LINDELL AUDIO 50 SERIES
Classic hardware emulation combined with Brainworx’s component modelling? Should make the perfect couple! Let’s see how it fares…
Over time, channel strip plugins have developed to accurately emulate more subtle aspects of the analogue signal flow including saturation, noise and even stereo image. Plugin Alliance offerings from both Lindell/LSR and Brainworx combine excellent modelling and Brainworx’ Tolerance Modelling Technology (TMT) to deliver awesome results. Lindell Audio 50 Series (AAX, VST, VST3, AU, Audiosuite) is the latest offering from the Lindell Plugins/LSR Audio collaboration and follows a similar path to their Neve-style 80 Series.
Modular
Inspired by API’s classic designs, 50 Series is actually two separate plugins – Channel and Buss. Channel is a fully featured 5-stage modular-style channel strip with preamp, EQ, compressor, expander/gate and master sections, with a choice from three different EQs (50A, 50B and 60) and two different compressors (FET and VCA). Meanwhile Buss is a much simpler 2-stage summing plugin, incorporating line amp and fader modules.
The preamp and line amp stages include adjustable harmonic distortion. Meanwhile the main menu provides op-amp clipping options (Hard, Soft and Off), circuit noise (On/Off) and oversampling (2x to 16x). You can also choose the plugin side-chain target (gate/expander or compressor). As mentioned, both plugins incorporate Brainworx’s TMT (Tolerance Modeling Technology) system. We’ve discussed TMT before and in the 50 Series you have 32 different TMT channels to play with. The channel-to-channel variances that TMT introduces are great for adding analogue desk authenticity across multiple channels. But even on individual stereo channels you can choose identical left/right TMT channels (Digital) or adjacent ones (Analogue), and with the latter, each channel pair influences the audio slightly differently, so it’s great for adding vibe.
VCA or FET
50 Series includes two API-style compressors based on two classic units – the 525 FET and a favourite of ours, the 2500 VCA. The 50 Series VCA really captures this wonderfully flexible unit. With switchable feedforward and feedback topologies we found it easy to get highly responsive behaviour perfect for snappy drums and punchy vocals, or achieve a more vintage glue effect perfect for mixes and sub mixes.
Results can be finessed further using the soft knee (SOFT) and Niveau (NIV) sidechain EQ options. We really like this module, but it’s worth saying it’s not quite as flexible as the original hardware, which includes two sidechain EQs and three knee settings.
The FET design is a great retro compressor (2:1) and limiter (20:1) emulation. Like the hardware, attack time is fixed and fast, and there are four release time settings. Further options include an adjustable sidechain filter (20 to 400Hz), global Mix (0 to 100%), De-esser mode (D-S) and a rather handy Ceiling feature. This combines gain makeup and threshold in one control, and is used alongside the main Input and Output controls. The FET compressor is ideal for bringing out the flavour on drum overheads, or for adding punch to beats. We found its slower release settings also handle bass frequencies very well.
The EQs
The three EQ options are 3-band, 4-band and 10-band graphic. The two parametric designs include selectable high and low shelf, and the 3-band also has a gentle band pass filter. Gain is +/-12dB across all three plugins. The EQs are incredibly easy to use and with a 12dB gain limit it’s hard to go wrong. The curves are musical and, like the hardware, the Q narrows slightly with gain, but this is quite subtle. Frequencies and gain are both stepped, although you can make the gain continuous in the menu should you wish, and there’s some frequency overlap, so you can get some extra gain in key areas.
The EQs sound great and are really transformative, just like the hardware. We particularly like them for adding crack to beats and snares, body to basses and kicks and allround sparkle. They won’t perform surgical tasks or notch out nasty frequencies, but the chosen frequencies work so well, it’s easy to see why the original designs remain so popular.
Rounding things off for the Channel is the gate/expander. This is a highly responsive fully featured design with Fast attack, Range and even an Inverted mode (INV) for ducking effects.
The Buss plugin is much simpler than the Channel plugin but still includes the very handy Unity gain option. In our tests, both the Channel and Buss plugins imparted some odd harmonic distortions in their default settings, and we found increasing the THD control boosted these and introduced some even harmonics as well. Neither is particularly extreme but for subtle harmonic enhancement it’s a useful inclusion.
Overall, 50 Series delivers emulations of key API processors coupled with some very handy extras including TMT, adjustable op-amp clipping and harmonic distortion. It may not be endorsed by the original manufacturer and a couple of the hardware features are omitted, but this is one of the best API-inspired emulations we’ve used, bringing together the classic sound in an easy to use package. Great stuff.
“The chosen frequencies work so well, you can see why the original designs remain so popular”