Recording - February 2015 - 41

Hardware or software?
Now we come to the real crux of this review: How does the
plug-in compare to the hardware? This is the part where I usually tell you that they are within 5-10% of each other and the
hardware has a bit more vibe and air...
Not this time; I was thrown for a loop. Yes, they are sonically
within 5 to 10% of each other, but in this case it's not the highend air that differentiates the two, it's the low-end vibe. The team
at UA nailed the high end and the air amazingly to my ear, but
it's the dimensional depth in the low end where the hardware
comes out ahead.
This difference in the lows is most noticeable when using the
Massive Passive on a full mix or master. When using the two on
one element in a mix, you can switch between the two and barely notice a difference at all. The only other thing to point out is
that as with many plug-in emulations, I needed to drive the plugin about a 1/4 dB to 1 dB louder to get the two to match in volume and and overall feel.
How much does the 5-10% plug-in vs. hardware difference
matter, especially when the hardware is a $5600 handmade
work of art while the plug-in (still a work of art) is only $299...
and even less if you watch for one of UA's frequent and excellent sales? Here's a true story about that 5-10%.
I am in the middle of mixing a modern prog album with tripletracked heavy guitars. For this review, I was testing out the hardware when I found out just how amazing it sounded on a stereo
guitar bus with the heavy guitars panned left, right, center.
When I played it for the band, they were blown away too!
I let them know that we could use the hardware for the mixes
while I was reviewing the unit, but if the mixing took longer than
my review period (it did), then I would have to send the hardware back and we would need to continue with the plug-in, or

just skip the Massivo and use a different hardware EQ from my
personal collection. The client decided the guitar sound was
undeniably amazing and chose to continue with the hardware
Massive Passive while we could, and then switch to the plug-in
after that if remixes or tweaks needed to be made. The great surprise was that while the hardware simply soared on the guitars
alone, when we did A/B comparisons in the mix we were hard
pressed to tell the difference.
Perfectionism personified
On the plug-in power front, such an accurate emulation does
take up a fair amount of power. In mono use it will eat up 37%
of a UAD-2 SHARC chip, and 60% in stereo. Essentially stereo
use is one to one depending on the size of your card: 1 on a
SOLO, 2 on a DUO, 4 on a QUAD, and 8 on an OCTO.
But it's so worth the DSP expenditure. For Eveanna Manley to
endorse a software plug-in of one of her company's devices is
a big deal. In fact, for years at trade shows Manley Labs had
a poster of a vacuum tube, stating, "This is a plug-in"! While
many companies jumped into the modeling fray early, Eveanna
held out until she heard a company get it right, and get it right
they did.
And there's more Manley magic to come; just before I started
this project, Universal Audio and Manley Labs released a software version of Manley's Vari-Mu Compressor... but we'll save
that for a future review!
Price: Manley Massive Passive, $5600 (mastering version,
$6300); UAD-2 Massive Passive Plug-in, $299
More from: Universal Audio, www.uaudio.com; Manley Labs,
www.manley.com
http://www.uaudio.com http://www.manley.com http://www.primacoustic.com http://www.primacoustic.com/hearthedifference
Recording - February 2015

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