Sunglow

Name: Sunglow
Author: Acustica Audio

by Acustica Audio · Channel Strip · Class A British console strip

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Sunglow is a Class A, transformer-based channel strip inspired by hand-built British consoles from the 1960s to 1980s, including Sound Techniques designs.

It has six preamp emulations, a 4-band EQ and a VCA bus compressor; no price was shown on the product page.

Best for: Vocals, Drums, Bass, Guitars, Mix Bus. Genres: all genres.

Keywords: bus processing, British console, mix bus, transformer, 60s, 80s, vintage, warm, full mix, hardware emulation, inspired by, VCA, oversampling, bass, classic, drums, dual-mono, metering, mid/side, mixing, resizable UI, solid-state, vocals.

What it does

Sunglow is Acustica Audio's channel strip inspired by hand-built, transformer-based British consoles of the 1960s to 1980s, including elements drawn from Sound Techniques desks. Its idea is a warm, "vintage" British color across preamp, EQ and bus compression.

Six preamps: Mono Line, Mono Mic, Mono DI, Stereo Comp, Stereo Bus Group and Stereo Mix, each a separate preamp emulation.
Analog Plus: Acustica's newer algorithm that adds the dynamic, transformer-like saturation behavior of real preamps.
Hybrid 4-band EQ: mids drawn from a well-known British studio console and highs and lows from a passive circuit of a classic solid-state console.
High-pass filter: three fixed options at 45, 83 or 118 Hz.
VCA compressor/limiter: a dual-mono, soft-knee bus compressor with ratios from 1.5:1 to full limiting, and threshold, attack, release, makeup and ratio controls.
Engine and quality: Hyper 3 technology with the Aria engine and real-time metering, a new anti-aliasing algorithm and up to 8x oversampling.
Monitoring and interface: delta, L/R, mid and side listening modes, a resizable GUI and factory presets.

The product page did not show a version when it was read.

Source: Acustica Audio product page

When to use it

Sunglow is the pick for an older, transformer-heavy British desk sound rather than the later SSL character. Compared with bx_console SSL 4000 E and SSL 4K G, it is warmer and rounder, with a choice of six preamp flavors and its own soft-knee bus compressor instead of an SSL-style channel dynamics section. Compared with Native Channel Strip 2, it trades a light, fast workflow for sampled hardware color and a heavier CPU load. Unlike Acustica's own Sand 4 Ultra, which targets 1980s and later British consoles, Sunglow reaches further back, to desks from the 1960s on.

Best for: warm vintage British color on tracks, groups and the mix bus.
Genres: any, especially Rock & Indie and vintage-leaning Pop.
Look elsewhere if: you want the punchy modern SSL sound (SSL 4K G or Native Channel Strip 2) or low CPU use.

Where to buy

Acustica Audio: see store

Tutorials and reviews

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