Which plugins are the best 2

[protoculture]

I too will be looking to purchasing some soon ( have $300 ). Here's what I'm looking at. Opinions of others would be helpful. Style of music that I do ranges from Trance, Techno, Electro-House, House etc...

option 1

---1176LN [ 150 ]
---Pultec Pro [ 79 ]

option 2

--- Cambridge EQ [ 150 ]
--- 1176LN [ 150 ]

option 2b

--- Cambridge EQ [ 150 ]
--- Pultec Pro [ 79 ]

option 3

--- Neve 1073 EQ [ 250 ]
--- pultec pro [ 79 ]

option 4

--- Neve 33609 Compressor [ 250 ]
--- pultec pro [ 79 ]


I think I def want the pultec pro. Was using the pultec and I really like it.

Opinions?

 

[wishingwell]

If it where my choice i'd go for the Neve 33609 and the pultec pro, and in the future i'd look at precision eq and fairchild.

 

[GMitch]

I would go for the Pultec-pro and Fairchild........a win-win combo..........

 

[protoculture]

thanks for the responses.

You reckon the Fairchild is better than the 1176LN ? Is that the general concensus here?

 

[wishingwell]

thanks for the responses.

You reckon the Fairchild is better than the 1176LN ? Is that the general concensus here?

Both sound great, and even similar to a small degree to my ears. I chose fairchild cause i'm a control freak that loves to tweak. Fairchild has more pretty parameters to play with

In the end i knew i'd prefer more of the fairchilds sound and flexibility. But your mixes may say otherwise!

 

[protoculture]

To be honest the interface kind of scared me on the Fairchild. The little I did play with it, it didn't seem to have any effect or too much of one. I probably just didn't understand how to use it.

 

[gazbo]

The Pultec's a no-brainer. The cheapest by a country mile, and sounds great. I compared it with the 1073, and found that one worked better than the other on certain tracks, and the other way round on others. But at 1/3rd the price...

I also avoided the 1176LN, not because there's anything wrong with it, but I figured that given the 1176SE is already included, I'd get a better variety by going for the LA2A/Fairchild/33609.

 

[NuSkoolTone]

1176LN all the way! This and the LA2A I use th emost. LA2A for smooth, the 1176LN to smack things around a bit. The SE doens't sound bad i's a little brighter to me and does not have the meat of the full version.

The fairchild I use too, but not as often. It's a good \"glue\" comp IME and there IS a little bit of low end roll off. Depending on your source/music this can be a good thing.

Love the pultec pro too. I find the passive Dip feature to be great for getting harshness out. THe high end boost is fairly sweet and the low mid boost is creamy. It's a little dark, but has a mojo to it. When it's right for the track, few do it better (FYI I have yet to try the neve stuff).

The Cambridge I primarily used for the roll off filters. It can get a little boxy at times though. I now use the Precision EQ if I can for that application.

 

[BTLG]

The Fairchild is very good as a vocal compressor, as is the LA2A (which doesn't have many other uses).

The 1176 is a good all around comp, but it definitely has a sound.

I haven't tried the Cambridge EQ (does anyone know if it's a rip off of the Oxford EQ? We used to have a Sony Oxford in one of our rooms, it was a pretty cool board with good sounding Comps/EQ's), but it's only because I can't see it doing anything that the Waves EQ's don't already do.

For what it's worth, I'd go with the Neve1073 and the Pultec Pro unless you've got a serious need for more compressors.

Matt

 

[protoculture]

yah, might do just that..... besides I'm looking forward to using the new compressors in Cubase 4.

I think i've narrowed it down to....

option 1

---1176LN [ 150 ]
---Pultec Pro [ 79 ]

option 3

--- Neve 1073 EQ [ 250 ]
--- pultec pro [ 79 ]

any more help making this choice would be helpful. If anyone else has any opinions.

 

[BTLG]

Also, you may want to check out the new URS channel strip. It's supposed to sound pretty good and I think you can get 48 instances out of it.

 

[protoculture]

URS Channel Strip? not an option for me. I'm UAD all the way.

 

[BTLG]

Is that on principle or because you think it's better?

 

[protoculture]

nah, no principal. Just focusing on what I use.

In the past I've bought too many toys and used nothing... and so nothing got accomplished....

so trying to get away from that.

 

[BTLG]

it might be worth demo'ing for free

 

[protoculture]

might be, but you need a ProTools rig do you not? I'm on SX3 soon to be 4 hopefully!

 

[BTLG]

no you don't, you just need an iLok ($40 usd) . They have native installers for VST with full windows support for cubase and nuendo.

 

[protoculture]

ahh cool. I will have a look.

But anyway, the whole reason I started this thread was because I had $300 bonus bucks to spend on UAD plugs. So yah, to properly answer your other thread this is the reason why I'm just looking at these.

 

[BTLG]

ah, understood.

 

[protoculture]

OK, so I'm gonna def go with the pultec pro. Awesome kit. And I'm pretty sure that leaves me to decide on what comp I want. I've been looking at....I'm not considered the 33609 at this point because of the power hit.

Fairchild
1176LN
LA-2A

Thoughts...

LA-2A - sounded pretty sweet for vocals... it was very smooth.

1176LN - Good all around

Fairchild - interesting with character.

I'm still not sure. It would be nice to have the smoothness of the LA-2A for vox, but I noticed someone else had said it was not much good for anything else. That being said, I can use the 1176SE if its not cutting it for other things. Funny thing was, is that I really DIDN'T want to like the LA-2A, but to my untrained ears and perhaps limited use of the compressors I think it does sound the best for vox.

I tried also doing a blind test. And chose the LA-2A and the 1176LN both times as my favs....the fairchild seemed almost too much character.

Can anyone else, perhaps more experienced in listening to the character of compressors help me out?