Nomad Factory

The Nomad Factory Liquid Verb II is a reveb plug-in that comes with Nomad’s Liquid II bundle of plug-ins. There are six plug-ins in total that come with this bundle, all at a very reasonable price. I don’t own the bundle so I wasn’t involved with installing it at all. Learning to use the plug-in for me wasn’t very hard at all, although there is a lot of control to be aware of here. The plug-in is split into three main sections – an equalizer, the reverb, and extra filters and leveling parameters. The equalizer is made up of three bands for bass, middle, and treble, with the ability to put it either pre or post reverb. The reverb itself gives you control over stereo width, damper, reverb time, and pre-delay, while the extra filters include a high and low pass. There are also overall reverb and dry level parameter in addition to input and output level parameters. Lastly, you can set the plug-in to an overall small, medium, or large reverb mode. Even though there are a decent amount of parameters here, it’s still quite easy to use and a manual shouldn’t be necessary. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The studio that I work at actually has a number of rooms on site, so we’ve got the Nomad Factory Liquid Verb II and the full Liquid II bundle running on all of these systems. The main room is Pro Tools HD based, as are the others, with a Mac Pro computer that has dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processors and 10 GB of RAM, which is more than enough to run this plug-in. Since it’s a reverb plug-in I’ll generally use it on auxiliary channel to save processing power anyway, which is something I’d always recommend doing regardless of your system… OVERALL OPINION Overall, the Nomad Factory Liquid Verb II is a nice little reverb plug-in, but it’s not the most realistic one that I’ve used before. There’s a lot that can be done with it and it certainly can add a good amount of depth to your sound. It’s nice to have the EQ controls here for the most part, but generally they’ll go unused if I’m using the plug-in as I’ll leave that to more qualified plug-ins. I wouldn’t recommend buying the Liquid II bundle just for this plug-in, but being that the bundle is $200 for six plug-ins of this caliber, it’s hard to go wrong. The Nomad Factory Liquid Verb II plug-in in the full bundle is a great way for home and professional studio owners to get some quality plug-ins on the cheap!

The Nomad Factory British Tone EQ BQ2S is an equalizer plug-in that comes as part of the Blue Tubes Equalizer Pack and is not available as an individual plug-in as far as I know. The plug-in has a fairly simple interface that most users will be able to figure out with any assistance whatsoever. It’s really a basic three band EQ, with varying degrees of control each of the bands. The bass band gives you four frequencies to choose from (60 Hz, 90Hz, 120 Hz, and 220 Hz), while it also has a gain knob for plus or minus 15 db and a control for setting the band width. The middle band has more frequencies to choose from, ranging from 300 Hz to 5 kHz, and the treble band is more like the bass band in that it only gives you four frequencies – 6 kHz, 8 kHz, 10 kHz, 12 kHz. There is also an overall output level knob and a simple limiting button as well. A manual shouldn’t be necessary in order to figure out how to use this plug-in. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The studio that I work at has the Nomad Factory British Tone EQ BQ2S and the full Blue Tubes Equalizer Pack running on all of our systems. The main system that we have it on is Pro Tools HD (like the others), and runs on a Mac Pro desk top computer that has dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processors and 10 GB of RAM. This is more than adequate to run this plug-in, as it really doesn’t seem to take up much processing power at all. OVERALL OPINION The Nomad Factory British Tone EQ BQ2S is overall a great little EQ plug-in, perfect for boosting or cutting frequencies across the board. It doesn’t offers as much flexibility as you’d get with some more parametric, but it’s still adequate enough to get the job done more times than not. I use it a pretty good amount if I’m EQing inside the box, as I find it to be warmer sounding than the stock EQ plug-ins in Pro Tools. The Blue Tubes Equalizer Pack bundle as a whole is just $200 and contains six different EQ plug-ins of all kinds, so if you’re looking to expand your EQ plug-in palette, this is the perfect way to do it!

