EQ Sitral-295

Comp Diode 609

Bus Force

I tried out three of the 22 plugins in the new Arturia FX Collection 2 update. All three are master bus processors beginning with the EQ Sitral-295 that's based on the Siemens W295B equalizer, the Comp Diode 609 is a model of the Neve 33609 bus compressor, and Bus Force parallel processor mimics the Overstayer modular stereo channel.

The EQ Sitral-295 plugin is a smooth three-band stereo equalizer that includes high and low-pass filter sections. For very fine gain (+/-) dB adjustments, there is a global gain range selector that subdivides the indicated front panel values by 0.75, 0.5, 0.25 or 1 i.e. no change.

When hovering over any control, a dedicated window in the lower left shows what's that control is doing. In stereo channel mode, the left and right controls link together (default) but you can unlink them anytime. Because the two channels do not automatically unlink in Mid/Side mode, you could arrive at a mastering EQ in stereo mode and then switch over to M/S mode and keep the same EQ. In M/S, you could tweak the Mid or Side EQs separately.

I also liked the "stepped" controls for mastering applications for their solid, repeatable settings.

The Comp Diode 609's GUI certainly looks like the (hardware) Neve 33609 compressor/limiter and, when placed after the EQ and set to a 4:1 ratio, 5ms attack and 800ms recovery times, offered a "cap" to the loud and soft dynamics of the stop and start nature of the song I was mastering. Just the ticket!

Bus Force is just a lot of fun parallel combining the Dry, Compressor, and Saturation sections' signals. All sound goes though a three-band equalizer, hi-pass and low-pass filter and compressor with side-chain input and variable frequency filter. The side-chain's input is routable to an external source.

I discovered I could add/remove any of the EQ, Compressor and Filters sections by clicking on boxes in the GUI. A pretty extensive kit and it ends up with a Clipping section I love to use on its own. An unexpected feature here! Love it all!

The regular price for FXC2 with a total of 22 plugins is $399. These are just three of them. Great collection!