Hey folks,
You may have heard of Metric Halo and their line of high-end interfaces and software tools, which until recently were available for Mac only. That was a contributor to Apple-envy for some.
Well, fret no more, my friends. An offhand comment on the GS board led me to the MH site, where their
Production Bundle is now available in VST format for our PCs. Woo hoo, yet another source of GAS!!
So far, I've been playing with the Channel Strip. Oh yes, THIS is what such a plugin should be. It has all the usual functions -- dynamics, EQ, etc., but it works so well and is so easy to use, plus is very easy on the CPU, unlike some similar products. I could easily put one of these on every channel and bus on a typical mix and not be worried about resource usage. And it sounds great, if that matters to you.
This plugin has the look and feel of high-quality software -- you can tell it's made by folks who have been at this game for a while. No weirdness, glitches, or other hiccups have been noticed. The GUI is very nice, resizable, with built-in analyzers. And there are lots and lots of presets for various sources.
The big bundle also includes separate plugins for multiband dynamics, reverb, delay, saturation, and de-essing. I'm going to be spending some time with these babies, for sure. The 30-day demo is fully functional, but, as with many desirable tools, a PACE account is required. You can do the computer-based option rather than the iLok, but just be forewarned about that.
Have fun, plugaholics!
Cheers,
Eddie