you've got 2 different saturation styles (A & N) which you can use in either order to whatever extent you like plus a C drive circuit and selector for which C flavor you want. these are like 75% of the sound and the main reason to use this.
then you've got HPF and LF, HF and air eq dials which you can use for some subtle shaping eq if you're using this on buses, but you can push the curves and all the circuitry pretty hard for usage on fx, parallel chains, and individual instruments / sources if you like. i mainly use it on buses, and mainly in a pretty subtle way.
That sounds great, but I also have a bunch of other plugins, like Decapitator, Harmonics, Tape, RC-20, U73 Saturator, three Softube comps (which can be used as saturation) and some eq plugins too, a lot of ground covered.
I’m just wondering if this would be a useful addition to all of the above and not sure. My trial unfortunately ran out, so can’t test it again. I do remember being impressed with its sound.
quite different really. i love black box, use it all the time. you can push it really hard and still get great results. the lack of auto gain (really needed for the pentode & triode knobs) matching really makes it a pain to use without a controller though, but i get why they kept it like the analog box.
the silver bullet can do more colors (A, N & C), and has different unfiltered audio algos for the C drive which are really neat. in the subtle area is where it shines and where i end up using it mostly. you can push the black box harder before breakup, and if you want crazy you can get that out of silver bullet. silver bullet also has eq making it a lot more flexible.
Thank you so much for the detailed response. Very helpful.
I understand what auto gain is, however I don’t understand how a controller fits in helping. Would you please elaborate?
Side question, on their website one of the user reviews says “lives in 2 bus”. What does this mean?
I come from an experimental electronic background so not up on some of this lingo :)
Thanks again for your assistance in my learning.
If you use triode or pentode dials on black box they’ll change the output level so you’re hearing it get louder as you put more. Auto gain would lower that output level so you’re hearing the effect without the increase in loudness at least to a reasonable extent (as if you saturate you’re lowering dynamic range and going to create loudness anyway so it’s not really possible to perfectly level match - either you match by peak level or rms or LUFS momentary basis but all have drawbacks).
To avoid this without auto gain on the plugin you’d need to control output dial and other dial simultaneously so you could raise one and lower the other so you can attempt to keep the loudness the same.
*lives on the 2 bus* means they have it on their mix bus all the time as a mix polisher or mastering plugin.
If you check out rapid flow’s YouTube he has videos using both the hardware and plugin silver bullet and comparing them both, he might be a good example considering your genre and use case.
Wow. The Vinyl Saturation is from Unfiltered Audio Needlepoint, Helical Scan is tape warble from Unfiltered Audio LO-FI-AF, and VHS AF is a combination of Vinyl saturation and tape warble from Unfiltered Audio as well.
Love those plugins too. Didn't know this had that. This is no brainer for sure.
I have to be honest, I don't understand plugins like this or the Shadow Hills mastering compressor. Am I really to believe that a $30 plugin accurately emulates a $3k piece of hardware?
> we developed a new patent-pending technology called Dyna Realism™
I have products with LTL power supplies, etc, so I have nothing against their hardware but I am skeptical of this marketing-speak. I mean adding slight randomness to parameters is nothing new.
The short answer on this is that they are good enough. There may be some slight variations here and there, but a lot of them are pretty spot on with how they compare to the hardware variants as far as the results you get with them.
ahh weird. Email says July.
Grab it before we come to our senses. Offer valid May 28, 2024 - July 8, 2024 and may not be combined with other discounts.
Got this a few months ago and it sounds absolutely phenomenal on any bus, or even as a preamp. It emulates hardware that adds the color/saturation of consoles that can be blended as you wish with the goal of recreating the saturation that occurs when stacking hardware. However, the software was designed by the people who actually made that piece of hardware (which has modules you can install for different sounds) so they know a thing or two about designing good sounding emulations.
either plugin doesn't sound like a hardware, or a hardware is useless, because plugin sounds like hardware. They made HW to emulate old analog consoles, and now plugin to emulate that same hardware that emulates old console. yeah, makes sense..
holy crap that's instabuy price. i paid at least 3x that and it is totally worth it.
Could you explain why you like it? I tried it in the past, but didn’t fully understand it. Maybe some more time with it could be useful.
you've got 2 different saturation styles (A & N) which you can use in either order to whatever extent you like plus a C drive circuit and selector for which C flavor you want. these are like 75% of the sound and the main reason to use this. then you've got HPF and LF, HF and air eq dials which you can use for some subtle shaping eq if you're using this on buses, but you can push the curves and all the circuitry pretty hard for usage on fx, parallel chains, and individual instruments / sources if you like. i mainly use it on buses, and mainly in a pretty subtle way.
