Scarlet MHE-400 is the second of the Acustica “Homebrew” series: a line of plug-in sampled from hardware directly build by Acustica and based on the circuit diagrams of legendary vintage devices. Scarlet is also the first Acustica stereo mastering equalizer. Scarlet is practically identical to the original hardware as far as frequency curves (for certain aspects, it's even better). What's different here is the preamp color. Scarlet's pre is extremely clean and transparent, but if you're looking for the sound of an ancient counterpart equipped with its custom discrete op-amps, then you'd better wait for the original hardware based Acqua release later on.



We compared with another software recreation and we are close to an ideal circuit modeled plugin approach, we are finally doing something new: software which is finally superior to both a classic software approach (circuit modeling) and an existing hardware starting from a specific hardware design. The first would be sterile and will sound like a "plugin" cause the usual IIR and phase issues and the complete lacking of harmonic distortion introduced by real world components, the second would include too many mistakes and physical world limitations. You cannot buy it as hardware or software which is not Acustica!

OVERVIEW:

Scarlet has two-channel (L+R), featuring three parametric bands and two bi-frequency fixed shelves per channel. There are no input or output channel controls. Bands can be switched in or out individually and left/right controls can be linked.

OPERATION:

The PRE-IN button enables (lamp ON) or bypasses (lamp OFF) the preamp stage of Scarlet.
CONTROL-LINK button links the controls of left and right channels
INPUT-TRIM: This knob sets the input level from -24dB to +24dB, and is used to control the signal level inside the eq, the output level is than automatically compensated by the same amount of gain. At the first execution of the plug-in, input is set to ensure that you feed an appropriate level from the first stage of your signal path to the final one.

Each channel is controlled independently by an identical set of controls; sections are: LO, MID and HI, each section has controls for:

• Frequency
• Cut/Boost
• Q

In addition there are two buttons for low shelves that switch cut frequency between 50Hz and 100Hz.

Frequencies:
Here the list of available frequencies for each band:

• Low Frequency: from 11Hz to 570Hz;
• Mid Frequency: from 125Hz to 6300Hz;
• High Frequency: from 3400Hz to 25kHz;

Cut/Boost:
Cut/boost values range from -12dB to 12dB.

High and Low shelf filters:
High Shelf Frequency fixed at 3000Hz with adjustable gain ranging from -12dB to 12dB;
Low Cut Frequency fixed at 50Hz or 100Hz with adjustable gain range from -12dB to 12dB.

Sampling Rate:

• 44,1 kHz
• 48 kHz
• 88,2 kHz
• 96 kHz

New Core6 performance: From the first measurements the EQ Acustica Audio Scarlet, that can be compared in terms of CPU load, to the Ivory IAE2 (despite Scarlet has 2 bands more than Ivory), with a latency of 2000 samples and a CPU load of 3-4%. Its performance was measured on a PC with these characteristics: OS: Windows 7 Pro 64 - CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM CPU @ 2.40 GHz 2.40 GHz - RAM: 8,00 GB - Using Reaper v4.77 (x86)


System Requirements:



Scarlet MHE-400 is available in PRESALE at a special price $99 (10% Off - Regular $110) until the 02-September-2015. Estimated release date: September-2015.

More INFO: Acustica Audio | Scarlet MHE-400

 

Last edited: Aug 26, 2015