Slate ones are good

Never been a fan of the Pre-amps or Converters in the Focusrite interfaces. They always sounded cold, thin & lifeless to me. Maybe try a different interface to see what it brings to the table?

There are a lot of other aspects that also go into the "sound" you are seeking.
Fat, warm, analog can be interpreted many ways. What Mics, Pre amps, monitors, are you using, how your room sounds, gain staging the pre-amp input/output into the focusrite .....ect....you get my drift....
basically there is no magic bullet in my experience, its a game of "inches" with
very few upgrades that will seem like a "foot"

Its kind of like cooking, 15-20 different ingredients all come together to make a
meal. If you miss a few ingredients the food will not taste right...

Same with the Production of a song, start with a good song, played by good
musicians, recorded in a good room, with proper mic's and decent preamps & converters, mixed on good (or close) speakers should sound pretty good once
it reaches the mastering stage. Your music will "taste" right.

Every once in awhile you make an upgrade that you can hear right away and
that becomes your new standard. For me, that was when We switched from a
budget ($400) interface to a mid-range $800-$1000 interface. And it was an audible/noticeable improvement. That was a "foot" upgrade for me. I also couldn't hear the difference before the monitor system was upgraded...

hope this helps...

Soundtoys Little Radiator sounds good too.

When people say they run sounds through neves. What do they mean? Are they running it though the DI? If not how would you run audio through a mic pre? I thought only mica can run through it

NoiseAsh Need31102
(In addition to others mentioned)

I can recommend VPRE 73, Kush Omega 458a, Soundtoys Radiator. Three quite distinct flavors of virtual analog goodness, all useful. The Black Rooster has vaulted to the top of the pile for me, but the other two are still in the mix.

*cough* Universal Audio Unison plugins *cough*

Even as technology continues to advance we are likely to get subjective answers forever in terms of 'what _ is best for _?'

For now getting similar results to hardware while only using software requires a few more layers of work. Meaning it requires more than one plugin to achieve a similar feel to one piece of hardware.

It could be 3 (plugin) compressors in a row, a tape emulation> compression> EQ> compression> distortion> EQ bussed with other busses then more plugins. I've found more satisfaction in chipping away at what sounds and feels right to me rather than searching for a 1 to 1 software replacing hardware scenario. It doesn't always feel or look logical on screen - just chase the sound.

Kush distortion does rule though.

I know this is an old thread, popped up while I was searching for something else, but here's an observation I'd like to share:

The one thing the OP did NOT mention was microphones...and for me there is a LOT of the "pre" tone coming via the wires based on what mics you throw into the signal flow.

I recently tracked a very brittle high tone acoustic guitar using a DIY REDD.47 preamp and a C12 tube microphone...basically I had three tubes in the signal path and a couple of transformers before it ever hit the Apogee converters...

When I went to look at the signal waveform (it was recorded rather hot) the wave file had definite compression in spite of there being no compressor in the signal path...this can across as something maybe referred to as "fat analog" sound...

Your gain staging and microphones play a pretty big part of the equation here...I really don't know of a way to get a nice saturation spread when your signal is wimpy and fragile to begin with...

So I'd like to offer a Mix Engineers "Beer before Liquor" poem to help you remember the way that makes most sense:

"Mics before Pre's makes mixing a breeze"

"Plugins without Gain make mixing a pain"

As Fletcher was fond of saying YMMV...

Get the right mic before you start trying to power-plugin-the-performance with synthetic soulless sound substitutes.

THIS question in THIS Forum ?

What forum does it belong in, if not this one?

Think about the sound you're getting...
The opposite of that...... I kid you bro

Things change in 4 years time. :x

Roll forward to 2024 - I must say I'm extremely impressed with PSP Binamp - but it's not the most CPU friendly plug-in. One of the main drivers behind me deciding to finally upgrade my aging studio PC.

I'm still using the NEOLD plugs like crazy... V76U73 and Big Al on nearly everything and the new(ish) LA2A increasingly frequently. Love 'em all.

The great Maestro Dratwa of Fuse Audio Labs (and NEOLD, BX, etc) recently released a free V72 emulator that's starting to replace the V76U73 for me. It's just so easy, straightforward, sounds fantastic. If it had existed first, I maybe would have skipped everything else.

The Blackrooster OmniTec-67A has a unique mellow color. I like the C tube. It is worth checking when you want something mellow and smooth. Playing with the bass, mid, and treble controls in all directions gives interesting results too.

I’d add Echoleffe, too, now