Neve^® Complete Bundle

It really is a lot better

I too am really quite frustrated at having to pay $150 for an upgrade and do wish that UA was a bit more merciful with their customers regarding this.

But that said, the quality of this new plugin is incredible. I have been AB-ing it on a master channel with the old plugin using the exact settings and the difference really is night and day. The old Neve 88RS (now Legacy) really sounds flat, muddy and lifeless compared to the new one.

The new 88RS plug-in has a clarity to it that is outstanding. The EQ brings out a pristine quality to the sound and a presence that the old plug-in just can't match and I even detected a more pleasant dynamic range let through.

Note: the new plug now uses 12% of DSP resources on a UAD-2 quad.

my thoughts exactly

i read almost all the bad or low star reviews, all of which say plug-in sounds great! but price suck...plug-in sounds great! price suck....etc.
Look, the review page is for how the plug-in sounds and fits into ur work flow. Does it sound like garbage, does it sound like neve gold... get it, got it Good. keep'em coming UA, awesome work. O yeah the neve 88 sounds great....Lol. No really it does. on Hip Hop VOX...A+

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Dear Mr. UAD,

I am writing to congratulate you on your most recent channel strip release. I had previously written a one star review of the Neve 88RS channel strip re-release and have decided it was in haste. I've had all weekend to record some song ideas and much to my surprise… this plug in is an ANIMAL! It made my Rickenbacker sound like it was leaping out of the monitors at me. I've never heard or played with anything so damn inspiring. For real.

I'm sorry for my previous shitty review. Please keep up the good work and don't listen to my whining (and anybody else's).

P.S. I'm still taking off one star for charging $149/$299 for an update to a plug in I already own, no matter how awesome it is.

Excellent but too expensive for those who bought the legacy version

This is an excellent upgrade no doubt but still overpriced for customers who already bought the previous version. U.A you keep getting new plugins out with variable quality (some amazing some less convincing) but your prices in general have gone up and there is only so much money most customers can spend for a passion they don't earn money from. For sure it's costly to produce quality plugins and it must be worthwhile for universal audio but the price criteria is important and the competition is also getting excellently plugins out and so much cheeper. All these customers complains about the pricing of this update Reveal that customer sometime have the feeling they're being treating unfairly. 5 stars for the plugin but 1 star for the price.

i can`t understand....

I can`t understand all the negativ reviews about this great channel strip. Ok it cost 149 bucks, but you get a completly new designed channel strip. This new 88rs sounds so awesome, and if you get this collection, you can use both versions of the 88rs. The legacy version can save a lots of cpu power, and you have a good sounding eq by the way. If you low on dsp power this works well. It seems the 88rs legacy works well for years, and now the new 88rs works better for the next years too :) The only channel strip you need....get it!

To the people who are giving this 1STAR!

The people who are giving this 1STAR are the idiots who don't know how to use this properly! This isn't a plugin that you want to use everywhere you go. Well not the new 1073 as it will kill your DSP resources really quickly. The reason for that is because it's SO FUCKIN WELL MODELED!

You want to use this on the way in through your Apollo for the Preamp and print it then in every other cases use the Legacy version for EQing. I have an OCTO card as well as a QUAD and I tend to do an 8 Channel summing mix after I've finished my mix. 8 Channels of this and you'll have something very very unique my friends!

10/10

A bit of balance

I am throwing in a five star rating here to balance things up a bit.
Some people think it's unfair of UA to charge halt the list price for an update. I think it's unfair to give this excellent plugin one star because of that.

If you bought the original version and thought it was worth the money then be happy with that purchase. The new version is a new plugin all together, rebuilt from ground up which I'm sure took a lot of effort. It's not a minor update. If you don't think it's worth the upgrade price (which is perfectly understandable) then you don't need to pay it. It's not as if your current version will stop functioning. Take one star off the review for high pricing, but to give it one star is just as unfair.

Evil, evil people. I activated the demo of the Neve 33609. I was forced to scrape together the 249 bucks before the two weeks ran out cuz I could not work without this on the master bus. I have upgraded my studio in the past 6 months and so I am re inventing the wheel here and I have been adding more and more UAD plugs, I had been using the T-Racks matering system and this was leaving a more colored compression on the tracks, but the Neve 33609 is clean and just sits on the master bus adding shine and brightness to the master. I love this and it is just the mest master compressor that I have ever used. Thanks so much, but you are still evil, evil people.

Emperor's new clothes

I'm a fan of UAD plug-ins. Yesterday I was mixing at Air Studios 2 Lyndhurst, where I have mixed many film scores and is my go to mix room having been at Air since 1986. So I could A/B the 'legacy' 88RS with the new 88RS. The eq and the compressor sounded pretty much the same and didn't represent a huge leap forward. They've added pre amp saturation/distortion and a fader for the upgrade price.

That doesn't bother me, what does, is that the plug-in is ridiculously dsp hungry even with deadlock off and no sections turn on it still eats away dsp which leads me to believe that what UAD are really doing is trying to sell you more hardware to run these plug-ins.

It's a shabby and cynical way to treat loyal customers. Shame

roop@airstudios.com

The plugin is great but !!

