Is there any particular plug-in you would like to see featured?

So far I’ve thought about Flux Pure Limiter, McDSP Retro Limiter and ML4000, Sonnox Oxford Limiter and maybe the Massey L2007 and 112dB Big Blue Limiter.

Limiters and more uncommon dynamic processors will probably make up one elimination bout. Fortunately, I’ve been fairly quick to get rid of these after I’ve tried them, but there are still a bunch hogging up space.

After discovering a different approach to recording, I use saturators much less than before. I pretty much have the whole gang in the folder and have at times found them all useful. Here’s where my minimalism is challenged, I honestly feel all tape saturators – for instance – are good! Maybe not at tape saturation, but at some sort of saturation and/or dynamic processing. I might do a kill-off, but I’m not sure I want to!

I’m working on a piece, or perhaps we should call it an experiment, which I expect will require great filters. I will take my time and test the various filters available to find which is best suited, and will of course share my findings in a kill-off. Hopefully I’ll find a digital filter that will suffice. I say “hopefully” because no digital filter has ever impressed me the way an old synthesizer filter has. I find this slightly disturbing, because a) new synthesizers, save the Moog, also lack and b) I don’t want to be the vintage geek, I’d much rather be cutting edge and ITB.

Lately I’ve been thinking about getting a modular synthesizer, mainly for processing. At first I was dead-determined to get a hardware monster, packed with as many esoteric modules I could find in the Eurorack format, but being a child of the digital age I overcame the snobbery and decided that I at least should check out the software options. Among the contenders will be NI Reaktor, AAS Tassman, Arturia Moog Modular, Plogue Bidule and maybe even a Nord Modular (I know, it’s only semi-software, but what the hell…) if I can get my hands on one. I would be very interested in hearing about other options because all of these are to my knowledge fairly old (save Bidule) and one would imagine some progress could have been made since they were released. It’s important it’s compatible with Pro Tools in some way, if not as a plug-in it should be connectable via ReWire.

If you’re interested in other kill-offs, have suggestions or just want to talk dirty, feel free to leave a comment.

Elimination of compressors

Elimination of EQ’s

McDSP

Why? McDSP have been around for a long time, some say since the middle ages. They’ve always been known for high quality and have plug-ins covering just about everything and more.

What? My favorites from McDSP include the ML4000 limiter and the new Retro Pack, especially the EQ. Analog Channel deserves a mention as well. It’s as close you’ll get to a vintage plug-in!

Softube

Why? It appears that fellow Swedes Softube escape some peoples attention, even if they’ve been in the game longer than you might think – make sure they don’t! These guys makes, in my opinion, the best amp simulators out there. They’re not as brittle and ear-cutting as others, and to me and many others, sound more like amps actually do in a room.

What? Their amp simulators and FET Compressor in particular. Also Tube Delay and Spring Reverb if you’re looking for some dirty lo-fi goodies.

Massey

Why? Every protoolers favorite? Massey makes simple but very effective and great sounding plug-ins at killer prices.

What? TD5 is probably my favorite delay, dark and beautiful. Tape-Head, while not as useful as a tape emulator on many tracks as some of the competition, it’s killer for some grit and distortion.

Ohm Force

Why? Because they’re the weirdest, craziest and most freaked out of the bunch.

What? Hematohm is my latest favorite by Ohm Force. I’ve used it on anything from vocals to piano and even the master! But there’s a chance you won’t if you don’t like some serious wickedry. Ohmicide is the most brutal distortion plug-in I’ve ever encountered, and Ohmboyz is a delay of the more experimental kind than the others mentioned in this post.

Spectrasonics

Why? It’s no secret that I don’t care much for virtual instruments but Spectrasonics really challenges that opinion.

What? Omnisphere – sounds like no other synth. Stylus RMX – the groove tool for me at the moment. And I guess Trillian if we wait a month or so…

After piling up on too many compressors once again, I decided to finally pick my poison so to speak. This is not the type of review where all contenders will get my recommendation. We’re doing this Highlander style, there can be only one. Maybe two. Three is a failure. Minimalism is my diet.

Let me start by saying that this post is very cut down from the original post I wrote. I started with something like 20 compressors. Not that these many were actual contenders, but because there were several old ones I had never had in a shootout before and I wanted to give them a chance.

There were also a bunch that were newer, did OK that still got eliminated before the final round, such as Flux PureCompressor (that particular one because I thought the interface wasn’t optimal for my workflow).

Finally there are a lot that I’ve tried over the years that didn’t make it to the shootout at all. Not because they’re necessarily worse than the old stuff that did make it there, but because they had been involved in previous shootouts and I knew I wasn’t gonna pick them.

You must also forgive me, dear reader, for not supplying any files. I intended to at first, and started recording the first couple of things but more and more realized it wasn’t a good idea. First: there would be a lot of files, probably forcing me to upgrade my account for more bandwidth! Second of all, this was not meant as a clinical scientific test for the most part (which I think is close to worthless when doing audio shootouts). A lot of focus was placed on how I reacted to the the compressor action and thus how I choose to turn the next knob based on that reaction. I don’t think files would says much about how you would turn the next knob, if you know what I mean.

The contenders

Digidesign Smack! – bad ass on drums.

After the initial elimination bout I was left with the following compressors.

