thank you for your unprettified answer

Beautiful with low self esteem? guessing Behringer!

Works fairly well in parallel but does not compare to the Silver Bullet or the HG2 in terms of flexibility. Quality unit though.

Derivative, with arrogance?

...there, fixed it for you.

I really love the VSM-2 hardware for saturation. Mostly the Zehner. It takes some time to understand how it reacts but I´m very happy to not sell it after the Crookwood router arrives here and makes the Inserts of the VSM useless in my situation.

Just got mine today. Got it sent down in a taxi. Really really nice unit. Makes tracks and busses sound polished and expensive. Going to sell some stuff now to pay for it. Also some stuff I have now is simply redundant.

I have the HG-2 plugin and I freakin' love it.

Anyone done side by side comparisons - HG2 plugin vs hardware?

Yes I have both and did. Quite similar on bass and drums but vocals and more delicate sources start to differ considerably. The plug in fuzz gets nastier.

i also have both. the plugin sounds good. the hardware sounds better.

I have both plug and HW. I can confirm what was written above. HW is a bit smoother and less harsh compared to the plug. Nevertheless the plug is outstanding.

Hw always better :(

Where you guys sit the HG-2 plug in at the begin or end of the chain,
Not work with 10.6 or 7, I got el Capitan on my pitch computer but
I still catching with Soundblade HD on a 10.6 and I believe it's not a legacy soft for the HG-2
I still waiting for tech support reply.

At the beginning of the chain I had a Silver Bullet, I heard Paul G said that works better than the HG-2
Anyone compare it with the MA EQ
I use the MA EQ Hardware at the end of the chain in Parallel so I was wonder
if this unit sound close to the Harmonics that the MA provide

No they don't sound similar here. The BB HG-2 plug in doesn't do top end like real tubes.
I would use the HG-2 plug in the final digital domain in parallel if I were to use it at all.
I track with the hardware on stems so I have plenty of it before the final mastering stage.

I started demoing the BB HG-2 Plugin some time ago, and first impression I wasn't impressed...at all, to be honest. But then I retried it the other day on a track that had a very very low volume mixdown. And then it behaved MUCH better. Bringing back all the little details of the mix in a very pleasant (not too much) way. The depth increased aswell and that was souding really good. I also could make a better dinstinction between the Pentode and Triode "sound" respectively. So depending on what mix you use it on, I'd be using it very early in the chain (digital domain) to start enhancing what needs to be.

But honestly it really changed my mind about it. I was using it wrong in the first place.

Now I'm interested in demoing the Hardware

On the hardware I make much more use of the Pentode dial where with the software the Triode seems to be more usable than on the hardware. I'm not sure why.

Still loving my hardware

same here.

Same here. There's a good reason for that ;-)

I'd phrase it slightly differently and say that the Pentode is less usable in the software version. That's the part that's so damn hard to do right in software.

Is it just that no one can really model tubes convincingly yet or am I missing something else?

You insinuate that you know about the Pentode code ;-)

I've made some plug-ins - but only as a designer, not a coder ;-)

So it's the first thing you said, it's very hard to do convincing tube emulation and to me the Pentode sounds like fairy magic on the hardware HG-2.

I have nothing against the HG-2 plug-in, by the way, it's only natural that the hardware and plug-in are different.

It's good we share the same impressions. Thanks for sharing your experience.

My guess is that the plugin would be more natural/closer to the hardware at higher sample rates?

Hi there,
A question to the people who own the HG2 HW unit :
Is it a maintenance heavy unit?
How often do you need to change tubes or calibrate things on it?

Good question!

It's impossible to say exactly how long any tube will last but the tubes in the HG-2 are all run well within their tolerances so they should last a long time. The 6U8As are JAN NOS tubes which were built to the highest standards and to last as long as possible (since they were made for the military). The 12AX7s are currently manufactured Tung-Sol tubes and are very solid yet quite inexpensive. We sell a matched tube set of all 4 tubes if you ever do need to swap them out.

In terms of calibration, the unit has calibration points in various places, both to adjust for aging tubes, new tubes and to adjust the unit to the user's preference.

