I am pretty sure some of you have seen and heard about SSLs beautiful new SSL Fusion Rack. I am talking about this one:



It's basically a summing box which brings tasteful analog goodness to your digital tracks. The demos I've heard so far sounded really fantastic. I'd like to have one of those, there's juas a slight problem: I can't affored it.

But since I really like what it is doing and how the signalfow is organized I thought, "well, most of the processes of a device are available in audio plugins – just let me built my own channelstrip that immitates the same signalflow"

And since I can already hear the voices from the haters through the clouds, here's the mandatory DISCLAIMER: I am not trying to mimick the sound of the SSL Fusion! This is just a re-creation of the signalflow of the SSL Fusion for a Stereo Bus Channel Strip inside your DAW!

Stage I: Signalfow Analysis of the Hardware

The SSL Fusion's Signalflow consist of 7 Stages:

Stage 1: Input Trim (+/- 12dB)
Stage 2: HPF (30, 40 and 50 Hz with a clean 18 dB Slope)
Stage 3: Vintage Drive. A Saturation Section with "Drive", which adds even Harmonics and "Density", which is basically a Dry/Wet Control for the added Saturation
Stage 4: Violet EQ. A 2 Band shelving EQ with 4 fixed frequencies for each band. Low shelf (30, 50, 70 or 90 Hz) and High Shelve (8, 12, 16 and 20 kHz). +/- 9 dB boost/cut
Stage 5: HF Compressor. A High Frequency Compresor which rolls of the High End of a signal at around 15 kHz and above but unlike Tape, it does not boost the low end.
Stage 6: Stereo Image. Mid/Side processor with "Space"and "WIdth" control, whereby "Width" is your +/- 6dB Boost/Cut for the Sides, while "Space" is a broad bass boost or cut based on an old technique called "stereo shuffling" invented by Alan Blumlein. If I understand the technique correctly, it's about boosting or cutting different frequencies in the left and right Channel to achieve a pseudo acustic widening.Read more about it here.
Stage 7: Output Trim (+/- 12 dB). Optional for Plugin chain on a Stereobus which usually ends with a Limiter.

Stage II: Creating a Plugin chain

My Prerequisites for a Plugin Chain:

• Finding the right Plugins (obviously)
• Chosen Plugins MUST be available for MAC and PC!!!
• 64 Bit Plugins ONLY! No compromises
• Create 2 Versions of the chain: one made up with commercial plugins and one made of freeware plugins

Chain One (the commercial chain, Signalflow goes from top to bottom):

[TBProAudio MVMeter2] >> Just a VU Meter with Gain Control. Set to -18 dbVU to give the following processes some Headroom. And It's free, too! But a simple Gain control will work as well.
[HPF] >> No extra Insert! Next 2 Plugins in chain have High pass Filters!
[SCHEPS OMNI CHANNEL] >> enable the the Saturation Section only, set it to "Even" and dial it in to taste. You could come back to it later to use the de-essers in there to control certain frequencies. Optional: enable HPF as well (18 dB Slope) or use HPF of next Insert!
[DANGEROUS BAX EQ] >> A Mastering EQ with 2 Shelfs for boosting Low and Highend (includes Filters)
[LIMITER NO. 6 (HF LIMITER ONLY)] >> Disable all Modules except the HF Limiter and lower the threshold. Use the freeware from VladG Sound or the commercial Version from Tokyo Dawn Labs!
[BX STEREOMAKER] >> A great M/S Widening Tool with Frequency Shuffling and Bass Monomaker
[GAIN] >> Use the output trim of the bxdigital to control how hard you hit the limiter
[LIMITER] >> Insert your favorite Limiter here.


Chain Two (the freeware Version)

Let's make this quick:

[TBProAudio MVMeter2] >> [TDR SLICK EQ (HPF only!)] >> [AIRWINDOWS CHANNEL 6 (Drive)] >> [TDR NOVA, (BANDS 1 and 5 only)]* >> [LIMITER NO. 6 (HF LIMITER ONLY)] >> [OZONE IMAGER] >> [Gain] >> [LIMITER]

Alternative: Replace Channel 6 with [Softube Saturation Knob] in "Neutral" Setting for a more colored Saturation

* TDR NOVA Setup

Unfortunately, there's no such thing as a freeware Bax EQ available for both Mac & PC (but PC users can insert VOS Baxter EQ). But we can achieve a similar result by using TDR Nova EQ. It's a dynamic EQ, but if you don't use the threshold it's a regular and high quality Parametric EQ.

