I saw the Slate Virtual Console Collection bundle going for half price the other week so my curiosity peaked and I ended up purchasing a license. There isn’t much noise about this plug-in yet which I’m guessing is because it’s still fairly new.
I’m not going to review this plug-in, I am no professional reviewer and anyone can get a demo and try it out on their own. But! I do have an A/B comparison and I do think the plug-in is pretty awesome. It doesn’t work in all situations. It seems to work really well on tracks and mixes that need the low end to sound more realistic. I have a hard time explaining this but it’s really a feeling when it comes to low end.
Here’s a little background on the A/B. This track was recorded entirely through my TEAC 3340s 4 track deck. I can’t remember if it was at 7.5 ips or 15 ips at the time but I would place my bet on 7.5 ips. It’s a crummy little machine but I am fascinated by it. You’ll hear some image shifts and I had to run it through a de-noiser which affected the hi-hat ever so slightly.
Slate claims that this plug-in recreates the analog non-linearity sound of a console which I would imagine introduces some pleasant sounding harmonic distortion. I think that is why it worked very well with these tape tracks which already have a fair amount of analog vibe.
This is also the most extreme example possible of the plug-in. The settings in this screen shot are the settings I used in the session. Input (not pictured) and Drive were set to +6 dB (max) using the Brit N model console which Slate states to be ” known for a rich, fat, and warm sound.” The Brit N model sounded the best on this mix by a long shot and the more it was driven it the better it sounded.
I am looking forward to trying it more. Here is my A/B comparison. Download the 48kHz 24-bit sample files here and here.