Voxengo PHA-979

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 must add a review to point out that this plug-in has more uses than at first meets the eye.

You may use it to construct a Dolby ProLogic (r) encoder so that your stereo material is compatible with all the Hi-Fi amps, televisions, game consoles that provide surround sound from a two channel delivery format.

The specifications for all modern surround formats have this in common; that they extract the surround channels from the out-of-phase "S" component of the stereo stream.

The surround L and surround R signals.

The encoding process is the same for all Dolby 2 channel systems, whereas the decoders built into Dolby certified equipment varies in complexity and channel count.

To encode Dolby compatible material, you need to set up a stereo AUX bus with the Voxengo Phase plugin, apply a short delay to both channels and a +90 degrees phase shift to the L channel and a -90 degree phase shift to the R channel.

All channels you want to have appear in your rear speakers will have to have in addition to going to the main stereo bus, a send to the AUX channel.  The send should have a pan pot so you can send the signal to either channel of the Aux bus.

When you increase the level of the send, you'll hear that the sound moves from front to back in accordance with your send level.  The panning of the send will determine if the sound emirates from the left or right surround speakers.  The mix between the send and the main stereo content will determine the fromt/back placement.

For a description of the levels and specifications, see this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_decoder#Dolby_Stereo_and_Dolby_Surround_.28matrix_4:2:4.29

This plug-in is the only one (and I've tested a lot!) that actually offers a true 90 degrees phase shift across the frequency range and that works as a surround encoder.  The quality of the sound is pristine, and I'm happy to have found this gem!

This last week, I upgraded one of my computers from Windows XP to Win7.  I did this by completely reformatting my partition, and installing everything from scratch.

When it came time to install and authorize all my Voxengo plugs, I was delighted to find something no regular user encounters on a day to day basis - that there is a means to authorize all my licensed Voxengos in a single action.  That is some very clever and very considerate programming, and greatly appreciated by someone faced with the tedious task of installing and authorizing dozens of programs and plugins.

Voxengo plugins are an integral part of my working process now, and just about everything I turn out has been touched in one way or another by your work.  Thanks very much for the great sound, and the little touches that are the product of great programming.