Waves SSL EV2 Channel Strip review 

I am very much looking forward to you dragging more waves plugins in such a thorough fashion

this is precisely the type of video which will drive up the quality of products for engineers. even handed and as objective as possible. thanks dan

Thank you for putting waves in their place with this one. It is much needed. When analog emulations we’re a novel thing 20 years ago and Waves and UAD were the only ones doing it, sure, recreating the hardware limitations in the plug-in made a little more sense. But now that the market is saturated with analog emulations, the bar is being raised by companies that are starting to really push the boundaries on combining the best of analog emulations and digital workstations. Companies you feature right here on the channel, like TDR, u-he, and fabfilter to name a few. So when waves had the opportunity to innovate again when they released an update to their SSL channel, but chose not to, I was disappointed, but not surprised. Hopefully having someone like you who isn’t afraid to tell the truth as an affiliate will help them wake up to the fact that times have changed and in order to make compelling, usable modern tools for the DAW means taking hardware emulations beyond the hardware. While it’s not perfect either, look at the amount of extra thought that went into the design of the BX_SSL4000 series.

Dan is a maestro, i would like to see a plugin company hiring him just to make a channel strip Dan Worrall Edition with all he would find useful and necessary. Really, i would like to see that and then a video by himself explaining why this and that and how it works. Keep up the good work, man. Cheers! :)

Incredible, Dan. I appreciate your honesty even with a deal with Waves in place.

Love your videos Dan, you're the most interesting, articulated and even funny audio geek youtuber out there!

A very thorough and insightful review. Thank you, Dan. With so many plugin developers and choices available, an informed decision is sometimes hard to acquire.

Really love this analytical approach to plugin reviews!

I do mind if the value showed is not exactly the amount of gain I am adding or subtracting, and it has nothing to do with mixing with your ears. It happens often that I have a chain of plugins, and if I want to subtract one db on one and adding it on another, while at the end of the chain I've got a multiband compressor, I end up hitting the compressor harder without noticing it, just because you are 8 hours in the mix and you don't double check simple math, you trust that 1 - 1 = 0.

New video from you brings a smile to my face, regardless. Also, loved your recommended channel! 💯

You’re channel is stellar man. Much love ❤️

Dan, you’re on my list of people to have a beer with someday. Your videos are thee best! Thank you sir!!

These days, I regard WAVES as marketing for 'wealthy enough enthusiasts' rather than professionals. Not that I am claiming to be even competent. But buying loads of plugins seems to be a phase we all go (I went) through and WAVES is there to fulfill that need. Now I aim to learn to use a few good plugins well. Maybe I will be inspired by Dan to buy more in future - Having said that, I got so much from this tutorial and remain an enthusiastic student. Thank you Dan

Thanks for this video. Needed to hear that calming voice today!

Excellent review!, this is the kind of reviews for plugins I want to see!, Thanks!

Always love the content Dan!

Very much enjoying your tunes and great advice.

Great work on the review - very informative - and very entertaining!

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. About as good as reviews get with loads of useful information and just the right amount of opinions too.

Great video. I like having the options of all of these things, old school stuff where I'll use my ears, more surgical stuff, and sometimes the Scheps is great just to drop on a background element and mix the entire thing in one plugin.

Dan, do you have any actual Mixing videos on the interwebs? I for one would Love to see your full process, especially after watching this video which I think is the most comprehensive Channels --> Busses --> 2-Bus setup you've shown on this channel. (I happily admit that I've watched ALL of your videos here numerous times.) I, like all the rest of your fan club, really appreciate the quality and thoughtfulness of these RU-vid episodes (Pretty much everything else goes on pause as soon as I get the alert), and your focus not on "Tips & Tricks" but rather techniques, fundamentals, and philosophies. However I think MUCH value would come from watching you take a song from Importing raw Multitracks --> Exporting Stems and a Final Mix. (Maybe a short series of videos with as many parts as you see the stages of a start to finish mix. Say "Dan Worrall Mix Series: 1/5 - Mix Prep", "...2/5 - Static Mix Balance", etc.) Not that you don't give us Way more than we deserve already, but if such a series were to exist, I would likely watch it once a month for the rest of my life!

the best review of SSL EV2. Thanks! :)

This could actually be a great opportunity to debunk some Waves myths like the ones that imply that practically every compressor they designed is an untouched RComp with a saturation stage added.