The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Brick Wall 2S-XP Limiter is a simple limiting plug-in that’s a part of the Blue Tubes Dynamics Pack. It’s the easiest to use in a bundle that has six plug-ins in total including another more in depth limiter. This one is specifically designed for hard limiting, hence the brick wall name. I don’t own the bundle at home so I wasn’t involved in the installation process at all, but the learning the interface couldn’t be easier. It just has parameters for threshold and release, which is really all you need when it comes to brick wall limiting. It also has a switch for peak removal and metering for both stereo channels with options for monitoring input, output, or gain reduction. A manual really should not be necessary. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The studio I work at has the full Blue Tubes Dynamics Pack and the BT BW2S-XP Limiter plug-in running on all of our systems, all of which are Pro Tools HD based. I’ve mostly used it in our main room, which has Pro Tools 8 and a MacPro computer. The computer has 10 GB of RAM and dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processors. We also have all Apogee converters and monitor with Barefoot MM27’s. Since it’s all HD systems, I’ve never had a problem running this on any of our systems. Most users shouldn’t have issues… OVERALL OPINION The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Brick Wall 2S-XP Limiter is perfect for doing simple limiting jobs inside the box. I wouldn’t use it for any sort of real mastering purposes, but occasionally during mixing I’ll have a track that might need some limiting done and this is a quick and easy way to get the job done. To be honest, I haven’t used it all that much since I first used it a bunch of times since I don’t have it at home and I like to do a lot of crossing between my home studio and the professional studio I work at. Having said this, it’s pretty effective as far as limiting goes inside the box. I wouldn’t recommend getting it as an individual plug-in since it’s really worth it to get the full bundle due to the difference in price per plug-in, but the bundle is definitely worthwhile.

The BBE Sonic Sweet has been a part of my set up since 2010, it can be used as a VST with either Windows or MAC computers. It is a maximizer plug-in suite that has some audio enhancement plug-ins. It is very affordable costing less than 100 dollars and it is something that any engineer needs to have. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Installing it was quick and easy, it only takes a few minutes and it is very light on your CPU. I have run this over 5 times simultaneously and still have not had a issue with it freezing or crashing. I compare the BBE Sonic Sweet to Waves plug-ins a lot because they give you a similar sound. That is sort of the reason why I am not happy that I purchased the BBE Sonic Sweet, it is so much like the Waves plug-in bundle that I feel like I wasted my money. It was a good thing it was only 100 dollars. OVERALL OPINION I love using the BBE Sonic Sweet on my drum tracks though, if you need to get your snares and kicks to cut through your mix and have some pop to them then the BBE Sonic Sweet will take care of that easily with just a preset you will notice how much of a difference it makes. I sometimes have difficulty getting my snares to pop and cut through the mix but the Sonic Sweet does it for me now. If you really spend the time to understand the BBE Sonic Sweet you will be able to get great sounds with it. It won’t happen quickly and it will take some experimenting but once you get it down you can find some things that you will love and find yourself using very often in a lot of your tracks. This is one of those programs that every time you use it you will fall more in love with it.

Nomad Factory's Analog Mastering Tools is a plug-in bundle of three separate processors. As the name obviously states, these plug-ins are intended for mastering purposes and design themselves after analog gear. However, I've mostly used these plug-ins for mixing and they do the job just the same. The bundle is quite cheap, even if it just has three of them in there. The three plug-ins included in the bundle are the Max Warm, Multi Max, and Amp Leveling plug-ins. The Amp Leveling plug-in is a brick wall limiter, while Max Warm is both a limiter and EQ and Multi Max is an extended version of this. I wasn't the one to install this bundle on the systems at the studio where I work, so I can't speak up on this process at all. All of the plug-ins are fairly easy to use so I don't think users will be needing a manual for them. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE We've got the Nomad Factory Analog Mastering Tools bundle running on all of our systems at the studio where I work. I've used them on most of the systems we have, but mostly in our A room which is Pro Tools HD based and has a Mac Pro computer that has 10 GB of RAM and dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processor. I've yet to have a problem with running any of the plug-ins on this system, but it's not the best judge since it's so powerful to begin with. OVERALL OPINION Nomad Factory's Analog Mastering Tools bundle is definitely one to look into if you're looking for a few extra mastering and mixing plug-ins. While they're supposed to be for mastering, and that's their best use, they're definitely suitable for mixing purposes as well and I've used them a good deal for that. These aren't professional mastering plug-ins and are really meant for the DAW user who wants to get some inexpensive mastering tools for home mastering jobs for demos and the like. I wouldn't master anything with this on a professional basis, as they just couldn't get the job done. Having said this, the bundle is very cheap and worth looking into if you're looking for some mastering plug-ins that can also serve as mixing tools as well.

