Of those that've been mentioned, as far as quality, I'd fully agree with PSPaudioware, Kush, elysia, and Black Rooster (the latter which Reimund has lent a hand with; him and Andre Kirchner both used to work for Plugin Alliance.) NEOLD is also quality, with Reimund scripting all of their plugins; some others under the PA banner that he had a hand in are the ACME Opticom XLA-3, Dangerous Music's BAX EQ, the original Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor (green,) and Vertigo's VSM-3. (Yes, I read the manuals and check the geeky info crap.) I'll also add Voxengo, Kiive Audio, and Tokyo Dawn Labs to the list, even though Tokyo Dawn aren't always "analogue" like FAL (e.g., TDR Kotelnikov.) On the other end of things, I don't think Arturia is anything special, and Pulsar plugins are a trainwreck.

Agreed. If a plugin gets my audio sounding how I want it to without unwanted effects, I'm good. The only reason to seriously argue Hardware vs (quality) Software is if someone's on the fence whether or not to sell a piece of hardware and invest in the software version instead.

 

? I know of Niveau Filter and two comps (alpha and mpressor), but what's that Niveau Comp?

 

yes, their preamps do seem a bit weird. If you turn on the drive knob, it still increases the input volume, which is not supposed to be. Also, it's very easy to drive your sound to distortion with noiseash preamps, i haven't seen such thing on PA preamps or waves or from any other brands. Now, i am kinda avoiding using their preamp, or just leave it as default.

 

Try Lindell 80 Series and you'll see - and hear (you can achieve this with Lindell 50 too, but not to this extreme).

 

Yeah, the one time I have tried it I think I hit Mic or I tried driving the input or something and it went NUTS lmao

 

My bad, I was typing at 3:00am half awake, but interested in the topic.

I meant I own the Alpha Comp.

 

legitimately surprised someone thinks these sound anything like the originals

 

Yep, that's a nice one.

 

Why do you say that?

I don't even know what they try to model, but judging by some demos I listened to, they seem to me to be pretty "analog-sounding" (more than Cherry Audio, for instance). Do you think they sound bad?

 

it helps if one reads the assignment

 

There's a conversation on the failings of Pulsar plugins on the sister site under the release of their W495 v1.0.6 if you're interested in people's experiences with them.

 

Interesting. OTOH I saw a comparison of this precise plugin to the original hardware with a digital analyser (one of the rarest forms of comparison of these emulations) and it seems to be pretty close! I think I'll give Pulsar a shot, but thanks!

 

I compared Lindell 80 preamp with Noiseash 81 preamp. I can push 20db on lindell without distortion, but on noiseash only 10db max.

 

One manufacturer that always seems to go under the radar without mention but I have loved virtually everything they've done is Overloud. Their hardware emulations of 1176, LA2A, Neve, API, Tape, and so on are all top notch in my opinion.

 

@Shiori Oishi ,
give AudioThing a try,if you like vintage sound.

https://www.audiothing.net/

 

Overloud is quality, but I hate their authorization; that shit will be fine one minute and then kick out the licensing the next. A few examples? I've had it take 3-5 tries to authorize a plugin and then the next time it works first try; I've had one de-authorize daily for a week and then be fine for six months; one in particular would randomly be de-authorized and, without my re-authorizing it, be authorized the next time I opened it—super strange behavior (and that's on multiple different machines/OS'.) The only conclusion I can come to is that I did something to offend the plugins themselves, and they loathed my owning them... cuz AI.
Actually, I was a huge fan of VKFX (and never had an authorization issue once,) so when that got incorporated into Gospel Musicians Neo Soul Keys Suite (which they purchased from Overloud and rebranded as the iFX Rack modules,) I was hyped since, like the old VKFX plugin, I can use the iFX Rack plugin and/or standalone for my Purgatory Creek EP libraries, but with more effects, plus I can swap the order of the effects... and it's not 360p like the old VKFX.

 

there were a good number of posts about Overloud plugins time-bombing and wiping them all out, or their saved settings. Something a little more nasty than usual.

The Pulsar Modular I mentioned are not the same dev as the one of that W495 plugin. Some of them are more modern GUIs like the P11 Abyss and P915 medusa; but I really like the P11 Abyss compressor. They have other plugins that are more vintage gui, like the P42 Climax saturator and others. I have liked them all, but they seem to also employ a pretty unique protection where certain things start behaving unexpectedly.

I didn't spend a lot of time before deleting, but that W495 seemed as useless for my purposes as that other free new UVI eq. Maybe I just do not like subtle plugins.

 

Try Variety Of Sound stuff if you are on Windows. One of the best to ever do it, if you exclude his reverbs, which I'm not very fond of!

 

I think pulsar audio is just great

I wonder if Pulsar Audio And Pulsar Modular are different things? I tried to check their sites ,they have their own sites and products listed are different

 

They are a separate menu item in Logic, and there have not been any sister site versions of Mac Pulsar Audio plugins. There have been many PC ones.