Need some quick advice on Waves emulation plugs

So I took advantage of the Waves sale this weekend and should have another plug coming my way. What do you guys think would be a good addition to play well with what I have? I have the Waves SSL bundle which I dig but it would be very cool to have an alternative. Here’s what I have in the way of emulation plugins:

Waves SSL, Scheps Omni Channel, Abbey Rds TG12345 mastering, NLS (just got it) Puigtech EQ, Softube S73, FET Comp (1176 emulation) and Tape. I also have the Cakewalk CA2A and the Focusrite Red and Scarlett suites.

The SSL of course has that up front in your face sound which I really dig but for the times I want a more vintage vibe what would be a good alternative? Could I use a combo of the NLS on EMI setting and the TG12345 mastering as a way to emulate an EMI console? I know that the mastering channel is not the same as the channel strip but could it get that vibe? Would a combo of the Omni Channel and the “Nevo” setting yield a Neve sound? I ask that because for some reason I felt like I read somewhere that the Omni EQ is similar in thought to a 1073. Am I way off base here?



I really appreciate you guys input.

Waves TG12345 is the channel strip/mixer emulation. The mastering emulation is the TG12410. If you have the TG12410 then getting the TG12345 still makes sense because they are different, and the REDD emulation is even more different, it’s based on hardware from the 1930s-1960s when mixers were much simpler and it has its own sound and “flavour”.

An alternative to the TG12345 might be combining Pultec-style eqs with the Puigchild compressor. As I understand things, the Fairchild is very similar to the compressor EMI used in their TG series solid state desks.

I’d also suggest considering the Abbey Road Plate Reverb. it sounds really good, though it uses quite a lot of cpu.

I’m not as impressed with Waves 1073/V series Neve emulations as I am with the Abbey Road stuff. The V series seems to lack clarity and sounds a bit “muddy” to me, though that might just come down to my personal taste which leans more towards the SSL and Abbey Road style.

As for Pultec style EQs and moving away from Waves, Boz Digital’s Bark of Dog 2 is worth a look - it does the Pultec low frequency band trick of both boosting and cutting bass frequencies at the same time really well and makes carving out a bass line or bass drum very straightforward.

Abbey Road Plate is excellent! (I love this plugin!)
 
And every plugin that tlw mentions are also excellent plugins. 
 
I'm with Jim on the SSL EQ's, they are versatile. When I first got the SSL strips and started using them in a mix on every channel, I realized real quick that I really didn't need any other EQ. The only reason to used another EQ on those mixes was for flavor. 

The REDD desks can certainly be “dirtier” than later consoles, one of the reasons EMI designed the hardware TG desks was to get a “cleaner” sound. A major design goal in earlier times was to get rid of the noise and distortion we’ve come to call “character”.

REDD doesn’t have to be run into distortion, and at “sensible” settings it does have something of that 50s/early 60s sound to it. The hardware desk was considered pretty much state of the art when it was designed.