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songboy « Box or rack? What's the difference »
Published on 08/03/11 at 16:37Unlike the RS 127 rack, I don't seem to have any trouble "grabbing" the knobs on the interface. To be honest, that is the one thing that makes me feel the Box is any different than the Rack. I will talk more about that later. No need for a manual, two knobs. After using it for a minute, you get the general idea of what each one does (frequency range, db amount of brilliance added or taken away). The only thing simpler than this plugin is one with just one knob. Yes, both are located right on the front of the GUI.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
So far the RS 127 box has had zero issues running on a Macbook Pro i7, Fireface 800 and Logic 9. No crashes, no hiccups in audio. As for performance, I am having trouble distinguishing the difference between this plugin and it's sister plugin the RS 127 rack. I spent some time just A-B ing the two and sometimes I think the Box is a hair thinner. Other times, I think my mind is playing tricks on me. Either way, it's negligible enough not to really notice, at least for my ears. It kinda makes me wonder if they slapped a different GUI on the box in order to make you feel you got a better deal (3 plugins for $125 instead of 2). I am not officially saying that is what happened but its really hard for me to tell them apart. I have been using this plugin for about a month now.
OVERALL OPINION
Like I mentioned in my review of the RS 127 rack, this unit does get you quite close to that vintage Beatles sound. It can really reduce the mud in a mix quickly and efficiently but I really wish the DB knob wasn't so rigid. I feel like I would have been more apt to use this plugin if the knob was more fluid and allowed you to slowly increase the db instead of jumping up and down by 2 db. Of course if they did that, it wouldn't be a true replication of the real unit, so I should probably stop whining about it
I will say this, if you have 5 minutes to impress a client on a mix, and said client likes vintage sound, grab this guy (or it's twin the RS 127 rack). Overall I prefer the BBE Sonic Maximizer's over these guys (hardware or plugins) mainly because there are a few more options to control. I would probably not get this (these) again, only because I tend to do more electronica these days and it (they) don't really do much for that field.
SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE
So far the RS 127 box has had zero issues running on a Macbook Pro i7, Fireface 800 and Logic 9. No crashes, no hiccups in audio. As for performance, I am having trouble distinguishing the difference between this plugin and it's sister plugin the RS 127 rack. I spent some time just A-B ing the two and sometimes I think the Box is a hair thinner. Other times, I think my mind is playing tricks on me. Either way, it's negligible enough not to really notice, at least for my ears. It kinda makes me wonder if they slapped a different GUI on the box in order to make you feel you got a better deal (3 plugins for $125 instead of 2). I am not officially saying that is what happened but its really hard for me to tell them apart. I have been using this plugin for about a month now.
OVERALL OPINION
Like I mentioned in my review of the RS 127 rack, this unit does get you quite close to that vintage Beatles sound. It can really reduce the mud in a mix quickly and efficiently but I really wish the DB knob wasn't so rigid. I feel like I would have been more apt to use this plugin if the knob was more fluid and allowed you to slowly increase the db instead of jumping up and down by 2 db. Of course if they did that, it wouldn't be a true replication of the real unit, so I should probably stop whining about it
I will say this, if you have 5 minutes to impress a client on a mix, and said client likes vintage sound, grab this guy (or it's twin the RS 127 rack). Overall I prefer the BBE Sonic Maximizer's over these guys (hardware or plugins) mainly because there are a few more options to control. I would probably not get this (these) again, only because I tend to do more electronica these days and it (they) don't really do much for that field.