Elysia’s xmax could be the only piece of outboard gear you need to inject analogue vibe and finalise your mixesRack version £1449 / 500 series £949 / qube £1349, elysia.com
Elysia is a brand well known for a combination of great quality and versatile analogue gear, typically at an attainable price, save for its most coveted, high-end pieces.
The new xmax is no exception. It’s a master bus processor with both multi-band and mid-sides.

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VCA-flavour compression, soft clipping, stereo enhancement and a simple EQ. This unique combination makes xmax a compelling all-in-one box for mix bus and mastering. There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s dig in.
My review unit comes as a 1-U rack unit, but two alternative options are available; a double-width 500 series unit, or the qube version – a 500 unit mounted into an individual enclosure that is ready to plug in and make music. Out of its box, the first impression is of quality. There’s an all-metal case, controls are sensibly laid out, there’s a satisfying click to switches and knobs have 41-step positions with soft detents – striking the ideal balance between dialling in changes in small increments and the ability to recall settings later on.

What can the Elysia xmax do?
The conventional stereo signal entering the xmax is first encoded into mid/sides. From here, the mid component of the mid/sides encode is split into two bands labelled Low and Mid using a variable crossover (the X-freq knob). Low compresses everything in the M/S mid component below the crossover, and Mid, everything in the M/S mid component above the crossover, including high frequencies. The naming convention is a little confusing, but perhaps unavoidably so, so it’s worth taking a quick look at the signal flow diagram below. It’s one of those rare moments where reading the flippin’ manual is important. Side represents the full-range sides component of the mid/sides encode.
The first set of controls establish the compression threshold for these three components, and these work on a ‘turn-up-for-more’ basis. Typically, you’d apply most compression in the Low band to take care of kick drums and bass lines that need better dynamic control. The next two threshold controls are more everything above the set crossover point, split into mid and sides (M/S). More gentle compression can be applied to the Mid component above the crossover, meaning vocals are left to breathe rather than sounding squashy. Conversely, turning up the sides threshold knob gives more compression to side elements (hard-panned instruments, stereo reverb and delay tails etc), taking away some of their transients so they don’t mask the vocal and snare while also adding sustain where required. Extremely neat.
The second section is labelled Control. First in this section is the variable crossover frequency, then a Time knob to control release, and finally Link. When turned up, link, erm, links the compression of the three different components so that when turned to maximum, you have a single-band compressor instead of a multi-band one. This is more suited for applying subtle mix bus compression for glue, rather than a slamming master. The hidden advantage though is, using the three threshold controls, you have multiple sensors for when the compression should cut in. The obvious example on a mix bus would be to set the Low band’s threshold knob to a low position (which is actually a high threshold) to stop every kick drum activating the compressor and making the whole mix pump.
Rack version. Image: Press
On the opposite side of the rack are the Gain and Shape sections. Gain houses the make-up gain for each of the three components. Since low frequencies tend to get compressed the most, these get brought up by make-up gain the most too, perhaps with a bit of extra boost to make the low end punch. Mid gain is most likely to undergo a small shift according to the amount of compression taking place, but Side is where the magic takes place. An extra boost on the sides beyond that needed to compensate for compression gives you natural-sounding stereo widening. And if the mix you’ve been delivered sounds too wide already, just attenuate the side gain to give more focus to centre-panned tracks. Magic.
Shape gives the final polish for audio passing through xmax. Tone is a fixed high shelf and S-clip is a soft clipper designed to round off harsh transients and avoid converter clipping, rather than adding an obvious colour to the sound. Finally, Level controls the master output. By this point, the mid/sides components have been decoded back to left/right, conventional stereo signals.
Three switches in the centre take care of bypass (quirkily labelled Hit it!), Punch (which switches between a lighter compression ratio of 1.45:1 to a heavier 2.55:1 and Lowmo. A common mid/side master bus trick is to high-pass the sides component of the mix, so that effects tails, room ambience and hard-panned tracks don’t sound too bassy at the extremes of the stereo field, for a more controlled and centre-focused sound. Lowmo offers a quick and simple way to gently high-pass the sides from 150 Hz downwards.
Rack version. Image: Press
What’s the xmax like to use?
Put to work, xmax swiftly earns its place as a one-box wonder for mastering. Set up on the master bus using the I/O plugin in Logic Pro I test the xmax on a wide variety of project styles. I’d ultimately add a software limiter at the end of the chain to bring the level up to the required LUFS value, but do demonstrate what xmax is capable of and in attempt to approximately level-match the before and after, it’s xmax only in the demo clips. Lowmo is used to high-pass the sides throughout, but the effect is pretty subtle. I’d have liked a couple of cut-off or slope settings here, but you can’t have everything I suppose.
I receive two pre-masters from Cambridge-based friends, Future Infinite and route them through the xmax. For Short Change, featuring Ozay Moore, Punch is selected for a higher ratio and I apply heavier compression to lows and more subtle gain reduction to the remaining two bands. Sides make-up gain gets an extra boost to enhance wideness, and low band make-up is given a healthy boost for added sub-bass heft. Soft clipping is used at 30%, to reduce transients a touch without sounding crunchy, while the high shelf Tone knob is left alone as it sounds a little harsh for this track.
For Golden, I once again select Punch and dial in plenty of compression on both the low frequency and sides bands, while only taming the sharpest peaks of the mid component. Kicks and bass are brought under tight control and there’s lots of extra sustain throughout the frequency spectrum. Sides benefit from a generous boost in make-up to noticeably widen the mix and emphasise ambient guitar textures, and I’m pretty bold with soft clipping too as it suits the track. A miniscule shelf boost sounds pleasant here, but it’s easy to overdo this and render the hi-hats too harsh.
On other tracks –with principally acoustic instruments– I experience similar results. Low frequency punch is tightened and the mid range is hugged nicely by the compression. I tip up low end with extra make-up gain, plus a tiny high shelf lift to create a tasteful loudness curve, and setting soft clipping at around 30% to help tame peaks. The result is warm, life-like tones that cannot easily be replicated with plugins.
Qube version. Image: Press
Who should buy the Elysia xmax?
Xmax is a perfect fit for anyone looking to get into hardware mixing and mastering without going too far down the rabbit hole.
It’s a virtually perfect one-box solution for introducing analogue vibe through compression, saturation and tone shaping, while also offering creative stereo enhancement possibilities. Just be sure to keep the signal flow diagram to hand.
Qube version. Image: Press
Key features

Stereo analogue multi-band, mid/sides mastering processor
VCA-style compression
Fixed compression ratios of 1.45:1 and 2.55:1
Variable crossover frequency to split mid component of M/S into two bands
Variable release time
150 Hz high-pass filter for sides component
Separate make-up gains, allowing bass boost and stereo widening
Fixed high shelf EQ
Soft clipper
LED metering
41-step soft detent knobs

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