Hi guys

I'm tired of my mixes sounding low budget and naff, I've got a good room, good instruments etc, my preamps are good but fairly basic and aren't going to give me a nice fat analog sound anytime soon (Scarlett 18i20). Are there any pluggins out there that can accurately recreate an analog preamp so I don't have to fork out a ton?

Thanks

Black Rooster does a 73 preamp emulation. Sonimus has the Burnley 73 (preamp plus EQ). Sure there's lots of other options - maybe find out what flavour floats your boat & demo a few...?

No pre-amp (real or emulated) will give you that nice fat analog sound.

I'll agree to disagree with BT64. Some plugins I like for warming up a cold, digital recording:

SoundToys Decapitator
Klanghelm SDDR
Waves Omni Channel
Waves Tone-Centric

The Kush Omega Transformers are nice.

What are you even talking about?

All good suggestions (except BT64)

The Slate tube preamp collection is great, so are his Neve and Telefunken

Fuse Audio stuff is amazing

But, don’t lock yourself into thinking it’s gotta be s preamp plugin!

Check out Kazrog’s True Iron....

IK Multimedia’s new Tape collection is the best I’ve ever heard... Softube’s Tape is amazing, too. But, Black Rooster makes a really good one, Slate’s holds up perfectly fine

Lotta different ways to skin that cat

Care to share what will?

Care to walk that back?

UAD's Neve Preamp finds its way onto a lot of my tracks but, of course, you've got to have the hardware. Others have mentioned Kazrog True Iron, another good one for delivering analog warmth and also the Kush Audio Omegas. Noise Ash have released an emulation of the Neve 31102 console - very nice and at a reasonable price. I'm sure I have a few others but I just can't think of them off the top of my head.

Care to explain what a nice fat analog (warm) sound is?

I think the onus is on you to explain what you think it is and why outboard nor plugins will get you there...

I Like the slate everything bundel for this.

The tape machine
The vcc
The preamp emulations

I wholeheartedly agree with BT64 - that "nice fat analog sound" is a myth, what you're looking for is a good mix and no amount of pre's will make that happen, so you should rather practice and find how to improve your mixes yourself than expect slapping a pre emulation plugin, or any other piece of gear, will turn your mixes from "dull and lifeless" to "warm and analog-sounding".

That said, you shouldn't take my word for it!
The most convenient "pre" plugins I found were those built in into Logic from the 10.4 version, but if you'd rather not use Logic then there's the Analog Obsession PreBox, a single plugin offering 11 preamp emulations with filters from the T-Funk/Siemens V76, mimicking the transient response and harmonic distortion with linear freq response and (IIRC) linear phase as well.
It's free and you can download it from the gearslutz thread or the groupdiy thread.

Great suggestions here and I'll add another although it is probably not in the "budget" category it does have TONS of extra benefits beyond just its preamp and drive sections...

Console 1. The default SSL-E is great and the British Class A covers your "Neve" fatness quite nicely.

Having said that, it really is no replacement for tracking with a really nice hardware preamp like a Hairball Copper or even a DIYRE CP-5 with a nice color module of your choice. But again, nice hardware preamps are not in the "budget" category either.

I would like to show you THD plot of hardware 1073 preamp


For reference

Kush transformers are excellent....
Most of the Kush plugins deal very artfully with distortion / saturation.

I like the drive on the Scheps 73 and Omni saturation module.

The Waves TG12345 is very nice driven.

Would like to have a listen to the True Iron as everyone here goes mad for it.

Another one I should have mentioned is the XLN Audio RC-20. Great stuff going on there too.

RC-20 you mean? Happens to be on sale (50% off).

https://www.xlnaudio.com/products/ad...20_retro_color

Use the BR 73 plug in as a staple. No reason not to with Britson or VCC as a console. In Harrison MB so nice and juicy...... All of the above are good.....
I don't disagree with using analogue, just can't afford it other than to track with......

+1 for SDRR, incredibly good and versatile - simulate an outboard tube or console preamp, or a tube preamp going into a desk! I've achieved a very convincing hardware sound using just one instance (along with Airwindows Console6 and ToTape5), but using two like this for contrast on a channel or two is so sweet and do-able with the low CPU demands. Also, I've just recently rediscovered the ancient and still shockingly good ModernPremier by Antress, way ahead of its time. Total cost for all 4 is less than a single Waves plugin on sale (but you should at least double that to support Airwindows Patreon!)

+1 on the Kush Transformers. Easy to use, great sound.

I'm curious about Drift. What does it do and more important how does it sound? Is it similar to the flux feature of the RC-20?

...most obvious manifestations in pan and amplitude.

Yes! Sorry. Worth downloading the demo and trying it out for sure.

Black Roosta!!

VPRE73

The Warmth Feature on the Oxford Dynamics!

Never did that much for me
Any fancy graphs?
NLS is also good.

So...you need a preamp for your preamp, eh?



Decapitator is a good place to start.

A graph is hardly going to tell you anything worthwhile about the sound of a pre (or almost any other piece of gear).
You could look at freq or possibly phase response, which imo should ideally be flat anyway, or you could look at the distortion introduced to a 1kHz sine.
Transient response/slew rate? Intermodulation distortion?
Can't say how you plot that last one on a graph, but it sure as hell has an impact on the sound coming out of the pre.
Not that one who's mostly interested in graphs would care about what anything sounds like...