Massey: vt3 EQ & Tape-Head Saturation plug-ins

Here's a pair of rad plugins for Pro Tools from Steven Massey, a self-confessed music and audio geek who had a hand in developing TL Aggro, TL Space, and other fine software from Trillium Lane labs. vt3 is a simple three-band EQ. Bass, mid, and treble, that's it! Boost or attenuation of up to 20 dB, with an LED-style meter. Sounds really good, with a crispy grit that worked very nicely on electric guitar. The Tape-Head plug emulates analog tape saturation and sounds surprisingly good on, well, almost anything! One of the many killer uses I found for Tape-Head was to buss drum overheads or a snare track out to it, hit it hard, and sneak the effected aux back into the mix. Also sounds great on the stereo buss-seems to provide a bit of that elusive "glue" I'm always missing in the digital realm. Both plug-ins are very DSP efficient. And both run in a perfectly usable demo mode that never expires. (You can upgrade to a few more features like 88.2-192 kHz support and automation by paying for the full versions.) Mac and Windows versions available, and both TDM and LE are supported. Go get 'em! (each $69 direct; www.masseyplugins.com)