On some level, everyone is susceptible to the dreaded panacea syndrome when it comes to adding tools to their workflow. “If I only had this one piece of gear, all my problems would be solved!” The Oven “Mojo Box” analog processor by Hendyamps and its plug-in counterpart by Brainworx (distributed by Plugin Alliance) might be as close to pro audio panacea as we’ll ever get. The Oven is a stereo multiband mastering grade character enhancer with an emphasis on odd-order harmonic saturation. Or, for short, a harmonic re-animator, which is my description because Hendyamps has struggled to pin The Oven down to one label. This is not by any fault of their own, but likely because The Oven’s primary function is to be malleable for the user. In some scenarios, it can behave like a mellow EQ; in others, it is a multiband saturation monster. Gentler settings can add a subtle hi-fi enhancement that can make sources bloom with added sheen.
The Oven was designed and built by Chris Henderson of Hendyamps in partnership with Maor Appelbaum Mastering. Maor had initially approached Chris with an idea for a custom build. Fast forward through a year and a half of blood, sweat, and tears during prototyping, and The Oven was born. Chris is Hendyamps, and he hand builds every product he makes; the Michelangelo EQ [Tape Op #130], the Pollock compressor [#146], and the Rothko EQ/compressor are now becoming go-to hardware for many in our industry. Chris’ designs are refreshingly innovative and worthy of the names they share with famous painters and kitchen appliances.
The magic of The Oven is in its MOSFET and tube drive circuits that work in parallel. With the price of admission, we get added drive controls for the low, mid, high, and air bands. The layout reminded me of a guitar amp, which made it feel instantly familiar. The Oven is packed to the brim with control functions but is still quite easy to use.
Adding saturation has always given me the perception of turning up the heat or heating something up. In lieu of normal identifiers, the knobs and switches are affectionately labeled like the controls one might see on an actual oven. The solid state and tube drive controls are labeled Temp and Cook. The Temp control has a Low and High mode switch to increase the “temperature” or the intensity of the MOSFET driver. The Cook control has two separate mode switches: Bake or Broil and Elec or Gas. The Bake/Broil switch toggles between two tube voicings. In Bake mode, the tube drive is more dynamic and open. With Broil engaged, the tube “compresses” more, creating complex harmonics. The Burners section allows for boosting and cutting saturation by respective bands. The Low, Mid, and Top Burns have an A/B Burn Type switch that changes the affected frequency range. In addition to the A/B switch, Top Burn has a Bunsen on/off switch, which seems to widen the affected top band. The last band control is the Sizzle knob, which drives the amount of air band saturation and boost. Like the Burners, the Sizzle knob is also paired with a Sizzle Type A/B switch, which I dubbed the “more” switch. There’s also a super neat lo-fi mode switch, Burned, that adds more distortion while narrowing the unit's bandwidth. The Hardware version of The Oven is bookended with separate Left and Right Calibration (gain) knobs, plus a single Flow (output) control. Similarly, The Oven plug-in version has adjustments for Headroom and Calibration modes to simulate gain staging environments that would cause the hardware unit to behave differently. The plug-in version also has the Brainworks native patented Tolerance Modeling Technology (TMT), which simulates channel variants in analog electrical components to mimic analog circuit behavior. Other added features only available on the plug-in version include a Mono Maker, Stereo Width Control, and Parallel Mix Control.