Thanks Dan! I’d love to watch you go through the Scheps 🙏 (for the same reasons/differences you point out here).

Dan, thank you for this very in-depth video. You are one of a handful of people that makes reviews that really makes sense. Waves, are you listening...? I really do hope you will review the Scheps Omni-channel as well. I expect you like the workflow much better of this all-in-one channel solution than any thing else you've put your hands on so far. Thanks again for your contribution, thumbs up!

Here's the thing (as I suspect you know),: lots of bedroom recorders who've never been anywhere near a real analogue desk have been convinced they "need" an SSL. So what they WANT is something that looks just like the real thing, and they don't know or care if it actually does a good job. I'd argue that there isn't anything at all that this does that the Scheps Omni Channel doesn't do much better (just to take another Waves plug in as an example). But then that doesn't press that satisfaction button that makes a hobbyist think "now I have an SSL"

*More incredible insights from the "Rainman" of audio!* 😎👍

I really appreciate the way you analyze in detail every time but, the most important thing is that the music has to be able to get to the listener and this is outstandingly present from the first record that ever came out. I still think about being able to do something that doesn't have to be elaborate on, if it is so thanks for your hard work and I can tell you something, I learned a lot from your content and I really appreciate everything you do for community. My point is that you can inspire people in creative ways. Bless you good human being. Greetings from Kosova. Besim Baftiu.

love your guitar playing awesome. nice review of plugin

One of the best reviews I have ever seen. Thank you very much. I‘d like to see more waves stuff. Most of all the Abbey Road Mastering Suite.

You're the best mate!! Keep up the hard work

fantastic and thorough as always-- I'd love to see a scheps omni channel review sometime-- love this channel!

dan + waves, been waiting this for so long :D

The one (big) gripe I have with Waves is how they separate mono and stereo versions for all their plugins. All other plugin producers have managed to make their products intelligent, but not Waves. It slows down my workflow and doubles the number of keyboard shortcuts I need for my plugins. And I can't tell you how often I've wasted time trying to figure out why a stereo track didn't sound right, only to find a mono Waves plugin to be the culprit, followed by the fun of duplicating the settings after installing the stereo one. I like Waves, but I hate their mono/stereo policy.

Best videos on youtube for audio nerds, thank you

Thanks for linking the Reaper Theme

Really dig your synth patches this one is glorious, wish i knew what was going on in that intro patch. So pretty and animated

Really appreciate the review and the content! My only note where I differ is that I always try to gain stage my mix from the fader on a channel strip and not my DAW faders. It makes automation nicer and means I have the same resolution for automation on all channels. Plus I know that if 1 channel is -1.6db then it's because I accidentally knocked it

This channel is a Gem!

The mix sounded really good!

Elegant as always

Excellent video! Thanks a bunch!

The only channel strip I use, is the SSL9000 from PA, mainly for the same reason as you Dan, and when I do, I use the THD knob cranked to max, just to get some added harmonics...and often I use FF ProQ3 to further sculpt the sound if needed. I'm not ashamed I work 100% ITB, and take advantages of every "weird" quirk a software plugin can do, after all in computer world we most often we use the mouse ( can't really say anything about any DAW Control Surface as I haven't tried one yet ). Thanks for the video Dan, really informative. Cheers

Logical Fallatio is a wonderful track. Loved it !

This turns out as a high quality, very detailed QA review. Now Waves knows how to make this a good channel strip. Hope, you get your fee for this QA, Dan. ;-) It is most important that you keep being honest and fair, and it's great to see you do!

a+ explanation of this plugin.

