Log in
Log in

or
Create an account

or
< All Waves CLA Guitars reviews
Add this product to
  • My former gear
  • My current gear
  • My wishlist
Waves CLA Guitars
Images
1/1
Waves CLA Guitars

Software channel strip from Waves belonging to the CLA series

Hatsubai Hatsubai

« Nice guitar mastering plugin »

Published on 06/26/11 at 05:07
CLA Guitars is part of the CLA bundle that Waves has to offer. These are plugins that were created by/for Chris Lord-Alge, the famous mixer who's done everything from Rocky IV to Slipknot. The Waves CLA Guitars plugin is basically an easy to use mastering utility for your guitars. It has sliders for adjusting bass, treble, pitch, reverb, delay, input, and output. There are also some small buttons up top to adjust different things, as well as a knob to adjust what kind of guitars you're mixing. To use this, you simply enable it on your guitar buss and start adjusting. I didn't experience any compatibility issues, so I can't comment on that. I never read the manual, but I don't think it's really necessary for these plugins. It's very easy and simple to use, so no issues there.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Waves plugins have always been some of the most stable plugins I've experienced. They're cross platform compatible, so they'll work with both PCs and Macs. As a Mac user, that's a huge advantage for someone like me. They run in 32 bit mode, but Logic uses a wrapper-like application that runs so you don't interfere with your 64 bit interface. I've tried this on various different buses, and it seems to work on anything with ease. It even works nicely on MIDI, which I found a bit surprising. There are no performance issues at all, and that's a huge plus when working in a DAW filled with all kinds of synths and tracks running tons of plugins. These plugins came with my Mercury package, and I've had that for a few months now.

OVERALL OPINION

This is a pretty good solution for anybody wanting to master guitars in a small little plugin. For metal, I generally find myself using other devices out there. However, this seems to work nicely for everything from clean to hard rock. For metal, I generally try to leave them as uncompressed as possible since they're already super compressed from the amplifier. A simple high pass, low pass and multiband to keep the palm mutes from booming is generally all you need.