But gentle compression on larger sources, such as room mics, or piano, it sounded brilliant to my ears.Let’s get your vocals under control with the best compressor VST for vocals. I think that because it’s emulating the hardware faithfully – and as this hardware is tube-based, I found it pretty coloured, and sometimes I felt like it muddied the sound a little. This compressor seemed to work well on all sources.
Both are very useful attributes that are not always present on other software compressors – there have been many times when I’ve been frustrated by the lack of external sidechain on the particular compressor I’ve been using. The elements that stood out to me immediately were the inclusion of external sidechain capabilities, and the fast attack time (0.5ms). This is based on a compressor that has been used in countless records, and alongside the others is definitely considered a classic in the audio world. Whereas the PE1C is excellent at creating smooth boosts adding warmth, fatness and glisten to a source, The ME1B is great at cutting, helping a track stand out in a mix, adding some brightness, and cutting out any muddiness or honkiness in a sound source. It proved great for adding bite and brightness. You can boost the low mids and the high mids, and there is a sweepable cut that covers almost the entire frequency range of the plugin. Whereas the previous EQ works well by itself, I feel this one works best in conjunction with the other, and needs the smooth lift of the highs to complement the work done on the midrange. As softube say on their website – it ‘is a godsend for getting a modern and focused vocal sound or that extra bite in the guitar track.’ I definitely found this to be true – the EQ focuses on the narrower mid range of 200 to 5khz, and is a little more able to sculpt the sound, find the particular frequency you want to boost or cut, to give more bite, or scoop out the wider midrange, to cut some of the honk out. It deals with the frequency range the PE1C doesn’t deal with.
The ME 1B is a new plugin released individually at the same time as the channel strip/bundle plugin. It’s impossible to say whether one’s better than the other, as they’re both emulating slightly different things, but I thought it was interesting to pair them up and hear the difference. The sounds are quite different, even though the settings are identical. The track is dry for a bar, Softube, dry, UAD, and then repeated. In comparison with the UAD pultec plugin, which I use a great deal, I found it to be a little bit subtler in the way it affected the sound. Vocals, guitars, bass, drums, all benefitted from it. It even worked well on the 2-buss at the end of a mix. I found I could use this EQ on almost all sources to smoothly boost highs, and warm and fatten up the low end. You can boost and attenuate the low and high end, including the ‘Pultec trick’ of boosting and attenuating the low end at the same frequency range, which strengthens and tightens the sound, and has been a technique used on many kick drums and basses over the years. I like to think of it as a ‘sweetener’ eq rather than a surgical tool. I really enjoyed the PE1C – I found it to be the most flexible and useful of the three plugins. The fourth plugin is a channel-strip version of all three together, with bypassing and routing elements added.
The ME 1B Mid-Range EQ – an emulation of the tube-tech hardware modelled on the Pultec (MEQ-5), and The CL 1B – an LA2A style emulation Opto compressor. The tube-tech channel strip is a bundle of four plugins: The PE 1C – an emulation of the tube-tech PE 1C, which is itself a modern emulation of the classic passive tube based Pultec EQ. Notable companies they’ve partnered with include Native instruments, Marshall guitar amps, Abbey road studios, and of course Tube-Tech, whose engineers they worked directly with on creating this latest plugin release. Based 2 hours away from Stockholm, the team of four guys have been focused on creating accurate emulations of hardware gear since 2003, picking up many industry accolades and endorsements along the way. Swedish company Softube have just released a Channel Strip plugin based on emulations of the excellent hardware company Tube-tech.