Softube FET Compressor. I knew from the beginning that one of the major candidates in this epic compressor battle would be the Softube FET Compressor. It really is a sculptor compressor that goes far beyond any 1176 I know of. First of all, it has continuos ratio (and yes, it goes to ‘all’) and it has a mix knob. It also has a detector section with side-chain, lookahead for lightning fast attack, low cut and high cut which is what will really sculpt your drums to perfection. There’s no doubt that if you’re looking for flexibility in your 76 wannabe, this is where to go. I compared it to some 76 clones. The BF76 wasn’t even a contender, the Purple 77 did better but not good enough.

Abbey Road EMI compressors. These are sold by Abbey Road, but wears the Chandler brand, which are mostly known for their hardware units. It’s actually two compressors. One is a clone of the original ‘69 compressor, the TG12345, the other is a clone of the Chandler 2005 remake. Which is better? Well, the 2005 can get more extreme, that’s for sure. It can really squash the shit out of your signal in a way the ‘69 can’t. If you want to use Abbey Road compressors as your only dynamic tools you’ll need both. I think the original has more punch to it in compression mode, but maybe it’s just my imagination. Keep in mind that these can only be set to 2:1 compression or limit mode.

I’ll probably take shit for this, but after trying the Brilliance Pack I was expecting a monster of a compressor and was highly disappointed the first several times I tried them as I didn’t like them at all. I remember reading an interview with Alan Parson (you know, Darkside of the Moon) where he stated he hated the hardware units. Somehow, when I started doing this shootout I started enjoying them more, and enough for them to make it to round two, which is more than we can say about half of the compressors featured.

McDSP Channel G – swiss army knife channelstrip.

McDSP 4030 Retro Compressor and Channel G. I intended to include CompressorBank as well, mainly for 1176 and LA-2A shootouts, but I couldn’t get it to act right at all so I pretty much ditched it right away. Channel G is a swiss-knife with plenty of knee settings for emulating SSL, Neve and API. It has been a long-term buddy of mine, but we’ll see if it makes the cut this time around. Retro Compressor was reviewed recently. That particular review might be of interest in addition to this post, not least since it compares Channel G and the Retro plugins.

Digidesign Smack!. Always gets mixed reactions. If you ask for opinions on it you’ll get either “it sucks!” or quite the opposite. I’ve always been on the latter side myself. I suppose the diverse opinions implies it has character. Nevertheless, it’s actually a quite versaitile compressor with it’s different modes, filters and harmonic options.

Sonnox Oxford Dynamics – another swiss army knife, but focused on dynamics.

These were the ones that made it from the first part, but this Street Fighter II obsessed reviewer saw two new challengers emerge! It was the TBK3 Über Compressor from Sonalksis and the Sonnox Oxford Dynamics. In short, the TBK3 is a big one button interface. Just turn it to add compression! But it isn’t a one knob interface in reality, you can add noise, change the timing in an unflexible manner, bias and set it to fierce which will squash… nay, saw your shit in half! I’ve used it back and forth for extreme drums. It will pump, squash, crush, snap, crackle, pop and mutilate them.

The Oxford gets the wild card for being such a digital classic. Note that Oxford Dynamics is more than a compressor. It includes extensive dynamic tools such as a gate, expander, limiter and more. The Oxford Dynamics is, if anything, a desert island compressor. I avoided to use the gate, expander and limiter in this particular test, but did apply the sidechain EQ and the warmth along with the compressor.

The drum test

Sonalksis TBK3 Über Compressor – does the name justice.

In the first phase of the shootout I had focused much on drums. I start by once again trying to get a decent drum sound, but not by duplicate settings, but to let each compressor find it’s own way.

Starting with the FET Compressor, it’s fast and easy to tweak. The ’standard’ controls are all on page one on my control surface, and the more ‘advanced’ settings are on page two. Nice layout. The parallel inject button is a nice feature, but it and me aren’t that great of friends actually. I understand what Softube was thinking, to emulate a ‘real’ parallel compression, but I much prefer the proper mix knob approach found for instance on McDSP Retro Compressor. Overall I liked the FET better on drums though. Maybe my ears simply are tuned to 1176 when it comes to drums.

Moving to Abbey’s contribution in this fine battle. Playing with them on drums, I realize I only like them in limit mode, and that’s for a very apparent effect. It sounds good, but there’s not a lot of options with the sound. It’s either this or that, but it works really well for this track.

Channel G disappointed a little. I’ve always thought it did a job you can’t complain about, but side to side with these other freaks it didn’t fare too well in the drum department. At least not today on this particular drum track.

Smack! of course kicked ass in the drum test, as I knew it would.

The Sonalksis TBK3 also did well on the drum test as I expected, it’s a greater smasher! What I don’t like is how it operates. If you’ve dialed in your compression and want to try it in fierce mode there’s a good chance you’ll blow your speakers! I wish Sonalksis could find a good way to link the volume so this doesn’t hapen.

What about the Oxford Dynamics? It’s quite amazing what you can do with it. With that said, it’s easy to understand I got a good sound from it. Unfortunately, amazing options comes with a prize, in this case seven pages of controls on my control surface, which means it suffers from the same problem as a product such as Channel G. Despite this, it’s fairly quick to dial, but a no frills compressor is of course faster.

Top three favs in drum test: FET Compressor, EMI ‘05, Oxford Dynamics (despite too much showing on my control surface).

The bass test

Abbey Road Plug-ins TG12413 1969 and 2005 – not flexible but with character.

So the bass test. The FET Compressor was again simple and quick to work with. In the end I actually think it yielded the best results as well.

Both the EMI’s felt good when I tweaked them, again especially the ‘05. It’s setup is simply easier for my brain to comprehend. This time I had it set to compressor mode instead of limit and I thought it worked pretty well. At least until the comparison with the rest. Didn’t make the final three in the end.

