Waves CLA Signature Series Review

Chris Lord-Alge has been around the block for over 20 years but considering the phenomenal effect he has had on the sound of modern music you may not know who he is. CLA, as he is known, has mixed some of the greatest bands on the planet - Green Day, U2, Nickelback, Creed, Nine Inch Nails, Foo Fighters, Goo Goo Dolls, Alanis Morissette, Snow Patrol, Avril Lavigne, the list goes on.

For those of you not akin to mixing and recording then let me introduce you to Waves. Waves have been making high quality plugins for 18 years. Deemed by some the holy grail of plugs they are not only very expensive, they are extremely good.

I guess you can imagine the excitement among the sound engineering community when it was announced that these two giants of the industry had got their heads together to develop the CLA signature series.

So what is the signature series? The CLA signature series is a selection of plugins designed for 1 thing, getting the CLA sound  with minimal effort. In the bundle there are 6 separate plugins, CLA Bass, CLA Drums, CLA Effects, CLA Vocals, CLA Guitars and CLA Unplugged. Each plugin has 5 or 6 effect faders which control levels of bass, treble, compression, reverb, delay, and pitch. Above each is a simple switch to toggle between the parameters that are assigned to the fader below. Easy so far!

I guess the best way to test these plugin is to try a full song comprising of Drums, Bass, Distorted Guitars, Clean Guitars, Acoustic, Vocals and Backing Vocals. I chose a song I mixed recently and nulled everything and started again. Just below you'll find all the mixdowns from the tests in mp3 320kBit for convenience and high quality 44.1kHz 24bit for those who want to hear every detail.

CLA test no FX’s is a dry mix using no plugins or any external mixing. I only used automation to tame the very dynamic vocal and a touch on the distorted guitars. Other than that it was a 15 minute job adjusting the faders to get some balance in sound.
CLA test CLA presets only was done using only the presets that come with this bundle, a dash of automation on the vocal volume and guitars. Took 32 minutes from when the plugins where loaded to get a sound that represented these plugins fairly.
CLA test Steve's Tweaks is the same as the above mix but I tweaked each plugin and used Cubase5’s channel EQ to help separate the instruments better than the presets achieved alone.

Drums are BFD 2 with the modern drummer expansion pack, all other instruments are live and recorded with no EQ or compression. The song was written in a collaboration between Stephen Brett and Stevie Hudson.

To the plugins. You can’t help but admire the GUI, each plugin looks great and is simply laid out to make tweaking presets very easy. However, loading up a few instances can be quite demanding and taxing on your system much more so that any other plugin I own. That begs the question, what is going on under the hood?
 

CLA Vocal
There is definitely some magic going on with this plugin, just flicking through the presets gives you a multitude of pleasing vocal sounds to choose from and some effects too. The bass channel has 3 parameters, upper, lower and sub relating to the frequency range controlled by the fader. Treble offers roof, top and bite. All EQ’s across these range of plugins have a fixed Q although it sounds slightly sharper cutting compared to boosting, regardless the EQ sounds great not only on the vocal plugin but right across the range. In essence it’s hard to go wrong. The next fader in the list is the compressor with the amount of compression being controlled by the fader and the character by the push button above it. It’s laughable really at how easy they’ve made it, push gives a tight vocal a little shove, spank bends the knee a little and give a more in your face sound and wall slams the vocal helping to get that CLA rock vocal sound. None sound bad used in moderation. Now on to reverb. I really don’t know whether the reverb is convoluted or algorithm based. To be honest, I don’t care as long as it sounds good and it does! It practically caters for all your vocal needs and again it is made so easy. Tight, large and chamber. Tight giving you a room sound, large a medium hall with a lovely tail and chamber which is good for effect or but not for lead vocals the way I hear it. The delay fader controls the delay and sounds amazing!!! I love it. I would guess it's using something similar to waves H-Delay with a filter as it gives you the same vibe I'm used to from H-Delay. Used gently it can reenforce any vocal and click on write automation to add some more extreme delay effects as required. Last is the pitch fader, I admit that I don’t usually use pitch modulation when mixing unless requested but I found this sounded quite gratifying. Again, used in moderation it can give a vocal that fairy dust to bring it to life.

