The only straight up regret was the shadow hills mastering compressor. The Manley I use every mix/master, the API was great too and I used it for a long time, but I stopped using it when I bought the hardware channel strip. I bought the API vision channel strip, and the Manley varimu bus compressor. That being said I’ve bought a few of the non free uad plugins and have mostly not been disappointed. I have NI, and find that their LA2A and 1176 work just as well as the UAD ones you get, actually probably moreso, and they dont hog dsp. Out of the ones you get stock I use the pultec meq and eqp1a and the fairchild 670.

I dont really use a ton of them because they use a lot of dsp which you get a limited amount of.Īs a result I mainly save them for bus processing/mastering. I prefer to use the Plugin Alliance stuff over most UAD plugins nowadays, with really only the Fairchild 670 (when I don't use SPL Iron) and the LA-2A as mainstays for me. What I'll say is they've very intentionally given away the decent models for free with the interfaces, and the ones that are truly accurate cost an arm and a leg. That said, I probably only use the 1073 and Avalon 737sp in Unison, everything else I feel like imparts the flavor of the preamp onto an already recorded track fairly well. The Unison stuff is super cool, and I like the impedance matching so that your mic will sound comparable to what it would sound like with the hardware. The Pultec EQP-1A is a classic and definitely good for top end boosts and the classic 'pultec trick' with kicks and subs. The Chandler Curve Bender and Manley Massive Passive are great options for a mixbus/master bus. If you see a sale on the fairchild ones, or get a voucher for a free/discounted plugin with your purchase, I'd steer you in that direction.ĮQ-wise I'd say there's nothing that particularly stands out to me. Not particularly a fan of the 1176, it works fine, but I'd rather use a distressor model or something else that's as fast over an 1176.ĭepending on what bundle they gave you along with your Apollo, (guessing it's the analog classics one) you'll only have the LA-2A and 1176.

The LA-2A is fine, some people really hate it because it's not as uniform as the hardware units, but I'm a big fan of it, pretty much lives in my vocal chains. To me, the Fairchild 670 & 660 are some of the most faithful and easy to use vari-mu style compressors available.

Fairchild 670 uad