The McDSP Retro Compressor did really well. Felt great right away. Channel G felt too bright and not interesting enough. I think the Retro’s grungy character fits bass nicely.

Smack! felt great when I tweaked it. Quick. It was a tough call deciding between the warm mode and the optical mode, but in the end I think I went with optical.

TBK3 was this tests big surprise. It didn’t feel really good when I tweaked it (distorted easy, the noise was way too noisy and blah, blah, blah) but in the end it turned out to be one of my favs.

The Sonnox was about the opposite. I turned the knobs and it felt good, but in the final listening not good enough.

Top three favs in the bass test: FET Compressor, Retro Compressor, TBK3

The guitar test

McDSP 4030 Retro Compressor – also with character.

Before the guitar test I had written this:

The guitar test will be a tough cookie to ace. I normally don’t use compression on guitar and will try the compressors on both chords and picked notes. I think in the end it will be a test for which one does light compression better.

Wow! It was a tough cookie, for me! I realized I dialed in very similar sounds, that means as little difference as possible. Worth mentioning though is that with some of the plugins I dared push a little more for charachter, which I think says something. Not sure what, but it says something. Let’s have a look at them.

McDSP Retro Compressor was pushed. Maybe it shares some awesome mid crunch with it’s EQ friend? The Oxford was also pushed, but in a different way, namely using the warmth setting. It added some nice fatness to the signal. I thought the TBK3 sounded pretty bad when I turned the knobs, but listening back to it, the noise it induced is actually quite pleasing for this particular test.

I don’t know if these three should be considered the top three favs of this test, but at least they’re the three that stick out.

Conclusion

Softube FET Compressor – the ultimate 1176 software clone?

I don’t ever want to see a compressor again. At the moment I feel they should all go to the unused folder. Ear fatigue aside, I think I favor Softubes contribution – FET Compressor. Generic name, standard unit to emulate, but damn, it works really well for me. Can I live with a 1176 copy as only compressor? I’ll try for a while. If I would pick one more it would be one with tons of character.

I have a lot of EQ’s, and way more have passed my plugin folder. I decided my plug-in folder had way too many in it so I… added even more! Why? Just to decide which not to keep. Follow me as I kick most of them to the unused folder.

Before we start

A lot of EQ’s was included in this test, but I decided to not write about the entire shootout because it would be too long! Also, some quite decent EQ’s were not included, although I’ve used them. The reason being that they have been part of other shootouts and I knew they wouldn’t make it. A whole lot of older EQ’s were included because I had never had them in a shootout before. One of them made it to the final tests (incidentally one that had appeared in a previous shootouts, but that I felt had capability).

Sorry for not including any samples. My intention was at first to do so from both the EQ test and the compressor test (posting later today or tomorrow). I actually started recording for the compressor test but decided not to continue. For one thing, and this is especially true with compressors, I don’t think samples tell you much. I twist a knob, and as a response of the result I get from twisting that knob I twist another one and so on. There’s absolutely no reason to assume that you would twist the second or third knob (i.e. not reacting in the same way) like I would. Always try for yourself!

The second reason was that I realized I would probably have to upgrade the account, because the bandwidth required would be tremendous with all those files (and there would be a lot). OK, maybe a small financial price to pay for happy readers. Anyway, I hope this aids you in some way dear reader, even if I again must stress that you always try for yourself!

The challengers, scaling down

Below are not all the challengers, just a few things I thought worth mentioning that occurred during the beginning of the shootout.

Channel G have been a long time favorite of mine. It’s a swiss-knife plugin, a desert island with electricity plugin, all-in-one plugin, or whatever you want to call it. Channel G can pull off anything from ultra clinical to musical API wide styled equalization. My biggest gripe with it is actually that it doesn’t map very well to small control surfaces, forcing me to scroll through way too many pages. In a way I like Channel G Compact better. It’s small foot print, one page user interface actually fits me better. It sounds as good but is smaller. There are less bands on the EQ, but why would I need more than there already are on the Compact?

SPL EQ Rangers were hot contenders. I’ve already reviewed the SPL plugins so I won’t explain them in detail here. I don’t think I’ve ever been so indecisive of what I really think about an EQ before. Are they good? No doubt! Are they keepers? Maybe, I don’t like to keep more than two EQ’s. I “knew” from the start this shootout would be between SPL and McDSP. I say “knew” because things might change. Remember Abbey Road? I expected marketing nonsense and found some of my favorite EQ’s. Speaking of which, the Abbey Road plugins aren’t going anywhere so far. At least not the Brilliance Pack. They’re still the shit for brilliance.

The plugins that really surprised me was – and don’t laugh – the Bomb Factory Pultec EQ’s. Bomb Factory hasn’t faired well since… well ever… for me in shootouts. But these are actually interesting. The simplicity they bring, the awesome control surface mapping and the style is not bad at all. Supposedly the UA versions are so much better and the hardware is another world. I don’t know, can’t say I’m too familiar with either. What can I say? I like simple EQ interfaces. On the other hand, these begs to be compared to the Abbey Road Brilliance Pack, and Abbey won that battle. If they only had some sort of bass control like the Bomb Factory’s. Three bombs away to the unused folder.