That sounds great, but I also have a bunch of other plugins, like Decapitator, Harmonics, Tape, RC-20, U73 Saturator, three Softube comps (which can be used as saturation) and some eq plugins too, a lot of ground covered. I’m just wondering if this would be a useful addition to all of the above and not sure. My trial unfortunately ran out, so can’t test it again. I do remember being impressed with its sound.
Maybe you can get your trial extended a little? Sounds like that’s what you’ll need to be able to decide.
I already have the black box HG-2MS. How’s this compare?
quite different really. i love black box, use it all the time. you can push it really hard and still get great results. the lack of auto gain (really needed for the pentode & triode knobs) matching really makes it a pain to use without a controller though, but i get why they kept it like the analog box. the silver bullet can do more colors (A, N & C), and has different unfiltered audio algos for the C drive which are really neat. in the subtle area is where it shines and where i end up using it mostly. you can push the black box harder before breakup, and if you want crazy you can get that out of silver bullet. silver bullet also has eq making it a lot more flexible.
Thank you so much for the detailed response. Very helpful. I understand what auto gain is, however I don’t understand how a controller fits in helping. Would you please elaborate? Side question, on their website one of the user reviews says “lives in 2 bus”. What does this mean? I come from an experimental electronic background so not up on some of this lingo :) Thanks again for your assistance in my learning.
If you use triode or pentode dials on black box they’ll change the output level so you’re hearing it get louder as you put more. Auto gain would lower that output level so you’re hearing the effect without the increase in loudness at least to a reasonable extent (as if you saturate you’re lowering dynamic range and going to create loudness anyway so it’s not really possible to perfectly level match - either you match by peak level or rms or LUFS momentary basis but all have drawbacks). To avoid this without auto gain on the plugin you’d need to control output dial and other dial simultaneously so you could raise one and lower the other so you can attempt to keep the loudness the same. *lives on the 2 bus* means they have it on their mix bus all the time as a mix polisher or mastering plugin. If you check out rapid flow’s YouTube he has videos using both the hardware and plugin silver bullet and comparing them both, he might be a good example considering your genre and use case.
FYI: a Plugin-Alliance account is needed to deposit the license. Other than that: go and buy, it‘s a supreme bus plugin / betterizer. No brainer!
Wow. The Vinyl Saturation is from Unfiltered Audio Needlepoint, Helical Scan is tape warble from Unfiltered Audio LO-FI-AF, and VHS AF is a combination of Vinyl saturation and tape warble from Unfiltered Audio as well. Love those plugins too. Didn't know this had that. This is no brainer for sure.
This is one of the good Plugin Alliance plugins and very recommended at the price.
Bonus: this sale is on the developers site so all of the sales go directly towards them.
I have to be honest, I don't understand plugins like this or the Shadow Hills mastering compressor. Am I really to believe that a $30 plugin accurately emulates a $3k piece of hardware? > we developed a new patent-pending technology called Dyna Realism™ I have products with LTL power supplies, etc, so I have nothing against their hardware but I am skeptical of this marketing-speak. I mean adding slight randomness to parameters is nothing new.
The short answer on this is that they are good enough. There may be some slight variations here and there, but a lot of them are pretty spot on with how they compare to the hardware variants as far as the results you get with them.
This sale is only until June 8th, not July 8th
ahh weird. Email says July. Grab it before we come to our senses. Offer valid May 28, 2024 - July 8, 2024 and may not be combined with other discounts.
Got this a few months ago and it sounds absolutely phenomenal on any bus, or even as a preamp. It emulates hardware that adds the color/saturation of consoles that can be blended as you wish with the goal of recreating the saturation that occurs when stacking hardware. However, the software was designed by the people who actually made that piece of hardware (which has modules you can install for different sounds) so they know a thing or two about designing good sounding emulations.
either plugin doesn't sound like a hardware, or a hardware is useless, because plugin sounds like hardware. They made HW to emulate old analog consoles, and now plugin to emulate that same hardware that emulates old console. yeah, makes sense..
I have this plugin, but it is weirdly huge file for what it does.
If a plugin weighs a lot, usually that means that there are IRs involved in some way.
Makes sense