Voxengo Elephant

Been using these for about 6 years and I wanted to express how much I appreciate them.  HarmoniEQ is such an asset to adding color.  In the tradition of the Pultec EQP-1 I often bring frequencies down with the stock Reaper EQ and bring them back up with HarmoniEQ, adding color when I don't even need an EQ adjustment.  It's been especially effortless to change an electric guitar's tone when I feel like, "I wish he'd played a tele here instead of that SG." Even after I picked up Warm Audio WA-412 for overall coloration, HarmoniEQ is still invaluable for shaping coloration so I'm less in need of spending thousands on different analog devices to achieve the specific profile I'm after.

I have some feature suggestions, first would be to add a non-colored EQ for pulling down frequencies so the Pultec trick is fully integrated, and also I think it could benefit from higher oversampling factors since the difference between 4x and 8x is plainly audible to me, would love to see 12x, 16x, 24x, and even 32x since CPU is pretty abundant these days.  Even folks who are light on CPU can adjust the mix at lower oversampling, then set up a render queue with the oversampling cranked, and have the DAW process it slowly overnight while they sleep.

I still use the old version of SPAN because I'm set in my ways, but also those average and peak RMS readings are such great measures to ensure my mixes are the same general volume.

The bass saturation feature in LF Max Punch gets so much use, even on vocals to give them a "closer" feel to them, on overheads and ambient mics to get more room impact on the lows, places I never would have thought to use them.  Brilliant tool!

Elephant is the only remotely pumpy limiter I'll use.  I like my mixes to be highly realistic, which means I can't stand LA1176's, but sometimes a bit of pump sets the right tone without sounding desperate.  Elephant nails that every time.

Here's some pearls for folks who don't appreciate how awesome a phase adjustment tool PHA-979 is.  Any recording that's live or live off the floor with ambient mics, you can use PHA-979 to phase-align direct mics to the ambient mics by adjusting the phase so the lower frequencies combine the most (might actually be nice to have a mono version just for this).  Then put a PHA-979 on an aux bus with L/R set to -90/+90, to generate a side channel.  Mute the ambient mics and send all your direct mics through that side channel bus and feather it up until you can barely notice the widening effect.  Now unmute the ambient mics, and you can't tell where they end and the direct mics begin.  It's the glue between the two without the muddying of early reflection reverb.  I haven't found any other plug-in that accomplishes that nearly as well as PHA-979, and it's not nearly enough anti-phase to ruin the mix when summed mono.

Voxengo plugs do more than just a good job, they really make the job more enjoyable.

I have had a 'bedroom studio' for the last few years and when it came time to look for mixing and mastering tools outside of Logic's own I did a lot of research into the different brands on the market.  Voxengo's was a name consistently associated with high praise.  Having bought numerous plug-ins from you I attest to the robustness, usability, elegance and effectiveness of the Voxengo tools and the audible improvements they made to my music.  The price, when looking at that of the competition, seems pretty cheap.

I use Crunchessor (powerful all-purpose compressor), Drumformer (great results) and Voxformer, Varisaturator, GlissEQ and HarmoniEQ and the smaller ones, like StereoTouch (so good), Warmifier (very subtle when used correctly) and LF Max Punch (instantly rewarding).  When I master I always use CurveEQ (brilliant design), Soniformer and Elephant.

As an amateur, it's hard for me to appreciate just how good these plug-ins are, because I've not tried a lot of the comparable tools from other companies, but as Voxengo always does the job in the way I want, I've no desire to look for any replacements.  When I used Elephant, I knew I wouldn't need another limiter; it doesn't add any colour to the mix and it's incredibly powerful.  The entire mix is simply elevated, louder, with no apparent negatives.  The only one I have no idea how to use is Soniformer, but the presets are really solid, so I don't feel the need to investigate further.

The saturation, EQ and compressors in Voxformer helped me fully realise what my voice could be.  I had no idea my vocals could sound so full and warm until I used it, and now my singing has matured to match that sound so well that I don't even need to dump loads of effects anymore, just any quick preset on the Voxformer and there you go: thicker, sunnier, glowing.

I'm so stoked I came across this site, and I will definitely get the Polysquasher in the sale this summer.