It’s worth noting that the Abbey Road EMI TG12414 lost to McDSP 4020 Retro EQ in the Retro Pack review. It’s brother, the EMI TG12412 didn’t fair much better in this test. It’s a four bander and a ‘fairly flexible’ one I’d say. At least for being a vintage styled EQ. Surprisingly the Abbey gave the Retro EQ a run for the money in terms of mids, but when it came to the highs I much preferred the Retro EQ. Both Abbey Road TG’s went to the unused before the finals. I think it’s clear which developer Abbey Road should stick with (Softube, and not Chandler, in case you didn’t know).

The Focusrite Forte probably lost in the weirdest way: I despised the interface so much that they never really got a chance to fight. Sonnox Oxford EQ is also an ugly guy, but I can actually see what the knobs are so it made the cut. I wouldn’t expect it, but I really hope for an interface upgrade. The newer Oxford plugins look much better. Fortunately The Oxford EQ has the capabilities sonically to compete with the best of them. Just like the Oxford compressor, the EQ is a desert island plugin. It’s very flexible and can do pretty much any form of uncolored EQ’ing you can imagine. It’s the oldie that made it to the final round.

Flux Epure then? It’s a most excellent plugin. Sounds terrific, truly high-end. My favorite cutting EQ for some reason. It can sound a bit weird when boosting in a mix though. Overall I think it, like most Flux plug-ins, fit better in a mastering environment. Also like the rest of the Flux plug-ins, I tend to reach for it when doing cleaning jobs, interviews and such. I’ve often been quite snobbish with it when mixing though, not using it for anything other than cutting, often just high passing a choir or something like that. Unfortunately Epure is very poorly mapped to control surfaces which is a big deal to me. I’ll probably drag it back in if I start doing a lot of cleaning jobs again, but for now it’s out.

Play off!

So in the end I had a small gathering consisting of McDSP Channel G and Retro EQ, Sonnox Oxford EQ as well as the SPL EQ Rangers. A gang of four! I probably could live with using all of these, but I’ve promised heads would roll. And sir…. heads will roll.

Drum test

In the pre-playoff tests I had done a lot of comparisons on drum busses, often setting the EQ’s to similar settings to find which one I liked better. For this test I did the opposite and just EQ’ed each as I think they sounded best. This perhaps less scientific test actually gives a better indication of which EQ that fits me best.

As it turns out, the drum test is mostly a battle between the two McDSP alternatives. There’s nothing wrong with the SPL or the Oxford, in fact they both sound pretty good, but it seems like I just favor flavor here, and the Retro EQ comes out on top with it’s crunchy mids.

Bass test

The bass test turned out to be much tougher than I thought. Desite not being sure what frequencies to emphasize beforehand (I treat bass guitar/synths very different from song to song), and despite thinking I approached the EQ differently with more or less each EQ, they all ended up sounding fairly similar. The one with the most character, and the one that stood out most was easily McDSP Retro EQ. I think I just dared drive it harder, something that in my opinion can benefit a bass that’s not very distorted.

Guitar test

I just assumed the Retro EQ would kill the rest of the competition in this test. It didn’t, it did however sound very different! I don’t think it was so much because the EQ is insanely colored, but because I start EQ’ing differently when using it. There are certain frequencies that I just think sounds so pleasing with it that I instantly grab them and turn them up a lot (don’t give me the subtractive EQ argument). It sounds more downhome rotten blues, compared to the more polished, but still middy qualities I got from SPL and Channel G. Interestingly, the Oxford gave me somewhat similar result as the Retro EQ, but this could just have been because I tweaked the Oxford after the Retro EQ, and my ears were ‘tuned’ to those frequencies. This test didn’t leave a clear winner in my mind, but more a noted difference.

And the winner is…

It’s obvious: McDSP Retro EQ. It simply does what I want. It helps me achieve the sounds that I want. I like the way it’s ‘pushable’, I like the limitations, the mapping and I completely adore the mids. It’s a little like an old friend that I didn’t know I had until now. I’ll keep the Abbey Road Brilliance Pack around a while and see if I still use it, or if the Retro EQ ultimately makes them redundant. ‘Normal people’ will probably want a clean EQ to complement the Retro, but as a minimalist psychopath I think I’ll try without for a while.

Do note, the Retro EQ is colored. Do your own shootouts instead of relying on my opinion. There’s nothing that says that you and I are looking for the exact same sounds or have the exact same methods and workflow to achieve it. With that said, The Retro EQ is mojo in a box, in the box.

Time for another Spotlight. This time it’s on the Ohm Force plug-ins. I’ll try to cover them all, besides Ohmicide which I reviewed when it was first released. If you dig them be sure to join in on the group buy before it’s too late! You’re already guaranteed 53% off and it can very well be more.

The common things

Before we dig into the individual plug-ins, here are somethings that are common to all of them:

• Be forewarned: basically all Ohm Force plug-ins are unique, which makes it really hard to compare them to other plug-ins. Instead I’ll just talk about what I like and dislike about them.
• All Ohm Force plug-ins has two skins you can use. One is ‘classic’ looking, the other is what Ohm Force calls ‘funky’. Only wimps use the classic skin.
• Ohm Force plug-ins also use a special type of preset management. Basically each preset has a lot of variations that you can switch between. It may seem a bit messy at first but you’ll get used to it.
• Finally I should mention that all Ohm Force plug-ins can be controlled via MIDI. Thank you!

Ohmboyz

Click for a closeup.

My favorite Ohm Force plug-in next to Ohmicide is their delay Ohmboyz. As you might know I’m a real sucker for delays, and believe me when I say I’ve gone through a whole lot of them. Ohmboyz is one of the few that gets to stay in the plug-in folder.