IMHO... the plugin is great. Sounds like a Neve should sound and honestly, it makes me feel good once again that I when with the UAD platform. Here is the but... as one of the first purchasers of the Apollo once again I feel slighted. First I missed out on the standard Thunderbolt option, next I messed out on the standard analog collection that now comes with Apollos. Most of those I had to buy but I still don't have the Fairchild because legacy owners didn't receive the upgrade. I also missed out on all the plug promotions after I bought mine. So IMHO this plugin is worth the money but please don't forget your first purchasers of the Apollo who have missed out on so much. (Console 2.0 also) thanks!! I appreciate coupons but another $150 ??

The best channel strip

After getting over multiple plugin instances and separate processes, I decided to try find a good overall channel strip to help simplify workflow. I was certain after tirelessly trying the API Vision, SSL, 88RS legacy and all the other big player channel strips (or things that combine to make one) the past couple of months that the API would be it and then this came along. In terms of overall quality, both sonically and features, this plugin kind of leaves everything I tried for dust. The bottom end doesn't loosen up when making excessive boosts, the mid range isn't harsh and the top end makes you feel like you're boosting off tape. The option to select line amp and mic is also something I dig quite a lot. Only bad thing is it's DSP heavy.

nice saturation

Love this plug. I own the hardware and it sounds almost like it. Awesome job UAD. I'm not a big fan of the GUI knob-controls. Why make everything exactly like the hardware? Please make it more mouse/computer friendly :-)

New 88r is too expensive and too dsp heavy...

The "legacy" neve 88rs plugin is my go to , most useful, plug in. I could mix an entire record with just that one plugin since it does it all- eq, comp, gate, gain. In fact, all of my mixes are based off this - then sometimes I add a specific comp- either an 1176 or a LA2A here and there for specific favor- maybe a pultec EQ if I need that flavor, but the foundation on track after track is the 88r. Now we've got this new version. It's supposed to be "better" - but the great thing about the "legacy" is that it uses little dsp yet sounds good. This new one uses 40%! You can't load that on every track in your mix - you're going to have to use it only here and there, and to my mind that's not what a bread and butter eq/ comp is for! Not buying!

Costly in $$$ and DSP

5 stars for sound quality, -3 stars for upgrade pricing and DSP usage. $150 is a steep upgrade considering I paid $300 for this channel strip originally. I might be able to stomach it by waiting for coupons and sales throughout the year, BUT considering I can run a max of 16 instances on an OCTO card makes this too costly on my UAD hardware as well. There should be a way of saving unison resources for those of us running PCI-E or thunderbolt satellite rigs without the Apollo pres. It's getting harder to justify the cost (both upgrade and additional hardware to be able to run enough instances to be useful) when other options are becoming more attractive all the time.

This... this is a game changer.

I gotta take a second and tell you, this plug in changes everything. Wow.

Emperor's new clothes

I'm a fan of UAD plug-ins. Yesterday I was mixing at Air Studios 2 Lyndhurst, where I have mixed many film scores and is my go to mix room having been at Air since 1986. So I could A/B the 'legacy' 88RS with the new 88RS. The eq and the compressor sounded pretty much the same and didn't represent a huge leap forward. They've added pre amp saturation/distortion and a fader for the upgrade price.

That doesn't bother me, what does, is that the plug-in is ridiculously dsp hungry even with deadlock off and no sections turn on it still eats away dsp which leads me to believe that what UAD are really doing is trying to sell you more hardware to run these plug-ins.

It's a shabby and cynical way to treat loyal customers. Shame

roop@airstudios.com

Amazing Channel Strip....but

This and the API are arguably two of the best reasons to own an Apollo. However, seriously not happy about having to pay for it again to get the unison tech. I'm sure the SSL strip will next. Feels like UAD is punishing those that invested in the Channel Strips originally. They should be giving a better deal to those that paid full price for the "legacy" channel strips.

Soooo good but.....

I see all of the people who are saying don't moan about the upgrade price seem to be relatively new UAD owners with Apollo's. I have been a full fat subscriber to the UAD religion for over 10 years from UAD1's and now Apollo and PCIE. Ive accumulated a LOT of plugs over time and this is the first one I feel should have had a better price point for existing legacy 88 owners. We bought that plug BEFORE the apollos and helped spread the gospel according to Universal Audio. Sure I have no problem paying for an upgrade that has upgraded features (which this does in buckets btw!) but a shout out to the disciples that have been with them along this incredible journey would have been nice by way of a discount. Other than that its fantastic!

i hope

that since this plug-in has been put out,UA reads these reviews on how the pricing upgrades need not apply to "legacy" users.this plug in is great and sounds better than the last but there should be no reason it should have to come to users complaining about these updates and the pricing sabotaging the great work done on these updates.thanks for the coupon and the discount upon my complaining earlier.thanks but it shouldn't have to take that.

Just Listen To It

You know, if UA had just released this plug as the "AMS Neve 88R… B", there would be no 1 star reviews. Everyone would listen to this plug-ins' capabilities, jaws would hit floors, people would marvel at what UA's programmers had accomplished and monies would be parted with happily. This thing is to the "Legacy 88RS" what a '57 Les Paul Custom is to a 2015 Epiphone Standard. To some, it's the same thing. To a musician, one is to be cherished and the other is a toy. THIS Neve 88RS does everything well - buttery smooth EQ, fat & faithful comp, fantastic gate and a big & tight mic pre sound. It's worth every penny and is among the finest plug-ins they've come up with… and that's saying a lot.