KAUSTHUB RAVI & SIVANESH NATARAJAN
NEW MASTERING
TOOLS IN THE
MARKET!
Pulsar Audio MU
Plug-in
An Absolute Beauty!
Pulsar Audio is a very new company to the audio plugin
space. They offer just 2 plugins as of now and based on their
latest offering, they definitely leave us wanting more!
The Pulsar audio MU is an emulation of the famous
Manley Variable MU, an all tube compressor that is held
in extremely high regard in top studios around the world.
So the plugin is essentially stereo compressor operating
in either Left/Right or Mid/Side modes, designed with
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mixing and mastering applications in mind, but also flexible
enough for tracking. It can be used for levelling, limiting,
or just to add a bit of analog warmth with its emulated tube
signal path. They claim to use something called Topology
Preservation Technology, which aims to bring a perfect
emulation of the original device's behaviour. The accuracy
is something we can check only if we had the original
hardware that this unit was based on but as far as we have
used the plugin, it really does sound amazing. Its got a great
mix of warmth and transparency. It manages transients
in a soft and musical way, even with extreme settings.It
has become a goto compressor for mastering situations by
bringing the discreet "polish" and "glue" to subtly warm up
any mix. It can be used either transparently as a leveller
(with long attack and release), as a compressor to add glue
(slow attack with fast release), or as a limiter (fast attack
and fast release). Using Mu in Mid/Side mode gives you
another way to increase stereo image, or to curtail an overly
wide mix. Mastering aside however, i find myself using it in
so many situations - for drum busses, acoustic guitars and
absolutely love it on vocals! It gives them the analog-style
warmth to help them sit naturally, even in a dense mix. The
external side chain EQ also helps to really tailor the way the
compressor works across the spectrum and can sometimes
really help tighten up a particular frequency range. All in all
its an absolute beauty and one of the best compressor plugin
that I have come across in a while!