For me, it has a very specific purpose – to create unnatural effects. Ohmboyz is built around a lot more things than your regular delay. I won’t get too technical but I’ll tell you the basics. The four guys at the top are the four stereo tap delays. These can be panned and set to different timing individually. The Transformer robots are stereo delay lines with feedback. That’s the basic delay, but Ohmboyz also has plenty of filter capability: high pass, low pass, band notch, wah-wah, adjustable bandwidth and resonance from -24dB to +24dB. There’s LFO’s to play with as well, and most importantly a bad ass overdrive/distortion unit.

Do you begin to understand why this is cool for creating unreal delay effects? If you like crazy delays you should really give this a go. While it might look terribly advanced, it can of course be used like a “normal” delay as well. I’ve used it both as a basic stereo slap delay and a gritty sounding mono delay. It’s so tweakable you should be able to set it up in almost any way you want, but if you don’t want to spend several minutes with just a delay you’ll be able to set up the basics fast as well. This is why I was comfortable with including it in the Stiff favs bundle. Also, I love the cat!

Hematohm

The first time I tried Hematohm I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t really know what it was, and I’m still not sure I’ve grasped the idea. I was really intirgued by the Ohm Force description of it:

A dark atmospheric plug-in that will make your sounds fit to whatever you are thinking about, whether it likes it or not!

Sounded right up my alley! The very first time I used it on a piano. I started tweaking it without having a clue about what to expect and what the controls really did. While I like to sit down with manuals when I get a new plug-in, I usually try it once or twice first before I start reading. It sounded so strange I can’t give you a good explanation of what it did. It made me think that the piano notes got long alien fingers made out of some kind of fluid. Strange enough for you?

It was most definitely strange enough for me so I was hoping for more of these odd effects when I returned to it some time later. It’s obvious that Hematohm is not a plug-in you use in every session. Or wait, maybe you do, but I don’t at least. This is an effect, suitable sometimes, other times not.

Wait! I haven’t even told you what it is! It’s a frequency shifter. It also includes a delay that “contains the main effect inside its loop”. What this does in practice is make sure that the signal doesn’t stay the same and changes more and more with every echo. If you don’t want to use the delay you can turn it off. It also contains one LFO with 10 waveforms, including 3 randomized shapes and an envelope follower.

But who cares what it is? All I care about is that it changes the sound, and it does so a lot. Because of the various controls you can come up with some crazy ideas, and depending on if you want the delay included in your ideas or not it can echo on for eternity. It can be used for basic “censoring of the voice” (you know, when the news shows a guy with a hidden identity talking) to dark atmospheric vibes on just about anything. My favorite use is for dust-dirty industrial synth soundscapes. I would name drop some bands, but you wouldn’t know them. A bonus is that the funky skin is one of the most evil looking plug-ins I’ve ever seen! And the switch in the middle, brother the switch! 11 out of 10 for the GUI!

Predatohm

I must say I was highly skeptical about Predatohm when I got it. The reason was mainly because I had been using Ohmicide for quite some time already, and on paper they looked very similar. Besides being several years older, Predatohm doesn’t look nearly as cool as Ohmicide (and we all know looks is what’s important in audio). I don’t know if Ohmicide was intended as a replacement or not, but I liked Ohmicide so much I didn’t really feel the need for another multiband distortion unit.

Like Ohmicide, Predatohm is a four band distortion unit. You can tweak the individual bands, but it seems like an Ohmicide lightweight. It also has feedback posibilities like any decent distortion should.

It wasn’t until I tried it on a drum bus that I noticed this could still have a place in a disto-maniacs arsenal. I’ve used Ohmicide on drums many times, especially loops that are not intended to sound natural at all and I’ve found it to be an instant fattener in the most apparent way I can think of. However, when it came down to comparing the two on a “normal drum” bus I couldn’t get Ohmicide to act like I wanted (and I wouldn’t normally use it on that either). Predatohm on the other hand delivered a very nice punch. Especially the lows sounded nice. I set the low alien to sharp and I was able to come up with a drum sound that reminded me of the dry 70’s… Well, with the extra little detail that it involved aliens on steroids (so no, it didn’t really sound like the 70’s, I said it reminded me of it).

Despite that I enjoyed it on drums, I find it hard to motivate keeping it in the folder myself. I don’t like to have too many plug-ins laying around. Perhaps it might be for you if you’re a distortion fanatic and like to have a couple of plug-in options. Personally I don’t like options so I’ll stick with the more extreme Ohmicide.

Symptohm: Melohman

Click for full size and to check out the funky monkeys.

I was a little skeptical about Symptohm as well. Nothing odd about that, I’m skeptical about all software instruments. The ones I can stand are more than a few, but the ones I keep in my plug-in folder are very easily counted. This is especially true when it comes to synths. I have hardware synths I like and find more inspirational than any software I’ve ever used, and when it comes to software I found my love in Hybrid some time ago. While things like Omnisphere makes me question my skepticism towards softsynths, it’s a whole other deal than a years old plug-in synth.

Symptohm was fortunately cooler than I expected. You can load it with samples (two at the same time) then tweak as you like. While I don’t want to bash the guys who made the available presets, because some of them are pretty cool (others are not, but so what?), I don’t think they scratch the surface on the potential Symptohm has. For instance, the first thing I did when I sat down and wrote this review was to launch Symptohm and to see again just how much work it was to come up with something. I loaded a guitar loop, tweaked the first knobs I saw and instantly I had something that was totally crazy sounding. Symptohm is of course not the only plug-in to be able to load samples, but I appreciate how fast it is to come up with ideas.

