P42 Climax Line Amp

As soon as I inserted the plugin, I was pretty impressed.

At my studio we work a lot with subtle saturation for tracking, doing so I get to use a diverse array of preamps, from vintage tube preamps, 60s/70s transformer-based, European, American up to more modern gear.

As I was impressed upon listening to the P42, I checked to see if it wasn't the init setting that was louder than my unprocessed material, which is a trick too often seen and heard. But no, peak levels were similar, but I could hear a beefing up of the low end, more density in the sound from the saturation compression and harmonic colouration. Also, transients didn't get butchered but so slightly sweetened.

Whatever track or source material you're working on, boosting the saturation slider emphasises the aforementioned effect on the sound and it takes quite some action before the sound breaks up. When it does it sounds sweet.

I must say that while I give it 5 stars for the sound, which matters most, I would have given less for the GUI which at first sight gave me a « made with Synthedit » déjà vu of when I started out with free plugins, associated sometimes with less reliable ones.

However, in the week that I've been demoing it, sometimes with many instances it has been rock solid, not a glitch.

While priced a bit strong, it works on a broad spectrum of material and with the available controls can be setup for finesse or scorching hot sound.

Definitely worth trying.