CLA Bass
No need for too much detail here as like the vocal plugin it delivers stunning results very quickly. The EQ section is fool proof and tailored for bass guitar. The compressor works hard to give the bass a solid sound in the mix. The sub button is more interesting as it add harmonic distortion to the very low frequencies to enhance the bottom end so it can be easily heard on smaller speakers. It works but use it wisely, it is easy to over cook. The distortion sounds decent but I guess that’s more a matter of taste. The pitch modulation is not my forte especially on bass but again like almost everything on this plugin it sound great and works well for those who want that sound.

CLA Drums
The drums plugin has a little more to it. On the top left there is a rotary knob which toggles between the drum or mic’ing type. Kick, snare, toms, overheads, room and cowbell which covers hats, cymbals and well...... cowbell. More!!! It’s just made so easy, select the right drum type, toggle through the parameters for EQ and compression and adjust the faders until you get the sound you are looking for, add a touch of reverb if you want it and set the gate if you have excessive bleed. Job done. However, if you are not sure what sound you are looking for then the guys at Waves and Chris himself give you plenty presets that you can easily browse through to get a sound you like and then tweak from there. Drums are the most challenging instrument to get sounding amazing but these plugins do a great job at both live drums and plugins like BFD2 or Superior drums making it less the demanding job that it can sometimes be.

CLA Guitars
CLA Guitars is a fantastic plugin. Another simple to use and as Chris says himself, “Instant gratification” to which I would have to whole heartedly agree. It gives you guitar tailored EQ, compression, reverb, delay and pitch modulation. Unless your guitar sounds awful to begin with it is hard to go wrong with this plugin. Load it up, quick mess around and move on, it really is that easy!

CLA unplugged
CLA unplugged is a real favorite of mine. One word, lush. No, smooth..... Two words lushly smooth or is it smoothly lush? Either way I found myself setting this up as a send effect and adding it gently anywhere I needed the smoothly lush sound to linger in the spaces. The EQ has a wide curve which can lend a lovely sparkle to the great sounding reverbs and delays. Take your time with this plugin for excellent results.

CLA Effects
The last in the line up is the Effect plugin. This is a fun plugin that gives you a large range of effects all in one place. From cool filtered effects to dreamy phasers it’s covered. No need for too much detail here, just load it up and play with it and get to learn the sounds. Someday you’ll be saying, “I know what sound would work with that.....” and instinctively reach for this plugin.

Overall these plugins are great though very heavy on your CPU. For young engineers who are new to mixing it gives you some great presets to get a solid mix fast. I reckon this is only the beginning, we will see an increasing number of these type of plugins in the future so I figure we need to find a place for them. In one way I find the whole idea of a “do-it-all-for-you” mixing tool is ludicrous to me but I see where these work. It is not like having Chris Lord Alge in your mixing room telling you what to do, it’s more like having some guide lines that he set up for you, the rest really is up to you.

Test files
 

BFD Eco Review

I have to confess, I am a big fan of BFD 2 and have been using it since it’s release. It is my go to software for drums. When I heard the guys at FXpansion were releasing an Eco version of it I wondered why, what was the point? That was until I saw the price! €94 is a freakin' steal if it can perform.

The streamlined version comes with 5 kick drums, 6 snare drums, 12 toms, 3 hi-hats, 11 cymbals and a selection of percussion instruments. It also has effects built in, 15 in total including EQ, compression, filtering, gate, reverb and more. For the non-drummers interested Eco comes with 1500 groove patterns which can be dragged and dropped into your DAW to edit at will. Trust me when I say, there is something for everyone. Added to this you get 40 presets, customizable keymaps, built in stereo mixdown, compatibility with FXpansion’s 3rd-party expansion libraries and an upgrade path to BFD2.

