We all know that our ears perceive louder mixes as ‘better’ but the loudness war was cut short once streaming services started to set a limit so that all tracks are pretty much the same on their platforms.
Don’t worry though! Protoculture’s back with some tricks up his sleeve that can still help your track shine above others with another super useful ‘Top 5 plugin’ list.
Not to be missed!
As usual, an excellent TOP 5 from Protoculture. Many thanks, cheers
Thank you, Nate! Oxford Inflator is terrific, under-appreciated for sure, thanks so much for your insightful tips on these special tutorials, Nate!!! - Nate, please do a survey of subscription-based plugin boutiques eg. Plugin Alliance, Kush, Slate - which one is the best value ? - some are not subscribe to own but nevertheless… and now even DAWs are on subscription eg Presonus and Reason… thanks Nate!! Marula Music forever
Really helpful. This is something I feel like I need to improve in my tracks so I’ll be sure to try some of these out
Super interesting and very useful!
Hi, I would like to know the benefit from the M/S version versus the regular version.
Both are on sale right now so I was interested to buy it but does the M/S version is reall worth the 100 bucks higher price ($149 vs $49)?
Thanks
Sorry in my last comment I forgot to mention I was talking about the Black Box HG2 verus HG2 M/S.
Oh and by the way Nate thanks for those tutorials! Great stuff.
There’s a lot of extra features in the HG2 MS version comparing to the original HG2 in my opinion but of course it’s all relative to your usage & needs. The original HG2 tube saturation plug-in works well on individual channel either to add subtle saturation or to really drive your sound through the tubes circuit emulation, it’s been highly praised in that regard but it’s lack of controls made it less suitable or hard to dial in on the master bus or sub-groups.
That’s where the HG2 MS takes over and really gives more options, starting with the ability to run it in Mid/Sides mode of course ( which is quite rare for a tube saturation emulation ) but you also have much more controls like different filters modes with 4 different filters shapes + Q options to drive the tube circuit ( as opposed to a flat only mode in the HG2 ) giving you more saturation & color options. Then you also have Brainworx Tolerance Modeling Technology (TMT) onboard which is a nice addition and will bring subtle differences between instances and you also have extra controls like the Mono-Maker, Stereo-Width, Density, Parallel Mix as opposed to mostly an Input/Output controls on the HG2.
So all depends of your needs but if you plan to have a much more versatile tube saturation unit with more saturation & sound color options and the ability to use it in M/S mode then the HG2 MS is the one to go for, especially if you’d like to use tube saturation on sub-groups or your Master, the cons being that more options you have, more tedious it can be to get easy results, a simpler design and less option like on the HG2 with flat filter and In/Out controls does what it does and can be much more simple to use.
Hope this helps 
Cheers !
Edit : check your PM here on the forums, also messaged you an additional 20%OFF code for PA, you may have it already if you’re a customer by them and receive their emails.
Thanks a lot for those precise explanations! I will help me decide.
Merci Stéphane!
Est-ce que tu viens de France ou du Québec par hasard? Je suis de Montréal. 
Yes I got there email with those plugin on sale right now.
Thanks again!
Oui je suis Français 
Five great solutions!