Don’t miss the wicked – or should I say “funky”? – monkeys in the funky skin. The top picture is actually from the plug-in (click the browser to find it). A basic description besides the monkeys might be in place. First, it borrows a little from Quad Frohmage, so if you’re familiar with that cheesy filter piece you might have an idea on what’s going on. Basically, it’s a four oscillator, polyphonic, subtractive synth. I won’t go through the details but it’s a little different than many others. If you’re interested head over to Ohm Force to check it out, and if you’re nuts about knowing more, just download the manual.

Symptohm doesn’t kick neither my hardware synths nor Hybrid for me, but it’s something completely different. If you’re into synths and like to tweak you might want to check it out. I’m a rockaroller so I keep my sessions limited synth-wise.

Oh, and it’s a Melohman.

Conclusion

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that I really like Ohmboyz since it’s in the Stiff’s favs bundle. It’s a very tweakable delay that I love for pure FX. It can be used as a regular delay too, and it can go from nice to gritty to pure brutal. Predatohm feels a little dated compared to Ohmicide, but as I found out it’s still has a place if you’re a fanatic. Hematohm came as a dark surprise to me. While I don’t see myself using it a lot, I’ll keep it around for when the mood kicks in. I like it for effects when I want to create a dark and eerie feeling (which is surprisingly often). Symptohm is a synth that I find quick to work with and behaves a little different than one might expect… And it has a singing monkey and a ad scientist!

Ohm Force

Samplers have been raining down on my desk recently so I think it’s only fair that we do a comparison of these instrument killers.

Structure

If your only DAW is Pro Tools then I assume Structure looks rather interesting – and it should. To begin with, the interface of Structure has both goods and bads, and often I can’t really put my finger on whether I like it or not. The main pros is that it looks great, it has MIDI learn and it has quick knobs. The quick knobs are awesome. These are the knobs that are around the piano, you can assign pretty much any parameter to them. Since the plug-in window mostly change in the section above, the quick knobs are easy to access at most times. Awesome. This leads me to the con of the interface. Structure has a lo-ho-hot of windows which can get a little confusing and annoying.

Regarding sample formats, it can indeed import a few but I’ve had problems with this. Some Kontakt patches just don’t work for me. I load the patch and Structure just says it’s empty (but it loads without problems in Kontakt). Just to be clear, this isn’t Kontakt 3 patches, which would be understandable if it happened to them. The amount of formats isn’t very impressive either actually. Make sure your favorite libraries are compatible before you buy.

Speaking of importing, dragging audio files from the session straight into Structure is possible and a great feature in my opinion. I actually don’t use it much, but I think it’s such an intuitive option to have. After hearing about it, it just seemed like no-brainer to me. This basically means you can use Pro Tools editing functions with Structure a lot easier than you would with most other samplers. Strctures own editing functions isn’t all that impressive on the other hand, so I guess the drag’n'drop feature makes up for that.

If you’re really interested in Structures editing features and workflow then I suggest you head over to Digidesigns website and check out the videos there. They can tell you much more than I can in a short review like this.

Digidesign

Sampletank 2

Despite only being on version 2, it seems like Sampletank have been around forever. I assume most of you are familiar with it since a special crippled version of it have been bundled with Pro Tools hardware for quite some time now.

Sampletank to me is more of a virtual instrument than a sampler. It seems to me that IK Multimedia are trying to have you buy only their sounds instead of importing others. They have a big collection of “Powered by Sampletank” instruments, that it just so happens that Sampletank 2 can load. Don’t get me wrong though, it can load .wav, .aiff, SDII, AKAI and SampleCell as well.

Sampletank ships with a fair amount of FX (the standards like reverb, chorus, EQ etc.) and a rather small amount of samples for todays standard. The included sounds are in Sampletank instrument form so you won’t be able to open them in any other sampler. All this makes Sampletank seem like a lightweight sampler compared to for instance Structure.

On the plus side I would like to mention that while the interface doesn’t look like anything special, it pretty much fits on one screen (besides small pop-up options) so there’s no confusion or risk of getting lost in window-jumping. This actually makes Sampletank 2 rather pleasant to work with.

IK Multimedia

The freebies

For you guys out there on a more modest budget there are actually a couple of freebie samplers out there. In the olden days, in the years of early freebie plug-ins, the free samplers weren’t all that good. This have changed, and what’s more importantly, they actually include pretty big sound libraries for being free and downloadable.

Digidesign made a great move in my opinion when they released two new versions of Structure. One of these are free and that made a lot of people happy. I have complained about how Digidesign should include more plug-ins in their Pro Tools packages, but the availability of two great instruments in Structure Free and Xpand! is just great. Thank you Digidesign.

Structure Free

Yellow Tools makes a free version of their sampler Independence. I have never tried it, but you can get it with a rather big sound library which of course is a plus. So far it’s only available in AU and VST.

Independence Free

Conclusion

Structure looked really impressive when Digidesign released it, and it still does. If you’re working solely in Pro Tools land there’s a good chance that this is the only instrument you will ever need. Digidesign have made the smart thing and released a version for every budget, even if you have no money at all. There simply is no excuse not to have a copy of Structure. Sampletank looks like it’s fighting in the wrong weight class when in the ring with Structure, but if you’re looking for a single screen easy to use sampler, or have a load of “Powered by Sampletank” instruments, it can of course be of interest.