Dan Worrall's channel is where I go when I want to go to my happy place. 🙂

Great video as usual. Always admire your work. That's a really nice Reaper theme, by the way. Would love to see an analysis of the Waves, Scheps Omni Channel sometime in the future.

I love the scheps omni channel. Literally use it on every mix. Especially for bus processing. Would love the see a full review 🙏

Was always wondering when you would do a proper waves analysis... Please continue this project, thank you!!! 🙏❤️

Superb - as always. The difference in the bypassed (channel plugins) mix is certainly there, but it seems to me you could replicate this with with many other EQ's and compressors we've all bought over the years, including the native DAW plugs which are rather good on all DAW platforms methinks - could save a lot of CPU in the process. Something I wish I'd known years ago before being seduced by fancy looking GUI's and raving reviews in magazines !

Brilliant review..

Finally a proper review for the plugin ... and the developers could easily create the modern version, with switch of a button. So u can choose the original setup channel strip or modernised with all your suggestions

I haven’t used this channel strip but I have a ton of waves plugins and I absolutely love the way they sound.

Channel Strip Plugins (2 of 5) My point here is that Softube as a company, in close coordination with Solid State Logic, deliberately took the Channel Strip Plugin idea much further than it had ever been. They did stick to "accurately emulating" the sound and workflow of the original console(s), but they added a ton of not-so-obvious advancements over the real thing. (I wand to go into depth, but this is way longer than intended already. So I'll try to just hit a couple of points. Thanks DAN!) 1) Mixing in the box with a mouse is 1-Click at a time. I have numerous gaming mice, track balls, track pads, pen displays, tablets etc, and they All have their place. Plus in Reaper you can train them to do Amazing tricks. But the Console 1 hardware is essentially a Midi Controller, dedicated to exactly One plugin. That has many implications but one is that you can grab multiple controls at once, like on Analog equipment. And because the hardware is so tightly connected to the software, you develop a Hand/Ear coordination, even with you monitor switched off, that is simply impossible with any mouse or other "Pointing Device". 2) That point and this one have more to do with the Hardware than the Channel Strip plugin concept, but because that hardware is communicating directly with each of the plugins, from the control surface you can fly through all of the channels in your session. If you had a 96-channel session say on a real million-dollar SSL XL9096J, you would roll your chair way over to the left 48 channels, then way over to the right 48 channel strips, standing up and down to reach all the controls, in and out of the sweet spot, so you return to the center and realize you have to go back to readjust, all day. With this system, there's 20 channel buttons that bank up and down, right at your finger tips on a controller the same size as your QWERTY keyboard. So with 5 clicks of a button, one hundred SSL 9000 channel strips Come to You, within seconds, without you moving one inch out of your perfectly triangulated monitoring system. And again, you never have to touch the mouse or look up at the screen! 3) However, about that screen.... While the knobs on the controller are laid out to match an SSL Channel Strip, spread out and turned on its side (a concept I love, but also one of my pet peeves), and the idea is that your hands already know where to go, plus the controller is full of LED meters and indicators that give you lots of visual feedback for what your hands and ears are telling you, they Also included on On-Screen Display system, that with the click of a button (and maybe not even that) super-imposes a display over whatever is already on your screen and gives you additional Bonus information, audio x-ray vision into your signal that was Never possible on any analog console of the golden years. So the system gives you the sound and the hand/ear mixing workflow of their emulated originals, but with far more of the control and visual feedback of the 21st century mixing experience than was imaginable at the time those studio classics were at their prime. 4) Console 1 is old now, relatively speaking. And it's not the only game in town anymore. Plus it itself has expanded and evolved over the years to include features and functions some of which weren't imagined at the time it was created. That 1 original Analog Console emulation has since expanded to eight, with two SSLs, an API, a NEVE, and others that were never actually Consoles in the real world, but were amazing rack pieces now reimagined into fairly complete console channel strips with the cooperation and endorsement of those companies: Emperical Labs, Chandler Limited, Summit Audio, and Weiss. But that points to another thing that exists within the Console 1 ecosystem... (again this is Not a commercial!) 5) Over the years Console 1 has expanded what you can do with it and it's channel strips. From the beginning you could swap out not only the full console emulations, but the three individual component sections in the chain: you could load the Strip, the Shape, the EQ, or the Comp independently. They've since allowed you to load the Drive section and the Filters separately as well. So you can think of your channel strip as 6 different pieces of gear in a signal chain (like they did with the afore mentioned companies above). And those component sections can come from mixing-n-matching those now 8 Channel Strips, which you can break into 6 parts each giving you 48 pieces of gear (well plugins), but those 6 links in your chain can also come from the hundreds of other plugins Softube themselves as well as Dozens of plugins from their collaboration with Universal Audio. (Plus there's "Apollo Central" mode....but I digress) 6) So again, kinda controller related and not necessarily Channel Strip specific, but putting those buttons knobs and faders from the original hardware, into code, and then Back at your finger-tips rather than mouse clicks, really does change the experience. If you've used any plugins from Softube or Universal Audio with your mouse, and you were happy with the sound and user interface while clicking-n-dragging, putting both hands on two knobs of an LA2A or 1176 finally FEELS right. Your eyes and ears may have been having all the fun, but now your hands get to play as well. I also have to say that, the point of the Console 1 hardware was that the Threshold knob is always the Threshold knob, no matter what emulation you are running. The 4 EQ band gain knobs are always in the exact same place, you don't have to think about it or look for it. And Softube did an amazing job mapping the hundreds of Plugins with thousands of individual Parameters to the 26 FIXED knobs on the hardware controller a when you're using a UAD plugin or UAD Console, it feels like Universal Audio made the hardware. Almost all of it feels intuitive, and the amount of time you do spend looking for something is nothing compared to with the mouse and a plugin window. However this is also its limitation... (Continued 3 of 5......)

