QUOTE (PHLENDO @ Apr 14 2007, 02:16 PM)
Hey there,
Yea, I have both the Vintage Warmer and the Analog Sig. Pack. Both are excellent and "must haves" in the arsenal of FX. All of the music I create has that retro/vintage rock thing going on. The sound I need is very particular, and would be very expensive to recreate using hardware.
That being said, I've been using the VW for about 2+ years, and the Sig. Pack only a few days. Here's the lowdown:
The VW does an excellent job of recreating all the warmth, and saturation of the hardware units it was based on (Fairchild limiters, etc..). The presets are amazing, and ideally, I would use the VW on every track as well as the master chain to get "that" sound. Unfortuately, it's a CPU HOG, and I'm running a very fast machine- P4, with 3 gigs of RAM. The VW just makes my machine crawl if I apply more than 4 or 5 instances of it. So lately I've been just using it as a tape saturation simulator in my master chain. Also worth mentioning is the Cakewalk Tape Saturator plugin. It's in their FX2 package for about $100.
The Analog Sig. Pack is absolutely UNBELIEVABLE!
(BTW, I don't work for Nomad Factory or this website, so I have nothing to lose or gain by applauding this piece of software).
The LM-662 is fantastic, the Pultec-like EQ-4 is great too. I'm still on the fence about the 226 strip. The thing that I like about these is that not only do I have more control over the sound I get, but they are so light on the CPU that I can literally run all three plugins on every single track of audio, plus the master chain without so much as a hiccup (and I'm talking about 15 tracks of audio with full drums, guitars, vocals, etc.)!
However... the sound you get from the Analog Signature PRESETS are just AWFUL. I mean really, really bad. So bad in fact, that it's worth it to Init your own, start with a default and dial in your sound from there. The controls are so well laid out that you can't fail to find something that will satisfy your ears. Also the dials respond better than the VW dials, and the GUI is just gorgeus and stable.
You also might want to check out the VST plugins made by Antress, as well as Kajearhus' Classic plugins. They are all freeware, and lend a helping hand in providing good vintage compression, etc..
Oh yea, two more things:
1. Buy the RTB book. It's called Recording the Beatles, and at 549 pages (and $100) I guarantee you will walk away with your head chock full of new and interesting ways to record your tracks.
2. Chandler is a company that makes the EMI Abbey Road TG12345 mixing desk plug in. FYI that's the desk used to record Dark Side of the Moon, and Abbey Road, and those albums still sound better than 99.9% of the garbage that's being passed off as music nowadays.
So there you have it. I hope that helps.
I know this is a major thread resurrection, but I thought I'd mention that I just bought the entire Integrated Studio Pack from NF, and so now I have the entire NF line in addition to PSP's Vintage Warmer 2. I got it all for $119 on special, which is less than the Analog Signature Pack was alone. IPS includes the recently released Echoes and Magnetic II, both of which are really decent plug-ins.
Also, I did end up buying the
Recording The Beatles book, which was/is a phenomenal resource.
Chandler' plug-in bundle is over US$600, which is just too pricey, but between the Channel Strip EQ in Logic, all the NF eqs I now own (Analog Series, Blue, Retrology, Liquid, etc.) and the global eqs in the comp/lim/tape sims VW2 and Magnetic II, I should have no excuse for bad tone on my classic rock/prog mixes.
Thanks for the advice!!