The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Equalizers Pack is a plug-in bundle of six individual equalizers. There are EQ's of all different types in this pack, having both graphic and parametric EQ's and both simple and in depth EQ's. I'm not an owner of this plug-in bundle as I've only used it at the studio where I'm working where we've got pretty much all of the Nomad Factory stuff installed. Since I don't own it and it has been installed on there for a while, I wasn't involved with installing it and don't know what the process entails, although I can assume that it's pretty easy based on installing other software. None of the plug-ins are too hard to use, with the British Tone Equalizer BQ2S, Baxandall Equalizer BX2S, Model GEQ12, Program Equalizer PEQ2B, Equalizer Model PEQ5B, and the Equalizer Model PEQ322 all being included in the bundle. Some are easier to use than others, but this just has to do with the nature of each EQ. I haven't ever seen a manual for the bundle or any of the plug-ins in it... SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The studio is running the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Equalizers Pack on a number of different systems, since we have a good number of them on site. Our main room is running it on a MacPro computer with 10 GB of RAM and dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processor, along with Pro Tools HD which is the case on all of the systems. There's not much more that than to say as all of our Pro Tools HD systems are more than capable of running these plug-ins without hiccups. OVERALL OPINION The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Equalizers Pack is a nice little bundle to have running in any DAW. It's not ground breaking by any means, but they give you a nice array of different types of EQ's in here, and saying it was on the cheap would be an understatement. The price per plug-in is pretty ridiculous since you're getting six in one here. Again, the plug-ins aren't the best sounding EQ's out there, but they'll get the job more times than not and for the price they can't be beat. The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Equalizers Pack is the perfect way for the home studio owner (or professional) looking to add six quality EQ plug-ins for the price of one in the case of many plug-ins.

I installed the Nomad Factory AMT Max Warm limiter with no problems. There were no compatibility issues that I had. The manual (a pdf that comes with download) was very informative. The setup was pretty basic and it's a really easy plug-in to figure out how to use. It can be used for mastering as well as mixing which makes it pretty flexible. It's not really a professional quality mastering plug-in but it'll work for home projects. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I've never had a problem with this software not working correctly. I haven't had to use it on a multitude of tracks really, so I don't know how opening multiple instances of it will affect the system, but I imagine that it would react similarly to most plug-ins would to that situation, which would be to slow down. It's been really stable with my Digi 003 rack overall. I've been getting a fast performance. I've been using it for a couple months now and I really like it. OVERALL OPINION The best thing about this limiter is the warmth it adds to a mix. I've basically been complaining that my mixes sounded dull and lifeless, and by adding this to certain elements of the mix I've managed to make it feel much better. I really like the extra low and high end EQ adjusters, which help balance out the frequencies after compression. This really helps the vocal feel more natural while still retaining the warmth that the plug-in provides. While this isn't what I always use I do like it more and more all the time, and am finding that I'll probably stick with it for awhile. I bought it in a bundle and all of the plug-ins in that bundle were totally worth it (price in interview reflects price of bundle as it's not sold seperately).

