If I were buying native stuff today I would definitely check out Softube’s offerings. The full price was a little ridiculous when they came out.

Well I got them on discount, less than $400.00 for both. I was wondering (noticing the RND Portico Steinberg plugs came out 6-7 years ago) - do you think they are as good as the new UAD-2 plugs? Do you know if you would buy the RND today if you were in the market, given all the other high quality alternatives around nowadays? Hi Rotund - Thanks for that very helpful post. I run a small studio where time is definitely a big factor. Time may not be a factor for you if you are working on your own stuff with limitless hours to get things proper. The RND Stuff is my goto when I run out of UAD DSP. Clearly a step up in the “more forgiving” arena. Then I got the Neve RND bundle and that changed things a bit. I ended up having to automate things where as the UAD stuff just took it in stride and sounded great doing it.

I kept having to go back and tweak things in the native mix where the dynamics of a particular part of the song would sound pinched or out of control. IMHO, The UAD stuff in general has a much wider sweet spot. At first I thought this was due to just being more familiar with the UAD stuff and knowing it inside and out.

It takes me way longer to get in the ballpark with the native stuff. Every once in a while I’ll do a comparison by mixing the same song with only the included options vs only UAD. Since they were distributed by Mackie in fact. Sorry not a lot of url-type detail here, but just to let you know the info you are wondering about is definitely out there. I’ll also add the Pultec EQs, but I’m definitely enjoying the new Cubase “Frequency” plug-in while I try to figure out whether it replaces them or not (I don’t have any UAD-2 Dynamic EQs).

I like using the EMT-140, FC 660/670, 1176s, and LA-2A more than the Cubase stock versions, but I can’t speak to that on the basis of any rigorous testing (do I like them because of the distortion they add that Cubase’s don’t have? … or just confirmation bias? … I’d be the last to know until I do a blind test, which I haven’t yet …). I can’t speak to those, as I don’t have them (just the UAD-2 plugs themselves). Having said that, there are other ITB options as well, and for sure there are many vids on line comparing UAD to those. Guy with a beard and maybe a Middle Eastern accent. I recently saw someone comparing Cubase’s plug-ins to UADs, including at least an 1176 and I think one or two others, if you scout around on youtube I think you’ll find it.

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