This reaffirms my opinion on why I don't use channel strip plugins. Cheers!

Glorious.

Nice analysis!

DW is HILARIOUSLY entertaining (AND informative)! 👀📝🤣 Hymn

A possible benefit of creating a channel strip with the same layout and limitations of the corresponding hardware is that the users can go back and forth between the two with no learning curve and work the way they're used to working. It's not as flexible as it could be, but it's perhaps faster for those who are used to working that way. This approach could also function as a good training tool for aspiring engineers to come to grips with the hardware before they get to sit down in front of it. Nonetheless, imposed limitations can limit the usefulness of a plugin; and I appreciate you illustrating these issues in your usual, detailed way. Well done!

Great review! Now that you're partnered with Waves I'd love to hear your take on their analog-style compressor plugins like the LA-2A, SSL Buss, and 1176

When you asked the listeners to suggest other Waves plugins that you could review, the thing that immediately came to my mind was their Enigma, which seems to be included in several of their bundles.

Great analysis of EV2! I hope you will do this for Scheps Omni Channel & AR TG Mastering Chain in the future!!

C-1 is my favourite compressor in the world. I think I've been using it maybe 20 years. Reviewing that would be so cool!

Thanks for this fine plugin review! Another Waves SSL "channel strip" is CLA MixHub (apart from the hub functionality). However it also sports a switchable 1176 compressor algorithm plus dedicated side chain filters & EQ, plus a built-in parallel compression mix knob. A review/comparison with the EV2 channel strip would be interesting. :)

Dan, you make great points about the need to modernize "console emulation" workflow in a modern DAW. I use them, love them but have often found myself frustrated for having to(for example) choose where I will dedicate my HP/LP filter on SSL emulations.

Love the British radio style ducking.

Another great informative review. This kinda thing is why I have quit using Waves a long time ago. The name is more important than the quality/usability of their plugins it seems. Hopefully these critical deep dives will help them get back on track. I doubt it, but the info is good for us mere mortals nonetheless. Thanks Dan.

I would love to see this plugin against the previous SSL channel strips and/or the Schoeps Omni strip Thanks for the awesome video!

