Review: Lindell Plugs Itself In
Lindell Audio put out some very useable and affordable 500 series kit not so long ago, and in a surprising twist, has emulated its own gear as plug-ins! …with a couple of notable enhancements, mind you.
By Greg Walker
23 February 2015
6X-500 — A simple ‘preamp’ channel that incorporates independent or linked I/O gain and stripped back treble and bass boost at a total of six set frequencies. When driven hard the input gain delivers some rather filthy preamp overload tones which can be very handy on the right source but won’t be to everyone’s tastes. A real highlight are the super flexible high and low pass filters.
PEX-500 — The left hand panel of this plug-in is a faithful reproduction of Lindell’s two-band Pultec-style EQ with typical boost and attenuation controls at selected bass and treble frequencies incorporating variable bandwidth. The sound is subtly sweet and musical, but things get interesting with the input pad and Mid/Side switching on the right. The PEX-500 offers independently settable mid and side EQs that stay in its memory when the EQ is toggled back to normal mode. Great for mastering, trouble shooting and creative effects on stereo sources! Score one for digital.
7X-500 — A compressor plug that offers three set ratios, a two-step high pass filter side-chain circuit and switchable slow/medium/fast attack and release settings that can be fine-tuned using the continuously variable controls over on the right of the plug. Another mastering-grade feature here is the variable stereo link mode allowing fine-tuning of dynamics crosstalk on stereo sources.
And pulling all this processing into one powerful channel strip is the ChannelX plug-in. Available in all the major types for both Windows and Mac, you can grab the suite for $249 from Federal Audio.
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