One synth to rule them all?

[Berni]

Originally Posted by TweakHead

Do you have the real thing, in hardware? Or former Duende plug-ins from SSL themselves? Or Waves Audio?

I have the later but haven't compared them yet. Will be interesting to A/B them since they're based on the same circuit. But I have the feeling this new one is a winner!

Only used it as a Bus Compressor so far, with gentle settings to bring the elements closer together on Drums, and even gentler on Kick and Bass. This is entirely subjective of course, but I've used this plenty and I think this one does work better.

While I can't be to sure about the compressor, I'm pretty damn sure the EQ is amazing! I don't usually boost frequencies with digital EQs, only started doing it with good emulations of analog circuitry, and with gentle settings, something like +3dB at most. That's like saying, if I'm boosting I want it to sound musical and without sacrificing the harmonic balance of the sound in a way that just feels... well, like digital mud. There's a couple of them out there now that work very well for this: and this one imprints some really juicy character on the sound. Also tried it on Bass Instrument's group, a slight boost around 80-100Hz. Sounds very nice to me, doesn't produce any sort of artifact or annoying latencies (which demanding algorithms sometimes do). Solid as a rock and sounding more like it's out of some high end studio to my ears!

This is the kind of stuff you'd get with very expensive dedicated DSP cards only a few years ago, I think... Ok, rant over guys

No not the real thing (although I have been lucky enough to mess around with a big SSL board) but yes the Duende from SSL, I started with the box then went with the native when that became redundant. Listening to the new stuff it's really hard to call any significant differencies, at least to my pagan ears. It is all very subjective though & a lot depends on what you are putting through it. But yeah I agree, would have cost a bundle a few years ago, I know cos I spent it Lol!