Thanks for this. I know it would be a bit redundant, but I'd love to see your take on the CLA Mixbus. It has been a huge game changer for me, in terms of overall sound of my mixes and workflow.

I have the bucket and water and watched a few detailing videos on youtube, so just say when and where and I'll help get your car spotless Dan. Then I can always say, I actually know this man irl. I used to wash his car when he didn't have 1m subscribers yet. Some have bigger accomplishments than others, but maybe I should focus on cleaning my own car first...anyway finally subscribed after watching all your videos. The car washing request did it for me.

I hope that this will make them make better plugins. THANK YOU DAN !

Thanks, Dan! Please consider exploring the Waves NLS plugins. Cheers!

Your pre-emphasis EQ video blew my mind. Might be worth revisiting that concept with Waves Studio Rack. Studio Rack lets you save chains of multiple waves plugins. You can assign macros to any parameters and have them inversely proportional, so it would allow users of Daw's that don't have that sort of functionality natively to create emphasis/pre-emphasis templates for their waves plugins.

What can i say i havent already, dan! Your plugin tests are awesome. May be would you agree to test waves 1176, scheps 73 or la2a?

woh great video as always thanks! I would be very curious to see what is behind the API collection ...

A million times yes about having two volume knobs with one dedicated to headroom/saturation without any effect on the real level. So many “analog emulation” plugins are SO much harder to use because there’s no simple way to try different gain structures for different modeled preamp behavior!

Awesome Dan. Pls do the CLA series from Waves

Another fantastic video. Thank you. I'm getting weary of skeuomorphism in general, but especially in plugins. Why are we limiting ourselves to controlling our sound with cute little knobs that look like SSL knobs? The sound is what matters. Make an interface that is intuitive, easy to control with a mouse, and visually informative as well as appealing. FabFilter figured it out.

It could be interesting to see you look at Waves' "NX" plugins, and speak to their efficacy in a realistic scenario.

Waves gave Dan all access to evaluate their plugins and mentioned SSL EV2 as their top seller and they instantly regret it 🤣🤣🤣 as you were giving your honest critics, I've heard that they replicated the 1st SSL, added some features which i consider not a big deal and marketed it well so they can sell it, still not even close to bx_console SSL 4000E which has been there for years. Great video 🙏👍 thanks

The fader does look really cool

Right on, once again. Plus, I love your electric guitar, it reminds me of a Frank Zappa sense of time, timing and switching it up. And then some. Great job. Now, give us more. Please ✌🎶

Love your videos. It would be awesome if you'd make a video about Acoustica, since it now has entered the ARA ranks and is actually not that well known compared to what it is capable of. But anyways keep on doing such fantastic videos. To be honest, your videos have become the most entertaining thing to watch on RU-vid. And that's not even accounting for the huge information-value.

The SSL channels from Waves are OUTSTANDING!! I don’t rave often, but really, I’d mix whole shows or records with nothing else if I had to. I’ve been a Waves customer since virtually day one. I remember sending an email with a tech question and getting a phone call in my back yard on July 4 from the founder of the company, saying in a heavy accent “Hoppy Indeepandance Day, Peter”. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I realized what was going on. He spent nearly an hour with me and sent me a Gold bundle from the kindness of his heart which was at the time something really special. It represented at least $800 upgrade from the 6 or 7 plugs I had alreadly purchased. Customer forever.

Sweet little Reaper tweak at 21:00 - The 'Imperial' skin. Always wondered what it looked like in real life. And using that skin must give the mix more wonderful warm analog vibe Ha ha!

Very good honest video again. Would be interested to hear your thoughts and detailed analysis on some of the new “intelligent” EQ’s like Gullfoss.

DBX 160 and BSS DPR 402. I really like those two

Dan, well done, brother!

The behavior at higher sample rates is explained on the product page and in the manual. It’s only supposed to operate up to 96kHz like many other waves plugins.