- Enable Bands I and IV and set the to Lowshelf and Highshelf
- Set both to lowest Q (31)
- Select Frequencies (Lowshelf: 30, 50, 70 or 90 Hz; Highshelf: 8, 12, 16 or 20 kHz)
- Boost or cut up to +/-9 dB

STAGE 3 PRESETS (Sorry, for Logic Pro X Only)

Here are my channelstrips: Download (Last Update: 01.26.2020)

Put them here:

Home > Music > Audio Music App > Channel Strip > Bus (For Busses)
and/or
Home > Music > Audio Music App > Channel Strip > Output (For Stereo Bus)

From the Mixer in Logic Pro X you can load these channel strips presets by clicking on "Setting" (it's above the gain reduction meter) and seletcing "User channel Strip Settings" and then there they are.

Have fun! Leave some feedback for alternive plugin inserts if you like.

 

Last edited: Jan 26, 2020

This unit looks amazing but in terms of signal flow it might be worth noting it seems to be as flexible as dragging and rearranging plugins on a channel with the "In" buttons so the flow could really be arbitrary. The input gain usually gives a range from heavy saturated thickness to a more dynamic less driven sound on the front, and the SSL's give the option to bypass that one and use the outro knob on the input instead, which has it's own lighter version of a driven/dynamic sound.

I'm very pro Acustica these days so I would just compile a chain using the classic hardware emulation libs. Probably use a heavy tape saturator on the front and lighter for the back. Then 4k eq's from Alessandro Boschi, but in effort to accommodate the non AA haters who would immediately point out the impulse response aspects (and supposed limitations) I would tell them a Waves Scheps 73 has a very nasty drive and color capability that can glue like the analog input knob, adjusting the fader on this plugin would give a similar compression range but the drive buttons are the added flexibility to max out this concept (eq is good too but left out for this Fusion concept). I haven't played with this SSL but I can't imagine the front and back gain knobs are the same, and the "vintage drive" knob is what I would picture a heavier input gain usually is so I'm curious about the implementations here. I usually get some push-back for it, but I really don't mind the baxter emulation from Analog Obsession for the shelving section, if I can't use the Acustica Audio versions that is. Any old multi-band for the HF compressor, but this "stereo image" section looks like something truly special giving not only stereo options but spacial as well.

 

Last edited: Oct 11, 2018

It would be interesting to have a chain of AA Plugins. If only there was a universal format for presets for all systems and daws - just like pdf for text. That would be incredible.

I've read the documentaton of the Fusion and there's no Tape emulation involved. It only borrows the HF roll-off from tape with the HF Compressor. Because Tape would men Low end bump, which would interfere with lo shelf of the EQ. A Multiband comp doesn't give you a real roll-off curve like that. The Saturtion is also more on the subtle side introducing even harmonics if I recall correctly.

As far as the Imager is concerned they make it sound special, but really,"Width" is just a volume control for the side signal, while "Space" just "shuffles" some bass frequencies around in the M Section (slightly different EQ boost and cuts for the L+R channels).

I think the Scheps 73 is a nice EQ if you don't touch the Drive. To my ears the drive sounds horribly on almost everything, like it was broken. It goes from 0 to 100 in just 1 increment. I actually don't know what to do with it and what to use it on. It's like Softubes Saturation Knob, just 1000x worse.

 

Coral has a stereo tool included in strip and also available in an individual unit, it's an eliptical filter, you can select the frequency band where you apply widening or narrowing. It's actually fantastic. Like the rest of Coral imho.

 

Lol, yea that was kind of vague on my part, was my attempt at out of the box thoughts on how to achieve that overdrive sound from a lot of input knobs seen on outboard consoles.

That's why I usually keep my input knob low volume unless I'm actually going for distortion, which is the "broken" sound you mentioned I think.

 

Interesting post, @5teezo! You're right, that thing is $$$. I'd like to see someone piece together an AA chain.

 

I can't create a chanel with Aqua plugins, since i don't use them. I know they are great sounding. Maybe they are incredible for mixing, but for producing, they are not really useful for me. Too many resources needed, to much latency. And i have a delidded, overclocked and watercooled i7 with 32 gigs of ram already.

 

ProTools expert got their hands on the hardware