Taking the previous reviewed Kontakt 3 into the consideration and matching it against Structure is interesting. If you do work in any DAW other than Pro Tools you might be scared off by the fact that Structure is Pro Tools only. If you have a lot of samples in all kinds of strange formats it’s much more likely that Kontakt 3 can open them. The script functionality in Kontakt 3 is also something else that have no equivalent in Structure. On the other hand, Structures tight integration with Pro Tools is unique. Reports from the forums on the web also indicate that Windows users are having a lot more problems with Kontakt 3.

Also be sure to check out the review of Kontakt 3.

Celebrating the arrival of the latest two EZX kits – Claustrophobic and Twisted – I decided to run a Spotlight special on the three first EZXs. Here it is, Drumkit From Hell, Vintage Rock and Latin Percussion, that should be something for everyone, right?

The basics

So what are EZXs? It started out as sort of a stripped down alternative to the other drum libraries out there. When they were all getting bigger and bigger, covering more and more DVDs, EZ Drummer just covered one. The samples are compressed but still manage to sound very good. More importantly, EZ Drummer was also “EZ” on your computer CPU. The idea evolved and now you basically buy “style packs” instead of paying for all those kits you’ll never use. Pretty smart, huh? That has in turn made them popular as song writing tools.

All kits have three windows: one showing the drums, one showing your MIDI beats (that can be dragged n’ dropped into your sequencer), and finally a very basic mixer. It’s in the mixer you have the possibility to route your drum tracks, so for instance if you want to mix the kick from a separate track in your DAW that’s not a problem. Here are some of the packs that are out there…

Drumkit From Hell

Have you been living under a rock the last couple of years? If not, then you’ll know what this is about. Drumkit From Hell, or DFH short, is pretty much what started this whole drum circus that’s now inhabited by freaks such as Strike and BFD.

DFH EZX contains both the original and the later released add-on, and if you’re a metal fan this will give you what you’d expect – a frickin’ spaceship of a drumkit! The kit itself is played by drummers from Meshuggah, Nocturnal Rites, and a band I used to listen to back in the day – Naglfar. If you don’t know who they are, well, prepare to hear those double kicks work.

The included midi files are extensive and covers even the most brutal metal out there. The sounds are processed but unfortunately sometimes reminds me of a slightly outdated 90’s metal sound. Despite this, if you’re recording metal or hardrock and are looking for drum software you should definitely check out DFH.

Vintage Rock

After all my ravings about how I like Naglfar and the other metal guys playing on the DFH EZX you might think I’d throw this directly in the garbage can. Wrong boy, it just happens that I’m a big fan of early rock, blues and garage rock as well, which this kit just happens to be perfect for. I would give this kit ten out of ten for including the single best drumbeat in the history of music – Alice Coopers Billion Dollar Babies. Unfortunately for Toontrack I don’t rate the products I review with a grade.

There are other good beats as well and many of them are labeled so you can easily understand them, or how about “Stoogie” or “The King”? What a coincidence, I’ve only mentioned beats that Toontrack refer to as “double tempo rock”. It’s not hard to see where my passion lies, eh? Besides from rock you also get a couple jazz/fusion loops, some funk and of course a bunch of shuffle beats.

Like DFH the sounds are processed and are mainly useful for rock, pop and blues from the 50’s-70’s. All in all a very good collection that I’ve used a great deal for song writing.

Latin Percussion

Alright, so I’m a metal-head, a vintage rocker and, guess what? A Latin percussionist! No, that my friend, I’m not. This is by far the pack I’ve used the least. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, it just mean that I don’t write a lot of latin-based music. I did come up with an incredibly cool tune by using a Latin Percussion loop and play it back with the Pop/Rock kit though.

The rhythms (and the samples of course) included in this pack could be useful to you even if you don’t intend to be the latino heat. The rhythms are grouped in “congas”, “cajon”, “bongos”, “udu”, “shakers”, “guiro”, “tambourine”, “triangle”, “timbales”, “cowbells”, “woodblocks” and “fx and cymbals”. If you know all those, and the groups underneath as well, then you know more about percussion than I do.

Conclusion

I find it incredibly hard to see someone enjoy any of these styles of music and NOT enjoying the corresponding pack. I mean, what’s not to like? They sound good, the grooves included are good, they’re cheap and all in all they are good song writing tools that are incredibly easy to use. I think Toontrack struck gold with this concept. Stay tuned for reviews of the latest EZXs.

Toontrack

As you know by now, good sound is relative, and while some of you might think that Neve EQs is the best sounding thing ever, I don’t think that. I’m not really a fan of analog emulations because they are almost always too limiting. If you like analog sounding EQs you should definitely look into URS, they have a whole load of EQs that emulate all different kinds. But URS is not the only player, don’t forget about McDSP! The McDSP FilterBank could actually be considered a budget choice in this field because of all the emulations it includes. I’m a fan of most McDSP products and think FilterBank is a great choice for anyone that doesn’t have a solid foundation of EQs.

On the opposite side to emulations we have the ultra flexible Roger Nichols Digital EQs. It shouldn’t come as a surprise here that I’d gladly give them the innovation award if we had something like that here at ProTooler. We don’t, however, so all they get is this special mention. The UNIQUEL-IZER really is unique, and in a way it does what should be a standard among EQs, it lets you add as many bands as possible.

Somewhere in the middle is where my personal favorites are located. Some might say that I racked down a bit on the Sonnox Oxford (the interface specifically), but it is one of my favorite sounding EQs that still has the possibilities that digital can give, like options for EQ character and such. Another one is Flux Epure, an anonymity almost it seems in the Pro Tools world, that sounds as you’d expect from Flux – clean, very clean. The third one that will get a mention here is one that almost slipped us by, the Sonalksis SV-517. With smart additions such as character knobs (think Oxford) and a spectrum analyzer, the SV-517 is something else. Add that to a lovely sound and you got perhaps one of the better EQs in the Pro Tools world.

