measely charge on your statement tell her to take off EH!!!!….. Cheers
rico.d.alvarez –
I have to say, Boz Digital is becoming one of my favorite plugin developers. This thing sounds so smooth and has a really awesome depth to it. Right out the gate, the low & high shelves are something special to me. I think The Hoser sounds as good as anything I’ve tried in Nebula land, but is WAY more easy on CPU. And since CPU usage is so low, you can throw it across your tracks getting some awesome balancing/tone shaping. I’ve been purposely not trying to buy any new plugins as of late, but I’m going to have a hard time not pulling the trigger on this one…
19trax –
There is a bug on the web page with stars, I pressed 5 stars and page is accepting only 4? (Firefox Mac)
So 5 Stars!
19trax –
I didn’t expected this much when I tried this EQ. This is the first time that I couldn’t believe when I tried it in the mix. Real winner in today’s plugin world period.
Outstanding work!
macsearcher –
Very Cool!
I live up here in Canada. I’ve got my portable rig running on off of the power from my snowmobile. When I’m not playing hockey or ice fishing and drinking 5% alc/volume beer, I’m having a blast with this new eq. I’m a big fan of the eq that this is based on and this puppy doesn’t disappoint. Thick and strong but open at the same time. Love it! Great work guys.
Toddington –
Well I’m pretty new to Boz, literally just heard of them this week. And I’m currently demoing this product and just comparing it to some of my go to character EQ’s like the Maag EQ4, Kush Electra, UA’s newer Pultec, Slates SSL, and Softubes Summit channel. As I write this I’m realizing the last thing I need is another damn eq plugin. Buuuuut this thing is pretty easy to use. Very intuitive, no manual required. And I usually dislike MS EQ stuff but this one sounds really good using it on drums to widen out the top end and center up the low end a little. Really minimal cancellation in mono too. So that’s impressive. Also because of its super low CPU (almost nothing) and low latency, I might get this if nothing else to use when tracking band or playing live with a PT rig. At least that’ll probably be my excuse for buying it. Kudos Boz, I don’t really know you but I think I want to. Time to check out this Littlefoot guy next, that could probably come in handy.
vicnest –
Interesting analog curve with low CPU, with M/S capability. Super useful for track tone shaping.
altayekren –
Great top end low cpu hit and if you want turn on the nice red line’s for adjusting the eq settings, like the cuts too.. Definitely Winner!!
Joe_04_04 –
This plugin is awesome. I’m able to quickly dial in any tone that I have in my head without much fussing around. The highs are crisp and the lows are beefy. What else could I want? Oh yeah, low CPU!
I kept this short so that it would not be considered an entry into the contest. I just wanted to voice my opinion, but let others have a better chance at winning 🙂
colinbrain –
Loving this EQ so far! It’s been used heavily on my mixes this week and i love how the high shelf opens up everything in a musical way without getting too harsh or thin. If you’re after an extremely user friendly and musical EQ with tons of features then i highly recommend this. Cheers.
manysounds –
If you know me then you know I recommend Boz’s line of tools and toys all the time. But enough massaging the developer, let’s get to the juicy bits:
The Hoser XT is a beautiful EQ plugin from Boz. Made in collaboration with famed producer and engineer David Bendeth it is no slouch when it comes to great sound and flexibility. A wonderfully colorful EQ with lots of analog style goodness thrown in, the interface is obvious and quick and the sounds are wonderful and obvious. You could easily use this EQ as a “cut only” “surgical” EQ if you wanted but where I found this puppy really shines is in the boosting and frequency blasting capabilities. Ooooo yes.
The first section of the EQ is a gain knob. Emulating the analog goodness of a semi-obscure Canadian EQ of yore, you can overdrive the unit into a nice warm crunch, easily recognized on the plugin’s emulated VU meters (which I love). This saturation is nicely subtle at first but if you realllly whack it hard it becomes full and round, not harsh or blatty. I tested this on acoustic guitar first because acoustic guitar goes to crap quickly when over-saturated. Somehow this Hoser thingy allowed the acoustic to still breathe, even when pushed far beyond extremes I’d ever actually use in a mix. Nice! It also did a really fatten and crush thing to some drum loops I squeezed through it… and I hadn’t even touched the EQ section yet. I’m sure this saturation would do well on some vocals for sure!
Ahhhhh, this gem might become my favorite EQ for “natural sounding” effects. The EQ sounds absolutely great when pushed hard. This is a characteristic I only know of one other (unnamed here) EQ that I like to use. This is completely different from that one, thank god, because I’d hate to have to choose. Every single source I put it on I could make sound “better” with either a subtle tweak or an extreme twist. Seriously I had a hard time making things sound “bad” without getting into really extreme gain and Q settings on any of the bands. The Q setting go from extremely broad to insanely tight. That “2” on the Q knob isn’t not your DAW’s 2 octave wide Q setting, there is definitely a beautiful spread from the frequency center. Also, with realllly tight setting it almost feels like it wants to start resonating a bit when cranked and that is pretty awesome as well, as it doesn’t get nastily piercing ever, even when cranked to absurd levels.
Adding in the ability to have separate L/R EQ for some subtle stereo widening and a nice warm-like EQ in it’s Mid-Side mode makes acquiring this a no-brainer for me. It’s not like I actually *need* another EQ in my arsenal but after tweaking with the demo version of Hoser XT on a number of different sources I truly can’t resist using it.
guitar_guy182_ –
Californian developer Boz Digital Labs has collaborated with producer/mixer David Bendeth for their second creation in a series of signature plugins, the Hoser and the Hoser XT. The Hoser aims to emulate an EQ section from a classic Canadian console, wherein the name hoser lends itself from that is an American imitating a Canadian product.
Both versions, the hoser and hoser XT, offer up the same signature sound. However, the hoser is a more compact, mono-stereo only version, whereas the the hoser XT offers more versatility in its three modes: stereo independent, stereo linked, and mid/side.
Within this 4 band parametric equalizer, the user has the choice of switching between peak or shelf mode on the lowest and/or highest band with one swift click of a white button. One can decide to mix with their ears or use the “show eq curve” feature by clicking the Hoser logo, which will display the frequency response across the four bands.
This is a wonderful product. Sonically aesthetic. Intuitive. Incredibly CPU efficient with no added latency. The input knob has a wonderful drive to it. All in all, it’s rich and versatile. With a price tag well below an Elton John budget, it is definitely worth checking out.
Dirk Reinking –
amazing eq! love it on the master… definitely a winner! thank you boz 🙂