Used modestly, it can add some nice silkiness to the signal you are putting through it, but it is sensitive to just how hard you hit it. When it comes to the mix bus, be aware that a little bit can go long way. With it, you can add some very nice glow and edginess to otherwise bland or lifeless synths, basses, vocals, mixes, you name it! Throw it on and give it a tweak. This is a flexible tube processing box and it does what it is meant to do: It sounds like a tube and gives you control over the extent of saturation. It works wonders on single instruments, but it also works great on groups, and it also works equally well on a mix bus or in the mastering chain. I found the same to hold true with this plugin.įor me, the Black Box has turned out to be a real workhorse.

But those working within rock, electronic, pop and the like have found some great uses for it again and again. The two camps seem to be separated roughly across genre lines: The uber-loud EDM-style engineers who aren’t necessarily looking for “warmth” or “grit” tend to be the ones who have told me they haven’t found as much use for it. Others have found it less suited to their approach. I have not had the chance to use the analog version myself, but I have several colleagues that have. Some of you may know of its analog father, which goes by the same name and has found its way into the work of some major mixers like Dave Pensado, Bob Horn and Jack Douglas. I am going to start this off with a true beast of a plugin: The Black Box HG-2. The Black Box is one great option for all-purpose authentic, organic sounding tube saturation. Black Box HG-2 from Plugin Alliance ($249)

Lagerfeldt fabfilter saturn