Actually it's a little known secret I also have the balanced limited edition version in that deep purple colour. I like the colour.

So I think I'm liking mine so far. I'm in the middle of a mix and have it slapped across a vocal bus which is pretty cool and can crank it without it blowing out which the plugin does not accurately emulate. Seems like the volume of the input signal really determines how nasty this thing can get.

My only gripe so far is that it came to me extremely uncalibrated which took a while to figure out there was more literature on their site that describes the internal trim pots and how to calibrate. Now I'm balanced L/R and good to go.

My question is, do you mess with the high frequency, air and/or tube stage trim pots at all? Just wanna make sure I'm not settling on this and am getting the most out of its best settings.

I have a black one and a purple one. Want a red one just so I can call ‘house’

The purple one does look classy in the rack.

Mine has always been fairly well aligned so I have messed yet. I'm gonna put some NOS tubes in at some point so that will be telling.

It's one way to proceed when you're a hardware newbie like yourself.

Happy with the newbie badge. Despite being of a similar age, this a third career for me - something fun I’m building for retirement (cheaper than hookers and fast cars, and I hate golf). So. Just amassing toys to learn and play with.
They are all trivial purchases in grand scheme of things so all good fun. Learning a lot from this forum.

Well, welcome old timer, let us know if we can help with any pro advice.

the HG-2 is very easy to calibrate compared to a lot of other tube gear. in regards to tuning the air button, you should know that as you decrease the amount of gain added, you are also lowering the frequency point at which the boost occurs-- making it more audibly apparent-- so it is very difficult to calibrate the air band for mastering applications, it's just a bit OTT. it's a nice juicy air boost, but IME always sounds like decibels and not fractions of a decibel. probably great for tracking and some mixing scenarios.

Good to know thanks! Yeah I'm seeing how this could be a difficult piece to use on its own for mastering for either in the front or back of a chain (without air engaged) I could see how this could be pretty cool. Would you tend to agree with that?

Just a reminder that the HG2 is a piece of tube gear and has ridiculously high, exposed voltage inside close to the trimmer so don't go noodling with the air band trimmer willy-nilly. Even Black Box cautions against it for the casual user in their instructions. Always make sure the unit is off before adjusting it.

I'm sure everyone here is aware but still just wanted to mention it.

While I definitely agree with this, in order to calibrate you need to run a 20hz signal through it actively to adjust the pots with the unit on. That being said I took extreme precautions and wore huge rubber gloves, shoes and a plastic screwdriver because the thought of zapping myself in this unit terrifies me.

I use it in the middle of my chain and in parallel.
I know some people use it inline for mastering. I find it too heavy handed. But perfect in parallel.

It is impossible to calibrate the unit with the power off.
I think everyone here knows to ground themselves, wear the right gloves, adjust trimmers with a small screw driver, etc.
Part of mastering is replacing tubes and calibrating gear. Everyone should be comfortable opening up these boxes safely and poking around with confidence. All in the game.

No big deal is it really. Just take precautions and avoid the temptation to “wonder what will happen if I….”

Safest place is probably the bath.

Got a HG2 on the way.

Should I add bubblebath? What’s best Radox or Matey?

I've never heard anything that sounds as natural as AIR engaged on the HG-2, also night and day when comparing it to the plug-in. I feel like it just opens up the top of a mix ever so gracefully, but I definitely could see how when mastering most mixes it might feel a bit too much.

I think why it works so well for me is because most anything I work on nowadays I'm part of the process from the very beginning, and i'm able to not over do anything in mixing that might hinder my ability to really push my mastering chain in a way an overdone mix wouldn't allow, and the HG-2's AIR engaged(stock) is absolutely stunning, nothing like it.

Both tracks below have it engaged(as well as tons of other things). If you listen to Sammy Bel Mar's voice on Cold Start and how natural the highs sound, as well as the rest of the vocals and everything else in both tracks, it doesn't sound like too much to me, but that's my opinion of course, we all hear things differently.


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Latest release

Crispy - STELF made | Spotify



Previous release

Cold Start - STELF made, Sammy Bel Mar | Spotify

These two arrived today. Spookily got the ‘ping’ that the Hg2 arrived almost the very minute someone was showing me the plugin in a demo! (They had no idea I had just bought one)

So let battle commence!

Very different tools, you'll want to keep both, lol.

You’re right I’m sure if they were on demo….. but alas, Not an either or shootout they are both bought and paid for lol

More a case of what they are good for and which I prefer in which context.

HG-2 for anything you want a gorgeous clean tube sound for and CV for anything you want a distorted tube sound for. HG-2 is an amazing vocal bus tool come mix time also.

Did anyone make their unit darker ? I find mine much too bright and sharp around 3-4K

I see that this unit has a.. “maximizer” type of affect where you can gain loudness without increasing actual level.

When doing this with the HG-2 bear the end of your mastering chain, does it (or can it) make your your limiter work was less hard?

For sure.

You can get enough level out of it that you don't even need a limiter.

You probably don't want to push it that much, but yes it will certainly round off the peaks and make things easier for the limiter.

That is awesome. For the music I do, when using a mastering clipper, I pretty much go mostly hard clipping as opposed to soft.

Would people say that this unit provides something closer to “hard” clipping or “soft” clipping, since we are talking saturation here, which to me is a similar way of describing clipping

I’m curious if people would describe the maximizing effect of this unit more in line with hard clipping or soft clipping.

It's much more on the softer, rounder side of things IMO. The triode gain can give a very nice velvety sort of softness that's great on some things.

If you're using the parallel saturation circuit, that's obviously a soft clipping kind of thing, you can hear that it's filling up the sound from the bottom (level not frequency) up, if that makes sense.

All that said, there's a built-in mid boost from say 2 to 6k that may or may not be suitable for everything. It's not a 'hard' sound, but it's not necessarily warm either. If you're mixing into it, no problem, but for mastering it's not always the thing.

I see. My use case is top-down mixing - not mastering. I blur the lines of course.

I’m trying to decide if I should let the clipping stay in the digital realm or get the BetterMaker limiter 2. There aren’t many options for analog clipping, but after watching Mixbus YouTube channel demonstrating the HG2, it adds a lot of loudness and I didn’t know that could be done

Digital clipping is much more transparent.

I would stay digital. As Smoothtone said, it's much more transparent. HG-2 is a cool box but it's anything but transparent.