Is the Production Bundle worth the extra cash? I'm really liking the CS and considering just getting the whole lot.

Seems I missed the Audiodeluxe sale but at $299 on MH's site it's still not a bad deal.

Did a quick demo of the other modules and seem pretty nice.

I grabbed the bundle at the Audiodeluxe sale for less than $200 since I already had the Channel Strip 3, so with that in mind they were quite a bargain.

At $299 they're still very worth it IMHO. They're very well coded, extremely light on CPU and very stable, and great sounding of course! Metric Halo's support is also superb btw.

Cheers. Just wish they would enable sidechaining in VST. Manual states your 'DAW' should handle it but looks like its PT only so not sure why it even mentioned that unless I'm missing something.

I would also put in a vote for Harrison Mixbus, that has everything you'd want in a complete system. I don't think it is hard to learn as a DAW, and aside from not having midi, is really good. The compressors and eq are very straightforward and the tape saturation is very pleasing. As a channel strip I'd process the tracks and then export into another DAW for midi and editing, since sometimes it's on sale for very short money.

On Cubase you do miss the sidechain, but that's entirely Steinberg's fault. VST2's 2nd set of inputs for SC never got implemented on Cubase for some reason that they will never be able to explain...or maybe because they simply want to push VST3 on us. I'm not sure about if it works on other DAWs, since some of them (Reaper) can do VST2 sidechain if the plugin has the extra set of inputs. I suggest you contact Metric Halo, they'll definitely sort it out.

I've tried in Reaper and checked in Samplitude as well. The plugin only reports 2 i/o unlike other plugs which usually show 4 in and 2 out.

It's definitely possible with 2.x (not sure if .3 or .4). And yes already sent a ticket, awaiting reply.

I see. Let's hope MH can sort that out.

Is external sidechain really critical for you? I don't do it a lot, just some basics every once in a while, so on those rare occasions any stock DAW plugin would cut it for me.

I got a reply. They said VST2 doesn't support directly and don't have an ETA on when/if it comes to VST3.

Replied that VST2 can do it so will see what they say.

It's not super critical as I have other options, I just really love the timing characteristics of this plug and would be great to be able to use it for sidechain duties.

For electronic stuff it can be quite useful so I do use this fairly often.

VST2 definitely can do it, hence the old "quadro" group channel workaround we did back in the day when there was no VST3...

The timings on that comp are indeed very nice and it's a very versatile comp, especially the MIO mode. BTW, in case you haven't engaged auto-gain on that....do it!

Ha ya forgot about that old quadro channel mode in Cubase.

Ok will try it, I'd been turning it off as usually prefer to do it manual. Is it doing anything special to note?

It's very spanking with MIO + auto gain. Like really super spanking. Just remember to pull down the output gain otherwise you'll blow things out of the mix!

Ha didn't read this first and just tried it with about -20 threshold, luckily Reaper's built in muting shut the master fader

I do not suggest turning on autogain when using MIO mode (only with other three compressor modes). The fact is that MIO detector signal level is lower and autogain on the other hand compensates when you just move a treshold. So if you put treshold to -20dB and there is still no gain reduction, your output will increase for 20db. So rather watch your ears. I believe they should fix this at Metric Halo, because it can be dangerous.

Agreed that it should be lower and that it can be dangerous - I should have advised that...sorry for that one.

I learned that the hard way, so after that I chop -10dbs before setting the auto gain. I would suggest to turn it on IF you're after that certain "sound" because that thing definitely has "a sound" which I found useful, but yeah, it can be overkill. I'm not sure Metric Halo will change this. It seems to be "by design".

On the other modes it's much more easy in that regard and in fact it's way lower than most auto-gains implementations I've seen around. "Smooth" mode just sounds...smooth!

Yes I won't be using that again probably.

Still curious how it affects the behaviour though to make it compress differently, I would think it would just push the gain up overall but not change the core sound.

Duende channel compressor is similar, seems to add output just from raising input regardless of how much gain reduction is there. I end up having to turn the output down quite a bit.

Yes - it happens on the Waves SSL too.

I don't believe autogain has any sound. It is only volume compensation.

The strip in protools is pretty nice I think

Yes it is, but IMHO it involves too much clicking. I must admit that soundwise and featurewise I prefer Metric Halo by a long stretch.

Just spoke to them and they've got it for $238 now if anyone else is interested.

Amazing!

I was talking about MIO mode compression + auto gain.

SSL Duende Native Channel
Had to throw off a bunch of plugins from the tracks just to enjoy the pure sound of this.

I have to agree. While loving MH this one is on another level.

Got word back they might consider adding SC using the current workaround but it looks like VST3 versions are in the pipeline too at which point it will be included then.

Great news! Metric Halo is an outstanding company.

TC electronics big boy plug ins... Shhh... I shouldnt be telling you this. You dont need a channel strip.