The calibration adjustments are as follows, and documentation is available on our website.

Main L/R trim: There are two trimmers right at the front end of the unit, directly after the input transformer. These will allow you to calibrate the overall left/right balance as well as trim the input gain up or down to meet your gain staging needs.

HF adjust: These trimmers adjust the overall high end response of the main 6U8A tubes. They allow you to calibrate the top end of both tubes (all tubes are slightly different) and set how bright or dark the overall unit is.

Air Adjust: These trimmers allow you to adjust the amount of air boost when the air circuit is engaged. Interestingly, as you decrease the amount, the cutoff frequency drop slightly as well.

Main Sat Adjust: This set of trimmers allow you to trim the left and right balance of the main saturation tubes. They also allows you to set the overall gain of the signal driving the tubes.

ALT Sat Adjust: This set of trimmers allow you to trim the left and right balance of the alt saturation tubes. They also allows you to set the overall gain of the signal driving the tubes.

Meter trim: Most people will never need to touch these trimmers but we do have a set of trimmers to adjust the left/right balance and overall gain of the signal that feeds the meter.

Meter response adjust: the meter itself has a built in set of adjustments that allow you to select between 3 gain settings and the meter reaction speed. You shouldn't need to adjust these but they are there.

The only time most people will need to make any adjustment is when they want to adjust for preference or in some cases when new tubes continue to settle. We do a multi day burn in with two calibrations and they ship with the left/right matching to within a couple tenths of a db but on occasion, some tubes will continue to settle for a few days longer.


Aside from the trimmers to ensure the ability to calibrate at any point in the future, the entire unit is designed for easy servicing if it needs it. Rather than one large PCB, the HG-2 is made up of a series of PCBs that are connected via multi pin harnesses. This means that many issues can be solved simply by replacing a single board that pops in and out with no soldering! It means that instead of shipping an entire unit back and forth, we can simply send out whatever board has an issue and it can be swapped in minutes with no special tools.

As far as service goes, we work really hard to make sure that any issues are dealt with as quickly and painlessly as possible. We are always happy to recalibrate units for customers or give them a once over in the case of a second hand sale.

I'm sure other people will chime in but I hope that helps answer your question.

Thanks for the post. I'm sure it's a great unit and it is very well built but it's not answering my question.

My question is how often do users need to maintain the unit.

Thanks.

Sorry, I tried to answer as specifically as possible. There is no maintenance required beyond what any piece of tube gear requires. If you notice any change in behavior you check calibration etc but I’ve been using mine for a few years with the original tubes and no drift or change in performance.

Like with any tube gear, I would check calibration every six months to a year or so.

Ok, good to know. thank you!

been using mine for a couple years now with no noticeable changes. haven't touched the trimmers. i should tweek the air boost one though, it's a wonderful boost but too heavy handed for most mastering projects.

it is a tube unit, so it has a tendency to be in a slightly different mood every day. but those mood changes are easily correctable with the L/R trim knob (just a little nudge one way or the other usually)-- this is a brilliant knob that should be on more tube gear IMO!

Some users are reporting random distortion 'crackles' on certain mix elements and said that due to this they are using/trusting it a lot less with client work now. Any other users having similar issues? @ Black Box Analog are you aware of this issue and is there a solution?

I'll be demo'ing one over Christmas as I'm contemplating buying one for the mix room although this report has me worried.

Reporting where? This sounds like a unit that is not functioning properly rather than an issue with the design. As with any piece of gear, we get occasional units that need tubes swapped, have a part that is damaged in shipping or need something adjusted but the units definitely do not “crackle”. Any time we have had reports of any kind of issue we make sure it’s fixed or the unit is replaced as quickly as possible so I’m not quite sure what you are referring to.

Can you put me in touch with the person reporting the crackle? It seems very odd that someone with a unit in need of repair wouldn’t contact us but would just keep using it and “use/trust it less”. These units are used in studios all over the world on everything from top 40 music to feature film scores day in and day out and some of the top people in the industry rely on them. It sounds like whoever you talked to just needs a repair but we can only help if we know about it.