It's a funny old thing but now and again you run across a plugin that really gets you salivating. Recently I came across this Virtual Console Collection plugin in Sound on Sound. Here's a link
The gist being that you put these plugins within your channels, and master busses and they emulate the analogue nature of an expensive mixer desk. Not a bad concept at all. Though I've always been pretty happy with the clear sound of digital I must admit that there are times when you listen to certain recordings of orchestra and wonder how the hell do they get those violins to sound sooooo sweet.
Gear has to answer for a lot of it. Certainly I've come to realize that my little M-Audio Firewire box simply does not have the chops to say it has a great characteristic to it's sound. I don't think anyone in the future will pine away for the heady days of when they used a $200 audio interface. But it does give a fairly decent and clear signal .. which isn't such a bad thing. Now for adding character in a small budget setup .. this is something that one could look to the Virtual Console plugins to help with. And they do seem quite reasonably priced .. at $200 that seems very good .. if SSL released the same thing they'd be charging $20,000 .. and claim with a straight face that this amount is entirely justified 😛 Slate Digital's pricing seems very fair.
Perhaps we should start charging people $1,000 per song they buy from us .. afterall .. isn't it justified 😛
Anyways, point being that these plugins offer an interesting concept that people like myself, with a small studio, might find of benefit. Since one thing that is hard to achieve in a small setup is any particular kind of sound character .. other than the FX that you'll be pouring on to give your sound a quality that makes it nice to listen to. Unfortunately it's not ready to buy just yet .. I got an email from Slate Digital last night saying it would be between 30-60 days before it'll be on sale. Still I think it's something I'll be looking into. As I think this would be a good fit for my Pro-tools rig. Though I would share it with you.