Ok, SSL Duende. This is the review I posted over at another Forum seeing as I'm an early adopter and all.
Ok, so this thing is rather nice. There were some teething difficulties due to a dodgy FW card, but taking that out of the equation has helped things settle down. It all seems stable thus far.
The box packaging is no prize winner. This isn't Apple packaging, so no unpacking porn.
The package comes with a wallwart with an international interchangable plug attachment, which is a great if you're all international and jet settery. The unit can be powered by the Firewire Buss, which is great for travel. The only thing that makes this a less than ideal travel box is that the rackmount lugs aren't the removable type, so you're stuck with them. Unless you have a saw. I mean, of course it's still portable, but it would be nice to have just a box, instead of a box with ears. But, I'm not planning on travelling, so...
The unit itself is fairly heavy and seems to be solidly built. The front panel appears to be cast aluminium. The little light is white and bright. It'll burn your eyes off, but it will look super high tech as it does it. This unit would look great sat next to an Apogee Ensemble.
The software installation is simple. No authorisation required due to the big hardware dongle this thing comes with
The plugins are all installed automatically (You have to take them all, no choice in the matter) but you have to install the documentation PDF by dragging and dropping. The install CD also contains a firmware updater, which just tells me that the firmware is up to date when I launch it. I guess this is just there as a backup in case you fry your unit. The firmware updates will probably be just an app containing the firmware, rather than an application that allows you to select a file to plop into the unit. Should be clean, I suppose.
One nice little thing that is installed is a little app in the System Preferences panel. Opening the SSL Duende tab reveals a little monitor that shows you which slots in the DSP are taken up. 4 DSPs in all. The slots fill up as you drop plugins into Logic, so this is nice to keep track of how many you have left. The panel also shows your driver version, the firmware version and the serial number of the unit. Turning off the unit makes the firmware and serial number show up as n/a, so this is a cool way of seeing if the unit is connected and functioning properly.
Ok, onto the sounds...
The plugins pop up nice and quickly when inserted into a track. Good start...
The Mix buss compressor is really, really nice. It's hard to describe it in terms of other plugins because it does remind me of a nice HW comp, which I supposed it's meant to. It's somehow transparent, yet adds a certain magical something. It just sounds 'right'. It's capable of making a mix sound soft and silky by gently slapping your transients into submission, or turning it into a pumping or punchy monster with an aggressive sound. Aggressive, yet pleasant. It's not like a lot of other plugins that claim to add analogue colour, yet just add crunch. I'd describe Duende as smooth and silky, yet punchy and aggressive if you push it far enough, yet it's always somehow pleasant, which other comps don't seem to be able to manage. It's fun and I spent a good 2 hours trying to make the needle sit still. Almost too much fun. Is it glue? I think it will be with a little more playing and a lot more learning.
I haven't messed with the channel plug as much as the mix buss comp, but I'll have to say that so far, the EQ and filters sound really nice indeed. It's got that strange lively and almost fizzy quality to it. Something really hard to explain and I probably sound mad describing it as that. Sucking top and bottom out with the highpass filter is smooth and almost eerily transparent. You have to double check to make sure it's working. I'm so used to something undesirable being added, but this doesn't seem to add that weird harmonic distortion (or whatever) that causes cacky peaks around the cutoff point that you often hear in some other plugs. Nice.
Cutting nicely hacks into sounds, but it doesn't have that hard sound that a lot of EQs tend to have. It's strangely smooth and doesn't feel like it's leaving a clinical emptiness behind. The overall effect is quite odd and something I'm not entirely used to. Maybe I'm hearing things and need to test further.
Boosting feels coloured and the high end actually sounds good when boosted. So, what is good? It's like it's actually adding top like it's supposed to do. It doesn't get unpleasant and bite your ears off. Maybe there's extra harmonical magic being added or something clever, but whatever it is, it's nice. Maybe I'm totally wrong and need to listen more, but after quick messing around, this initally sounds like a good EQ.
I didn't get to engage the 'G' mode much, but when I did, it made things sound a little more aggressive. Harder character? More bitey? I need to play more, but that's the initial feeling with around a minute of messing around with it.
I only messed with the comps a little, too. What I did hear was a nice, subtle workhorse sound. I didn't push it hard yet, but it seems to have a fairly clean sound. Something that doesn't mess the character of what's going through it too much. Adds a nice thickening. I really need to mess with this more. The limited controls are actually rather cool. I'm used to compressors with a crap load more knobs, but just having the 3 knobs is may seem limiting, but just a few moments with it told me otherwise. I think I'll be able to get a good sound of it it, whatever. The attack is a toggle that is either fast, or not. 'Fast' is smooth and 'Not fast' adds a snap, as you'd expect.
The Expander? What does an expander do again? And why do I need one?
Ok, all in all, very nice. I'm more than happy with the sound that's coming out of these plugs. I'm going to have to learn some new stuff here and I'll do that by mixing with them this coming week. The lack of digital readout and lack of presets is actually rather awesome. It forces you to explore and learn how to get the best from the box. The Channelstrip does have a digital readout display that appears at the top, but I cover that over with any other floating window. I quite like the idea of just knobs without number displays.
Ears, not eyes!
Good stuff.