Now go try some of them for yourself!

Spotlight on EQs part I
Spotlight on EQs part II
Spotlight on EQs part III
Spotlight on EQs part IV

For part four of our Spotlight on EQs we’re going to review two more URS EQs, two that are very different than those we reviewed in part 3. This time we’ve also added an EQ of another brand, namely Sonalksis. Lets see how they stack up to the competition.

URS Fullteq

The URS Fullteq EQ is a one of a kind EQ. One band emulates the Pulteq EQP-1s low frequency shelving, three peak bands emulates the midrange boost and the attenuation of the Pulteq MEQ-5 and the high frequency boost of the Pulteq EQP-1a, it also includes a fifth band, a high shelving filter. So we have a five band EQ, with three peak bands featuring separate Q controls. Besides that it includes the URS standards, like options for mouse control and good mapping for Digidesign control surfaces.

The interface is good looking, but a little boring, still very effective with big knobs which of course is nice. As with other URS plug-ins there are several ways that you can control these knobs: either by doing it the “normal” way, that is by clicking and dragging with the mouse, or by clicking at any of the values around them, or by using the mouse scroll wheel.

It’s always hard to describe how an EQ sounds because there simply isn’t any set definitions for the terms used. For me though, the URS Fulltec is smooth, that’s the one word I’d use to describe it. URS mention the bottom end when they’re talking about the Fulltec, but for me it really shines in the mids. I don’t know how close it is to the originals as I have never used them, so if you’re interested in a comparison like that you’ll have to look elsewhere. I like it on vocals, guitars and other mid-frequency voices.

Unique Recording Software

URS S Series

From what I understand, this is modeled after the SSL 4000e. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

For being URS, this EQ is rather advanced with more controls than you might have encountered on URS EQs before (perhaps beside the Mix EQs). Compared to the A and N series EQs this one is much ore flexible in terms of which frequencies you can boost or cut. It’s a six band EQ with four peak bands (overlapping each other) and low– and hi-pass filters, switchable between bell and shelf.

As with other URS plug-ins, the GUI is spartan but looks good. It has a bit smaller knobs than many other plug-ins they have released though. The bands are separated very clearly, so there’s little chance you’d get confused over what Q control effects what frequency knob.

I know more than a few people have called this EQ harsh, and maybe it is, but I kind of like it. It has attitude. I also find it more flexible than many of the URS EQs. And – as you might’ve guessed – I like plug-ins with some features.

Unique Recording Software

Sonalksis SV-517Mk2

This is a 7-band graphic EQ (five parametric plus high- and lowpass filters). Besides all the normal EQ controls (Q, frequency, levels) and the usual stuff, like the possibility of grabbing the graph and tweak from there, the Sonalksis SV-517 features some pretty good advanced controls. First of we have the global styles of band-pass and shelving filters, these alter the characteristics of said bands, of course making it a lot more flexible than many other EQs. Another very nice addition is a built-in spectrum analyzer, good thinking Sonalksis! Clicking the setup button gives us a whole lot of controls for mouse handling (thank you!), meter- and clip display, the graph as well as the analyzer. Among other interesting features we find an A-B preset system, which is always welcomed.

The SV-517 look good. At first I thought the knobs were too small, but I can see why they choose to make them that way instead of making them bigger with a larger interface. The SV-517 looks vintage but it isn’t. Despite the developers earlier jobs at AMS-Neve, this isn’t another emulation. Instead Sonalksis uses a different technique which they claim sound more analog than your typical digital EQ, it’s called “state-space technology” and is about emulating internal processing rather than the end-result (which they say many others do when they try to emulate hardware). You can read more about it on their website if you’re interested.

My main complaint about the SV-517 is that it seems somewhat slow in the response sometimes. For instance, when clicking and dragging in the graph, it sometimes doesn’t “get” that I have actually released the mouse button until a couple of milliseconds later, resulting in a very different positioning of the graph than intended. This sluggish behavior is also apparent when typing in values manually with the keyboard among other things. It seems, however, that this is only present when the spectrum analyzer is turned on.

This thing aside, there’s not much more negative to say. Sonalksis has made a very flexible and good sounding EQ that could work in almost any given situation. In a way it actually reminds me of the Sonnox Oxford…

Sonalksis

Conclusion

I hope you have understood that the Sonalksis SV-517mk2 is a much more feature-filled EQ than the two URS EQs reviewed here. This really shouldn’t come as a surprise as URS really isn’t known for filling their plug-ins with tons of options (but wait until you see the review of the Channel Strip Pro!). And again, as I have said in the past about URS, the potential buyer of their products should be those who want analog emulations, URS are certainly among the best in the world in this field. The Sonalksis SV-517mk2, despite it’s annoying name, is a very nice EQ that you should definitely give a go if you’re looking for a new EQ plug-in that necessarily isn’t an emulation. Thanks to the global styles it’s more flexible than much of the competition. I also have to give kudos for the incredibly smart move of including a spectral analyzer! While I’m throwing roses all around me I also have to applaud the mouse-wheel support that all the above mentioned EQs have. This is a great plus in my book and lets me work a little longer without my arms taking too much damage. Thank you for that URS and Sonalksis.

Spotlight on EQs part I
Spotlight on EQs part II
Spotlight on EQs part III
Spotlight on EQs conclusion