The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Effects Pack is a bundle of six plug-ins of various effects for your DAW. This is a great way to get some in depth plug-ins of some basic effects all in one place. I don't know the availability of these plug-ins as individuals, but it's definitely worth getting the bundle as a whole since I know with Nomad Factory in general you'll save a lot of money by buying the bundles rather than the individuals. Included in the Blue Tubes Effects Pack are BT Dual Analog Chorus CH-2S, BT Tempo Delay DL3D, BT Valve Driver ADR2S, BT Analog Phaser APH2S, BT Stereo Imager ST2S, and the BT Olican Echo TLE2S, so as you can tell the effects are pretty varying in nature. They all share similar looking and feeling interfaces, with varying degrees of control available in each. However, I've found all of them to be pretty easy to use more or less, although some have more going on than others. I don't know if a manual is necessary and I haven't seen it anyway so I can't really speak to it's make up. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I'm not an owner of the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Effects Pack, but have used it at the studio where I work, as we've got it on all of our systems there, which are a bunch since we have a number of rooms on site. Our A room consists of Pro Tools HD and a MacPro desktop computer with 10 GB of RAM and dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processors, so it's suffice it to say we never have any issues running software and plug-ins within this set up. This bundle is definitely marketed to home studio owners, so I would think that most users at home would be able to handle the plug-ins as far as performance is concerned. OVERALL OPINION If you're looking for some bang for your buck when it comes to a bundle of various effects plug-ins for your DAW, the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Effects Pack absolutely should be in the running. You aren't going to find many plug-in bundles in general for this price, let alone one with a good amount of versatility and an overall impressive sound quality. The plug-ins should stand up to most others of it's kind and it's definitely awesome to have all these different effects processors in one place. This BT Effects Pack is perfect for the home studio on a budget but is also great for professionals looking to beef up their sound palette in the way of some extra plug-ins...

The Nomad Factory British MCL-2269 is one of two plug-ins that make up the Nomad Factory British Bundle. It comes along with the NEQ-1972 equalizer, and I don’t believe it’s available individually. The bundle is suitable for both mixing and mastering purposes, but I’ve really only used it for mixing thus far. I don’t own the plug-in but have used it at the studio where I currently work, which has almost all of the Nomad Factory plug-in available. Learning the plug-in was hard for me, but certainly it takes some prior knowledge of dynamic processors, as is going to be the case when starting off with any compressor/limiter. The parameters that the MCL-2269 has available include input and output level controls, make up (compression) gain, attack, recovery, ratio, recovery, threshold, and limit level. There are separate switches for turning the compressor and limiter on or off as well, so it’s not just a compressor/limiter in one. A manual would be a good idea if you’re just getting used to compressor/limiters, but shouldn’t be necessary for experienced users. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The studio I’m working at has the Nomad Factory British MCL-2269 plug-in running on all of our systems, which is a good number as we have a bunch of studios on site. However, I’ve mostly used it in the main room, although I’ve used it on a few of the systems, all of which are pretty comparable as far as how well they’ll run plug-ins since they’re all Pro Tools HD systems. Regardless, most users won’t have any problems running this on their systems. OVERALL OPINION The Nomad Factory British MCL-2269 is one of my favorite overall compressor/limiters that Nomad has to offer (and they’ve got a lot of them). I’m not completely sure what type of hardware this is modeling, but it’s some sort of British based module, hence the name of course. It has a really full sound for a plug-in and definitely gives off a vintage vibe both in sound and look. The MCL-2269 is best suited when you’re looking to get in depth dynamic processing, and I think it’s really awesome that it’s got a separate compressor and limiter as usually they’ll have the same controls for both. Since you can’t buy it on it’s own (I don’t think), it’s worth checking out the NEQ-1972 equalizer that’s paired in the British Bundle with this plug-in, which is also quite cool as it’s definitely a great bundle to have!

The Nomad Factory Program Equalizer PEQ-2B is an equalizer plug-in that's a part of the Blue Tubes Equalizer Pack. This is a Pultec style EQ and is actually labeled as the EQP-2B on the face of the plug-in, so I'm not sure why there's a difference there. Either way, the plug-in has an easy to use interface that should be simple regardless of if you're familiar with the general Pultec EQ make up. It's not identical in terms of make up to the original Pultec, but it's about as close as you can get. There are two bands, a low frequency one with seven fixed frequencies to choose from ranging from 20 Hz to 140 Hz and another with frequencies ranging from 4 kHz to 16 kHz. Each has it's own separate boost and attenuation knobs, and there's also a bandwidth parameter for the high frequency band. You can also set the attenuation frequency on the high band with a three way switch with frequencies of 5 kHz, 10 kHz, and 20 kHz to choose from. Lastly, there's a limiter button for light limiting and an overall output trim knob. A manual isn't something that most users will need, but if you're feeling lost you might as well have it around to help with this and the other plug-ins in the bundle. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I don't own Nomad Factory's Blue Tubes Equalizer Pack but have been using the Program Equalizer PEQ-2B on a few different systems at the studio where I work. The main room we have it in consists of Pro Tools HD and a Mac Pro computer that has 10 GB of RAM and dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processors. I've never encountered any issues at all when it comes to performance, though this system isn't the best judge since it can handle virtually anything... OVERALL OPINION While useful, I haven't found myself using the Nomad Factory Program Equalizer PEQ-2B too much after initially using it a number of times for simple EQ jobs. It's best for bringing out a certain character in a sound rather than for finer EQ purposes, but I've got other EQ's that I think do the job better than this one. It will definitely do an okay job for use here and there, but I've found that it's not good enough to be used on a daily basis. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, it just doesn't sound amazing. I've got other Pultec style plug-ins, including some others made by Nomad themselves that I like better than this one. It's definitely nice to have if you have the plug-in bundle it comes in, but the bundle isn't worth it for this plug-in nor do I think it's worth it to purchase it individually if possible...