When first loaded up I was greeted by a familiar GUI and within minutes I knew how everything worked. It looks good, it’s well laid out, and everything is where you’d expect to find it. Eco has 3 main pages, Kit, Channel and Grooves. The kit page doesn’t serve much of a purpose, only to show a pretty graphic of a drum kit which flashes every time you play a drum. The channel faders are static so kit pieces can easily be changed from any page by double clicking on the image above the fader as well as giving you control of volumes at all times. The channel page allows you to get more involved with the sound of each drum. Here you can control dynamics, dampening, bottom top mic’s, tuning, overhead and room mic’s on each individual drum. Each channel is also equipped with an EQ slot and 2 slots for FX’s giving you plenty scope for fine tuning the sound of your kit. The grooves page houses the 1500 groove patterns that come with Eco. Using it is simple, to audition click the play button beside the groove, to insert either drag-and-drop or double click to place the groove on the time line or drag-and-drop the groove into your host platform to edit the midi.

Now the fun stuff :) Once I had the basic’s covered I set Eco up to play-nice with my Roland TD 4 kit. I admit I was disappointed with the list of electronic drum kits covered here. Saying that all I needed to do was load up the TD 20 midi map, make a few minor changes and I was all set up. I took the nerdy approach testing the kits and sounds in Eco, I started from the top and had a jam with each one. There are some great presets all ready to go for you and I am fairly sure no matter what music you are into there will be something to suit your taste. I soon found my favorite sounding kick and snare and loaded up a dry kit which included them. Then by just flicking through the mixer presets I was shown the power of the EQ and FX’s that come free with this package. You would be amazed at how many different sounds you can create from the same drum kit!

For the review I decided to record a groove myself and then pick a few presets to show what Eco can do. Then to test the effects I mixed a dry kit from scratch as well as a mix using plugins in my collection. Take time to listen to the recording (link below) and I am sure you will agree there is a quality to each preset! Not every one will be to everyones taste but they all have a place in music. When mixing myself I aimed for a solid compressed rock sound that should easily fit in a full mix. Within 10 minutes of trying only EQ and compression I had gotten surprisingly close. The effects are really good, I’d venture saying that these where taken directly from BFD 2. As I was already familiar with their sound I found mixing with them not only easy but they also produced great results. Once I had gotten my sound it was mixed down and reset. I routed all channels into Cubase so I could mix again using plugin's I had in my arsenal. This only highlighted how good the effects in Eco are, although, I still think that by using other quality plugins I had more control over the sound. Considering that some of these plugins where 3 times the price of the full Eco package, Eco's effects can take a bow.

As far as the drums pieces that come with Eco, I think the guys at FXpansion choose a rounded selection covering the basics of drum sounds. If you are ever lacking a particular sound you can always buy some of the expansion packs to expand your drum library. The reduction of velocity layers doesn’t hinder much at all for most styles and with anti machine gun mode on the same sample is never triggered twice in a row. The presets are good and the grooves are fantastic, even a complete beginner to recording drums can easily produce quality drum tracks. Ok, it doesn’t have the complete set of tools that BFD 2 has at it’s disposal but it is a great place to start and if you feel you need that bit more you can always upgrade to BFD 2 at a discount price.

I mentioned at the start of this review that if Eco performs it would be a freakin’ steel. Not only is just that but at €94 BFD Eco is a must have for anyone producing music who even once thought they might need acoustic drums. Check it out!

Click here to listen to some preset samples and some custom mixes to hear what BFD Eco can do

Steinberg's Sequel 2 Review

There are many music creation software package available today ranging greatly in price and performance. It all started with the release of Pro-16 on the commodore 64 by Steinberg way back in 1984. The first release was a multitrack midi sequencer and it lead the way for all music creation software. When Cubase audio was release in 1991 it was a massive break through and gave us a hint at what the future might hold for the recording industry. Recording as we know it was born. Many years down the road we have a multitude of choice with even the simplest of programs allowing multitrack audio and midi recording with built in effects and editing tools giving us powerful tools to create music outside of professional recording studios.

Sequel 2 is priced just shy of €100 and comes with more than 5000 loop covering every genre that are created by world class producers. It comes with more than 600 ready to play instruments including 60 drum kits, built in audio effects like dynamics, EQ, reverb, delay, modulation and filters on every channel and more than 50 audio track presets for various instruments and vocals. You can also buy Sequel content sets for a bargain price of €15 each which you can download directly from the steinberg website. There are 15 in total covering rock, alternative rock, jazz/Latin, world beats, electronic dance, groovy 70’s, reggae, chillout, orchestral, 80’s pop, hip hop, elektro, funk and industrial should you have the need for more audio loops.