Gear Reviews from the Emanate Community!
We asked the Emanate community to review some music products they’re loving, here’s what they said
Sonarworks
Ragdolltk says…
“So what it does is it will make any headphone flat which is what you want in a mix. They have an upgraded version that will measure your monitors and will shape an EQ to your actual set up.
The way I use it is, since I prefer my headphones to work in, I have a waves plugin that will make it as if monitors are pointed at me and sonar to make it flat.”
Overall Rating: 5/5
Yamaha HS5
M4lw4re says…
“I bought a pair of Yamaha HS5’s on sale for my DDJ setup in my room, they produce a little bit more bass than normal. 5 inch monitors, so heads up to ppl for that, worth it though!
I’d say if you’re a bedroom producer it’s not as great, but if you have a bigger space to work with it’s perfect. Just be mindful of the settings for noise control and the amount of displaced “air” from them, creates bass that isn’t there.”
Overall Rating: 4/5
Ozone 8
ROBY says…
“Ozone 8 is seriously the only thing that’s on my master. I put it on the master channel really early on when I’m producing and while that’s probably not the best idea, it helps me make the loudest and cleanest mixes I’ve done. I really love how many controls there are and just how easy the plugin to use. It has a lot of great features and presets, although I haven’t used those so I’m not sure whether I would recommend them or not. If you’re looking for a really easy way to master a track, Ozone 8 (or Ozone 9) is what I’d recommend 100%.”
Overall Rating: 5/5
Fab Filter’s Pro Bundle
NiteShade says…
“So to give you some framework, I am a win10 Ableton 10 suite user. While I thoroughly enjoy the suite of Xfer Records plugins (naturally Serum is my goto software synth), I enjoy using a handful of other VST plugins that deserve mentioning as I work on audio projects and remix competitions. Specifically, I want to comment on briefly on Fab Filter’s Pro Bundle (and more specifically Pro-L 2 and Pro-MB). Admittedly, Fabfilter’s Pro bundle is not cheap. However, for mixing and mastering, it is worth it. The Pro L 2 vst is awesome, as not only does it allow me to increase the gain of a track or mix quickly and easily, BUT it also limits the output as well — and the visualizer allows me to see where I am hot (or not) and fine tune my sound in the event my ears don’t catch the peaking. Pro Q-3 and Pro MB are both awesome. MB as a compressor is great since you can specify a freq range to compress/expand as opposed to the whole of the track (and again a nice visualizer interface helps a great deal). Q-3 behaves very much like Ableton’s EQ8 — BUT with a better visualizer component and is a bit faster to use — admittedly, I flip flop back and forth with the stock EQ and MB. I do think this VST bundle was an excellent purchase as these tools do get frequently used throughout my production process. The only reason I’m taking my rating down by .5 is because of the price tag.”
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
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