The Nomad Factory Essential Studio Suite is a bundle of 9 plug-ins of all your basic signal processors like compression, EQ, etc. Included in the Essential bundle are the following: a Multiband Compressor, a Multiband Maximizer, the Essential Channel, a Compressor, a Graphic EQ, a Gate/Expander, a Loudness Maximizer, Retrovox, and a Tube Tape Warmer. As you can tell, these are the kinds of plug-ins that every DAW should have available, hence the name 'Essential Studio Suite.' You install the full bundle of plug-ins at once, which is an easy step by step process just like installing any other piece of software. In general the plug-ins are pretty easy to use and aren't convoluted at all, as they are definitely catering this bundle toward home studio owners who may just be learning how to use these types of processors. A manual for the bundle might be a good idea if you're really just starting with using plug-ins and signal processors in general. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I've got all of the plug-ins in the Nomad Factory Essential Studio Suite running on my system at home as I've had the bundle for a few years or so now. My rig consists of Pro Tools LE 8 which I run with a Digi 002R audio interface and on a Mac Book Pro that has 4 GB of RAM and a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. I'm also monitoring with a set of Adam A7's if that matters. All of the plug-ins take up a pretty small amount of processing power, some more than others, but in general I haven't had any issues running these plug-ins on my system at home. OVERALL OPINION The Nomad Factory Essential Studio Suite is one of the best bundles out there in terms of bang for your buck. If you break down the price in terms of per plug-in, it comes out to right around $20 US dollars each, which is pretty phenomenal. If I could recommend one bundle for the user who just got a DAW, it would probably be this one. All of the plug-ins sound pretty good, although none of them are crazy in terms of a super high quality. They're all on about the same level, and are all plug-in types that you should have at least one of in your suite. Those in the market for an inexpensive bundle of plug-ins to get started with or to expand definitely need to take a long look at the Nomad Factory Essential Studio Suite!

The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Analog Phaser APH-2S is a plug-in that's a part of the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Effects Pack. The bundle consists of six plug-ins in total, with this one probably being my favorite of the bunch. It's also one of my favorite phaser plug-ins to use in general. I don't own the Blue Tubes Effects Pack, but have used this plug-in and the others at the studio where I work, where we have all of the Nomad Factory plug-ins. The interface of the Blue Tubes Analog Phaser APH-2S is fairly simple, but at the same time you've got a good amount of controls to work with. Included in these controls are parameters for rate, depth, resonance, width, mix, and output level, as well as four different stages to choose from, a tempo sync feature, and a built in limiter. It's easy enough to use where I don't believe that the assistance of manual would be necessary. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The studio has the Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Analog Phaser APH-2S and the full Blue Tubes Effects Pack running on all of our systems. We have a bunch of studios on site here, all of which are Pro Tools HD based, with the main room running everything with a Mac Pro computer with dual 2.66 Ghz Intel Xeon processors, and 10 GB of RAM. I've never needed to run more than a single instance of this plug-in at a time, so needless to say that Pro Tools HD could handle it... OVERALL OPINION The Nomad Factory Blue Tubes Analog Phaser APH-2S is becoming one of my favorite in the box phasers to use for getting thick and realistic sounding phasing. I like how much control you've got here as well, as usually you won't find this many parameters on a phaser. The other plug-ins in the bundle are worth exploring for sure, especially the price, but this one has been the most useful to me thus far...