Bettermaker EQ232D
Many Bettermaker outboard processors have passed through my studio including the knob-less (but still very physical) version of the hardware EQ232P, with its excellent sonics and clever expansion on the Pultec theme.
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Tone Projects Unisum Mastering Compressor
Rune Lund-Hermansen is the brains behind Tone Projects – clearly a man of many talents, as for nearly 7 years he was Lead Product Designer for every wine drinker’s favourite phone app, Vivino.
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Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate
Engineers have been gating drums since the Kepex was introduced by Allison Research in 1970, and apart from the 1982 Drawmer DS201 adding useful key filters, not much new has happened in the world of noise gating, apart from the ‘look ahead’ function afforded by...
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McDSP ML8000
Silicon Valley plug-in boffins McDSP cite ML8000 as the next generation in advanced limiting technology. The ML8000 plug-in features two discrete processors. The first being multistage, multi-band lookahead peak detection and limiting, followed by a broadband master limiter with some rather flexible controls.
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Toneforge Guilty Pleasure by Joey Sturgis
Joey Sturgis is an American record producer with a studio in Indiana and a reputation as a leading expert working in the metalcore scene.
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Empirical Labs Arouser
Dave Derr introduced his first hardware unit the Distressor in the mid-1990s and scored remarkable success with what was perceived to be a modern advance on classic knee compressor designs like the 1176 and LA-2A.
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Waves Scheps Parallel Particles
Plugin design giant Waves has worked with many top flight producers and mix engineers over the last few years to deliver their Signature Series.
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PSP 2445 & E27
Living under a metaphorical rock would not have prevented most recordists from encountering the ubiquitous PSP Vintage Warmer plug-in. Launched in 2002 it was this release that catapulted Polish plug-in designers PSP into the limelight. However PSP has released dozens of packages since.
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McDSP AE600
The AE600 is the latest in the line of active EQs from this Silicon Valley based plug-in company. Offering six bands of both active and fixed EQ this is more than just your average plug-in.
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Waves Cobalt Saphira
The idea of bringing to market a plug-in that is deliberately difficult to hear but easy to feel is no mean feat. However this is ostensibly what Waves has done with the Saphira, the first plug-in from the new Cobalt series.
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Focusrite Liquid Mix HD Plug-in
Since Focusrite impressed everyone with their remarkable hybrid digital and analogue Liquid Channel microphone preamp (using a clever combination of convolution software and emulation hardware), they have brought their ‘Liquid’ convolution technology to a popular audience with the compressor and EQ emulating Liquid Mix, a...
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McDSP Retro Pack
McDSP have for over a decade been providing plugins which are much loved by professionals. In particular, the long-established FilterBank EQ and CompressorBank plugins are standard requirements for many mixers, with rock-solid sound quality and low latency.
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Universal Audio UAD Plugins
Universal Audio are widely respected not only for impressive hardware reissues and original designs, but also for the quality of the ever increasing plugin range available for the UAD range of cards.
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Audio Ease Speakerphone
The clever Dutchmen who brought us Altiverb have been beavering away at Speakerphone for some time. It finally arrived proclaiming to be the ultimate speaker simulator plugin, and includes 5GB of background environment samples.
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Chandler Limited EMI TG Mastering Pack
Whilst Chandler have painstakingly recreated and customised ancient EMI/Abbey Road circuit designs to great effect in hardware form, many DAW users have also been enjoying the TG12413 Limiter plugins. The follow up to those is this pair of EQ plugins.
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Chandler EMI TG12413
A few years ago I was lucky enough to use an original EMI TG12345 console which was owned by Mike Hedges – seemingly built to military spec, Mike had acquired and restored it for his private studio.
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