Review

Plugin Reviews

By George Shilling and Russell Cottier

With many years experience working as recording engineers and producers, our review team of George Shilling and Russell Cottier know the good from the bad. In many cases it's a matter of taste, some prefer one EQ over another but we try to provide unbiased and objective reviews of the equipment tested.

Eventide Tony Visconti Tverb Reverb plugin
May 2 2023 Reverb plugin
Eventide Tony Visconti Tverb

Berlin, 1977, in Hansa Tonstudio: Tony Visconti is recording Bowie's soon-to-be hit song Heroes, but he has run out of tracks. Hansa's studio 2 was the historic Meistersaal Hall constructed in 1910 for classical music performance.

Read Russell Cottier's review

LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Professional Convolution plugin Reverb
Mar 19 2023 Convolution plugin Reverb
LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven Professional

Seventh Heaven is a high-end reverb plug-in from LiquidSonics. LiquidSonics has been bringing advanced reverb plug-
ins to the market for the best
 part of a decade. Based on
 Fusion-IR technology these 
are more than just convolution
 reverbs.

Read Russell Cottier's review

Newfangled Audio Elevate & EQuivocate Multiband limiter and EQ plugins
Feb 4 2023 Multiband limiter and EQ plugins
Newfangled Audio Elevate & EQuivocate

Eventide partnered with Newfangled Audio (founded by former Eventide DSP developer Dan Gillespie) in 2017 to launch the Elevate multiband artificial intelligence driven limiter.

Read Russell Cottier's review

Toontrack Superior Drummer 3 Sampled drums virtual instrument
Jan 12 2023 Sampled drums virtual instrument
Toontrack Superior Drummer 3

Toontrack has a solid reputation in the software instrument world primarily for its flagship product, Superior Drummer. Back in May Toontrack flew journalists from across the world to Galaxy Studios, Belgium.

Read Russell Cottier's review

Leapwing Al Schmitt Signature sound plugin
Jun 26 2021 Signature sound plugin
Leapwing Al Schmitt

Leapwing have scored themselves something of a coup by bagging Al Schmitt’s talents and working with him to make something useful for mixing and mastering engineers.

Read George Shilling's review

Bettermaker EQ232D Equalizer plugin from Plugin Alliance
Jul 25 2020 Equalizer plugin from Plugin Alliance
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.

Read George Shilling's review

Tone Projects Unisum Mastering Compressor Multiband compressor plugin
Jul 18 2020 Multiband compressor plugin
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.

Read George Shilling's review

Sonnox Oxford Drum Gate Gate plugin
Apr 27 2020 Gate plugin
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...

Read George Shilling's review

McDSP ML8000 Limiter plugin with multi-band option
Feb 28 2018 Limiter plugin with multi-band option
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.

Read Russell Cottier's review

Toneforge Guilty Pleasure by Joey Sturgis Guitar amp simulator plugin
Dec 28 2017 Guitar amp simulator plugin
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.

Read George Shilling's review

Empirical Labs Arouser Compressor plugin
Jun 16 2017 Compressor plugin
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.

Read George Shilling's review

McDSP AE600 Active EQ plugin
Feb 28 2016 Active EQ plugin
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.

Read Russell Cottier's review

Focusrite Liquid Mix HD Plug-in Convolution based TDM plugin
Dec 23 2012 Convolution based TDM plugin
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...

Read George Shilling's review

McDSP Retro Pack EQ, compressor & limiter plugin bundle
Dec 23 2012 EQ, compressor & limiter plugin bundle
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.

Read George Shilling's review

Universal Audio UAD Plugins DSP powered software
Dec 23 2011 DSP powered software
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.

Read George Shilling's review

Audio Ease Speakerphone Speaker simulator plugin
Dec 23 2008 Speaker simulator plugin
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.

Read George Shilling's review