There's a guy named Michael Brauer who records and mixes.
Let me tell you, Michael H. Brauer is not just any regular guy. He's a very special regular guy who's recorded and mixed ten zillion hit albums. And they all sound great. I mean, really great. There are mixers who do different. There's no one who does better.
So if he says something's good, I want to give it a listen. This time it's Yet Another Plugin. He's only got two plugins with his name on them, the other is a very cool imaging plugin from Waves that I use in all my electronic music tracks.
Why do I say it's a Singular Sensation?
Simple:
Brauer's got a the world's only surviving AWA G7 201 Limiting Amplifier, an Australian compressor used on a warship's ship-to-shore radio during freakin' WWII (!).
Of course history doesn't make something sound good. But this plugin sounds really good - to me.
The real one was modified to his specs, because he has the budget to do that kind of thing. He used it first on Coldplay's Parachutes Album for Chris Martin's vocals. If you listen to the record, you'll realize those vocals sound both unique and great. There's some texture there and it's good texture.
Brauer says he uses it somewhere on every mix.
This gigantic old box is green, so the GUI is green and the plugin is called the MHB Green. I must have a thing for green compressor plugins because one of my other favorite compressor plugins is the green Kush AR1 that emulates an Abbey Road compressor.
I stumbled on it browsing the web. I had never heard of Kazrog, and therefore never tried one of their plugins before. So I tried it.
Brauer says he offered to have other companies model it, but was told it was too complex to model. So he offered to have Kazrog model it, partly because he wanted more of them on tracks and there's only one real one. So they took a shot at it, he claims it sounds exactly like the real one (I don't really care, provided a piece of gear sounds excellent on its own merits).
Let me digress for a moment:
I spent the first 20 years of my career going for the exact opposite of what this does well. I wanted a recording to accurately reflect what I was miking up, with as little added coloration as possible. Super hi-fi, you might say.
But 14 years ago I must have gotten bored, and started experimenting with gear that colors the sound. If it enhanced it, I kept it around. If not, bye-bye.
At first it was hardware. Then as plugins developed and I went 'in the box' I experimented with them. I'm not exactly a noob at this. Fortune 500 companies have hired me to write music, do recordings and mix since 1991.
Back to the plugin:
I've tried it on several different sources, even orchestral stuff. I have quite a few vintage gear emulations left after tossing out most of them, and the ones I kept are pretty darn nice; but this one's special. It has a great texture, it doesn't sound artificial, it doesn't round off the transients unacceptably, and yeah, it just sounds good and enhances what's running through it with as much saturation or as clean as you want, depending on how you set it up.
It comes with lots of presets from other big name mixers and engineers, though I'm disgusted that they didn't call me (that's kind of a joke from me to me, since no one in the world of big time anything has ever heard of me).
One feature I like is that it can be switched to not do anything to the signal except run it through the simulated tubes without compressing or limiting.
Gotta say, that sounds pretty nice, too! In any case, it sounds good on lots of sources, buses and a whole mix. So I like it.
In fact, I liked it so much I bought it along with their emulation of a minimoog filter, and that does some very nice things with plugin synths.
So there you have it. The MHB Green. Turns out, Kazrog does some really nice work!
Final note:
They shot a video at Brauer's home studio. Looks even more like a basement than mine. So I no longer feel all that craptastic. Now I feel only mild embarrassment over my space.
Let me tell you, Michael H. Brauer is not just any regular guy. He's a very special regular guy who's recorded and mixed ten zillion hit albums. And they all sound great. I mean, really great. There are mixers who do different. There's no one who does better.
So if he says something's good, I want to give it a listen. This time it's Yet Another Plugin. He's only got two plugins with his name on them, the other is a very cool imaging plugin from Waves that I use in all my electronic music tracks.
Why do I say it's a Singular Sensation?
Simple:
Brauer's got a the world's only surviving AWA G7 201 Limiting Amplifier, an Australian compressor used on a warship's ship-to-shore radio during freakin' WWII (!).
Of course history doesn't make something sound good. But this plugin sounds really good - to me.
The real one was modified to his specs, because he has the budget to do that kind of thing. He used it first on Coldplay's Parachutes Album for Chris Martin's vocals. If you listen to the record, you'll realize those vocals sound both unique and great. There's some texture there and it's good texture.
Brauer says he uses it somewhere on every mix.
This gigantic old box is green, so the GUI is green and the plugin is called the MHB Green. I must have a thing for green compressor plugins because one of my other favorite compressor plugins is the green Kush AR1 that emulates an Abbey Road compressor.
I stumbled on it browsing the web. I had never heard of Kazrog, and therefore never tried one of their plugins before. So I tried it.
Brauer says he offered to have other companies model it, but was told it was too complex to model. So he offered to have Kazrog model it, partly because he wanted more of them on tracks and there's only one real one. So they took a shot at it, he claims it sounds exactly like the real one (I don't really care, provided a piece of gear sounds excellent on its own merits).
Let me digress for a moment:
I spent the first 20 years of my career going for the exact opposite of what this does well. I wanted a recording to accurately reflect what I was miking up, with as little added coloration as possible. Super hi-fi, you might say.
But 14 years ago I must have gotten bored, and started experimenting with gear that colors the sound. If it enhanced it, I kept it around. If not, bye-bye.
At first it was hardware. Then as plugins developed and I went 'in the box' I experimented with them. I'm not exactly a noob at this. Fortune 500 companies have hired me to write music, do recordings and mix since 1991.
Back to the plugin:
I've tried it on several different sources, even orchestral stuff. I have quite a few vintage gear emulations left after tossing out most of them, and the ones I kept are pretty darn nice; but this one's special. It has a great texture, it doesn't sound artificial, it doesn't round off the transients unacceptably, and yeah, it just sounds good and enhances what's running through it with as much saturation or as clean as you want, depending on how you set it up.
It comes with lots of presets from other big name mixers and engineers, though I'm disgusted that they didn't call me (that's kind of a joke from me to me, since no one in the world of big time anything has ever heard of me).
One feature I like is that it can be switched to not do anything to the signal except run it through the simulated tubes without compressing or limiting.
Gotta say, that sounds pretty nice, too! In any case, it sounds good on lots of sources, buses and a whole mix. So I like it.
In fact, I liked it so much I bought it along with their emulation of a minimoog filter, and that does some very nice things with plugin synths.
So there you have it. The MHB Green. Turns out, Kazrog does some really nice work!
Final note:
They shot a video at Brauer's home studio. Looks even more like a basement than mine. So I no longer feel all that craptastic. Now I feel only mild embarrassment over my space.
Last edited:
