Which SSL plugin? Check out these graphs

Recording, Mixing and Producing
#1

Hey guys. I’ve been playing with drive and saturation a lot in attempt to improve the thickness and clarity of the vocals. I had just realized the Legacy UAD versions of the SSL G and K console strips didn’t model the clipping from the gain knob. The Waves did, which was possibly why it’s been so popular over the last 8 years. UAD recently revamped their channel strip, but the package is almost $500 unless you catch it on sale. I can get the update for $100, and was gonna go for it, but wanted to do some quick research on it first. I when I saw this, I realized it doesn’t tell you anything about how they sound, but I did appreciate the fair, unbiased, and somewhat scientific explanation of why they all sound different.

They’re 4 different types of measurements made from an SSL based plugin.

The colour coding is as follows:

Dark Blue: SSL Hardware 4000 E Series Black Knob
Pink: Waves SSL E Channel
Red: UAD SSL E Channel
Yellow: Slate VMR SSL EQ
Turquoise: Nebula Acqua Sand SSL model.

ssl_15db8khz_frequency_response_noSmoothingssl_15db8khz_harmonic_distortionssl_15db8khz_frequency_responsessl_15db8khz_phase_response

#2

I’m not sure there’s a lot of information to be learned from this. I’ve modeled hardware EQs before, and the difference between the hardware and the software curves are really really small. Small enough to where if you plotted them on a graph like this, you would only see one line.

My guess is that there are definite calibration issues with these measurements. I’ve seen people do measurements of my EQ and come out graphs that the EQ would never make. I think these graphs show more about poor measurement than they tell us about these plugins.

3 Likes
#3

Huh. I’m surprised. That’s certainly good to know.