KAUSTHUB RAVI & SIVANESH NATARAJAN
NEW PLUG - INS IN TOWN
Softube- Weiss DS1-MK3 Slate Digital Audified U73b
Mastering Plug-in Plug-in, Compressor
GAME CHANGER! CLASSIC GERMAN TUBE WARMTH!
In the constant battle between hardware and software, every
passing day brings a new software that really can hold its own. Slate Digital has been at the forefront of the digital audio software
revolution in recent times. With his Everything Bundle being
one of the best deals in the pro audio market. The Audified
U73b Compressor is the newest module to arrive, re-released
at NAMM this year, it claims to recreate the sound of an old
German vari-mu tube broadcast limiter from the 1960’s.
The Softube Official Weiss DS1-MK3 is a true game
changer. It is not an emulation like most plugins but is a
line by line code port of the original 9000$ hardware unit
and is officially licensed by Daniel Weiss himself.
The original unit is an absolute legend qhen it comes
to mastering limiters. The transparency and sound
quality that it can deliver have made it a staple tool on
numerous hit records since the 90’s. It has been the go-to
limiter for some of the leading mastering engineers in the
world including 3 time Grammy-winning Bob Katz.
But is the 500$ plugin going to be as solid as its hardware
counterpart? Well, it gets pretty damn close. This plugin has
been in development by Softube, working in collaboration with
Weiss, for almost 3 years. And every bit of code has been ported
from the unit to make it as accurate as possible. It has some
plugin-only features too, such as the new metering options
with waveform views that can show your audio and affected
peaks in realtime. It can run at 32bit/192Khz and has a couple of
extra algorithms in addition to the original. It also comes with
presets from some of the best engineers, including Bob Katz, and
the icing on the cake, you can run multiple instance s of it!
Using the limiter for the last couple of weeks, it has truly proven
to be an unmatched player in the space. It is very clean and
transparent. The de-esser is extremely precise and versatile as well.
The ability to run multiple instances of it means that you can now
use it on drum overheads and sibilant vocal tracks simultaneously.
The plugin might be quite steep, coming in at around 500$, but it
offers a significant upgrade to the mastering arsenal of any studio.
Steven says he first heard the compressor and was blown away
by the sound of it and decided to have it integrated into the
Slate Virtual Mix Rack. The controls are fairly simple with
input, output, compression amount and release time knobs.
It also has a switch to go between compression and limiting
and another for a HPF. The GUI is unmistakably Slate, with
a very familiar design to the other FG series modules.
So how does it sound?
It has an extremely vintage tube tone. It adds an extremely
warm and lush blanket to anything it's been put on. It works
great on snares and vocals although you might need to push
it quite hard for the desired flavour. The plugin features an
adjustable oversampling option. With oversampling enabled,
the plugin processing can run at higher sample rates to
reduce high-frequency distortion produced by aliasing. This
works well, although it can get quite CPU intensive.
All in all, it is a great addition to the VMR module. It adds a
vintage arm to the swiss army knife that is VMR. It may be a
bit too warm for some and just perfect for others but it's not
something that's going to work great on everything. Also, there
is no way to get it as a standalone unit. So, if you are not a big
fan of the VMR module, it might be a bit of a deal breaker.
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
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