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.

In a market saturated by modeled plugins and 'unique concept' plugins, Voxengo continues to maintain a niche right in the middle.  Their plugins are functional, stable, easy to work with and have a natural organic sound.  They are not emulations of 'prized' classic gear, nor are they bloated A.I driven multi-tools with masking meters and fancy 'learn' buttons; they are easy to use affordable problem solving tools that sacrifice nothing in sound quality or euphonics.

The PHA-979 is a an excellent example: it is a phase and time correction plugin - the kind of tool one uses to reduce or eliminate phase cancellation between microphones or other problematic multi-channel sources.

But PHA-979 is not like other phase correction plugins.  For one thing, it is Linear Phase, which means that phase adjustments are equal across the spectrum; LP rotation makes it possible to correct phase cancellations across the frequency spectrum, unlike 'analog' (minimum phase) tools, which typically force a compromise.. (if you still want to use minimum phase correction, PHA will do that too).

Second, it has a time (distance) adjustment included, so you can deal with all your phase issues in one plugin.  It also has a handy calculator that converts samples to milliseconds, and applies the result to the appropriate knob (you can zoom in on two sources in your DAW, determine the number of samples between the two, enter it into the handy calculator and hit 'enter,' and your sources will have the same start time).

And for good measure, PHA comes with an FFT style phase indicator, so you can see which frequencies are in phase, which ones are out and which ones are in between.

PHA-979 is a lifesaver with poorly recorded drum kits; its unique combination of tools and meters greatly reduce the time required to make a kit sound like it was miked up properly in the first place.

I have yet to see another phase correction tool that does linear phase rotation, much less one that is this easy to work with.

Did I mention that it sounds good?

Your products are amazing!

From your incredibly useful free-plugs to the very cheap and fantastic sounding payplugs.

I am recommending your company to anyone who'll listen, so please keep up the good work!

All the best,