The noise reduction button doesn’t seem to have any obvious effects while the compressor is active and there are no notes on its intentions in the VMR manual, however we believe it to be a homage to the different 11LN units – this information is unconfirmed and purely speculation as there doesn’t appear to be any other documented function for the noise reduction option on the FG-116. Some of the alternative 1176 style plugins already available are Softube FET compressor, Waves CLA-76, Universal Audio 1176, IK Multimedia Black-76, Bomb Factory 1176. We own some of these alternatives and although we quite like the sound of the FG-116 we wouldn’t throw our Waves CLA-76 in the bin quite yet. The Mix knob allows you to blend in the compression for an easy one-stop-shop for parallel processing which is nice although not a breakthrough as Softube utilize this feature in their version of the FET compressor (it should be noted that the Mix function still works even with the compression bypassed allowing you to perform some parallel saturation!). In fact with the FG-116 this may be the only 1176 plugin we have used that doesn’t let you have “all buttons in”, you seem to be able to only select the predefined ratios which some 1176 lovers may be sad to hear. Normally manufacturers opt to pay homage to the good old days when people used to press all the ratio buttons in – Waves and IK Multimedia have this covered with a dedicated “ALL” button, whereas Bomb Factory enable you to Shift + Click for all buttons in functionality. Another feature which is quite common on current recreations of this type of compressor is the ability to Shift + Click on the attack knob which Slate Digital claim bypasses the compression allowing you to use the input / output knobs to completely drive your signal (you can turn the compression off on the Waves CLA-76 as well as the Universal Audio 1176 and carry out similar drive functions). Where this module diverts from traditional 1176 operation lies within the Ratio, Mix and Noise Reduction settings.
They also use the same basic operational use where you must push the input so compress and attenuate as appropriate with the output. This is probably one of the most copied compressors out there and to be honest, it really surprised us that Slate Digital decided to bring yet another 1176 style compressor onto the market this late in the game. They have kept in line with the traditional “backwards” attack and release settings, where a setting of 1 (fully anti-clockwise) is the slowest time constant and a setting of 7 (fully clockwise) is the fastest constant. Which begs the question, what does Slate Digital have to offer in terms of bringing out new emulations of an 1176, SSL, Neve and VCA based modules? Does this make existing plugin models of this hardware obsolete? This is a great achievement for Slate Digital and a bold one as not only do they have to live up to the success of their previous analogue modelled plugins such as the Virtual Console Collection, Virtual Tape Machines and our personal favourite Virtual Buss Compressors, but more interestingly the 4 main modules (FG-116, FG-401, FG-N, FG-S) are all available in some form or another from various other established plugin manufacturers. The Phase Reverse Switch is very classical: in Mono and Stereo, it flips the signal’s polarity for all channels.The Virtual Mix Rack is the culmination of 2 years of development for Slate Digital after a number of public and private statements from Steven Slate to his consumers, announcing a halt to all other product development and hiring new staff members. The Trim Knob is a simple gain control, going from -24dB to +24dB.
#STEVEN SLATE VIRTUAL MIX RACK FULL#
The level is in dB Full Scale and going from -72dBFS to 0dBFS. The Led-Meter displays the Peak level of the signal at the Output of the module. The calibration is a global setting, affecting all Trimmer modules in your session. You can recalibrate this level by adjusting the screw below. The meter is calibrated to display 0VU when being fed by a 1kHz sine wave with a Peak level of -18dBFS by default. The VU-Meter displays the RMS level of the signal at the Output of the module. When using it in the first slot, the Trimmer allows you to define how the signal will hit the following VMR module, with a precise output level monitoring. The Trimmer is a very useful Module which brings you few basic operations within the Virtual Mix Rack: a RMS and Peak Level Monitoring, a simple Trim control and a Phase Reverse Switch.
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