One aspect I rarely see mentioned in any reviews is whether a program's controls are multipoint touch-sensitive. It's convenient to be able to, for example, alter an EQ stage frequency while also adjusting the bandwidth, or change a synth's envelope shape while also adjusting the velocity response. EV2 and most Waves plug-ins handle multipoint touch well. However, regarding touch in general, it took me a while to figure out that I didn't need to have my hand over the control where I couldn't see what I was adjusting, but could touch the knob, then slide my finger to the side while still being able to adjust the control. I particularly like multitouch with signal processors and synthesizers, to avoid the "one parameter at a time" mouse issue.

His voice is soothing

Channel Strip Plugins (1 of 5) The original Waves SSL channel strip & G-Comp (not this EV2) are probably the suspect zero of All channel strip plugins to follow. The promise was, as in this video: Put this on Every channel, with the Bus Comp on your master bus, and Boom you're mixing on an SSL 4000E, signed off on by Solid State Logic themselves. The bus comp became more omnipresent than the channel strip I think mainly because people's computers back then couldn't run that many instances of the channel strip without maxing CPU and RAM. The limitations of the channels strip EQs and Dynamics, when compared with every other option in our rapidly expanding plugin folders was another blow. And for me, the inflexibility of inserting any other processor into the chain, say after the input stage or between the EQ & Compressor, another Con. What I've wondered about for over a decade now, is what Dan touched on in this video. There are many Pros to working with channel strip plugins, and for me they far outweigh the Cons. But why the hell are the Cons coded into the virtual products at all? Or if you are going to code it in, to make some purists happy, at least give us a way Around the limitations of the 1980s in the 21st century. FFWD to 2022, and now almost every plugin maker has some form of SSL, NEVE, & API "Analog Emulation" plugin, some endorsed some not. I might have a Dozen SSLs at this point. To contradict my self, I actually Love the concept, at least the illusion, that I can buy an emulation of an high end piece of studio equipment, that would cost thousands of dollars per unit, and performs similarly enough to the original hardware that the Actual Company puts their own logo on the plugin, all for a hundred bucks. (we all know that with Waves the real price is $29, but others hover around a hundred for the first year or so.). Even at their full MSRP of maybe $350 bucks, which I Never pay, the deal if you can suspend disbelief, is two good to be true Even if you only inserted that plugin on one channel, but you get to use it as many times as your poor little Mac can handle. Now, I bought, love, and am touching right now, the original Softube Console 1 system (actually manufactured in Sweden) shortly after it came out for $1,000, and it only came with one SSL 4000E channel strip emulation and the option to buy the SSL XL9000K for a few hundred more, which I also did. And it changed everything, for me. The first obvious difference between the Console 1 SSL and all the others, is the dedicated Hardware Channel Strip. The philosophy was the same as the OG Waves: install the plugin on every channel in your DAW and you move from channel to identical channel intuitively knowing the controls and what they will do to your sound. But Console 1 added the Muscle Memory back into the equation. Your ears hear, your mind know what to do, and now your hands are already doing it. (This is sounding like a commercial for console one, which it is definitely not as you will see. Plus my on-screen display app is broken right now and I'm not happy about it.) (Continued 2 of 5......)

I like the channel strips from Waves, expecially the G, but what i love is actually 9000j from plugin alliance. 9000J is such an awesome channel strip.

Fantastic review. I wonder what you think of the Omnichannel, imho a very good channel strip

"I, now, officially have too many plugins." me too man

I use the Pressure for room mics. It is a one knob plugin, but it is quite interestingly squashing the sound. MV2 is another one that people praise which has upwards and downwards compression as "secret weapon for drums".

I'm curious if you ever worked with Universal Audio plugins and what thought you might have had. I've tried searching for any videos on them, but didn't find any.

I'd love your take on Fuse Audio Labs' VCS-1, Dan, for a fully-featured channel strip that near enough does everything right. I've a couple gripes with it (same issue with dynamics side-chains, for example), but it's much more feature-rich than the usual strip. Thanks in advance, if you see this.

I kind of feel bad for developers and “analog” channel strips: they are huge sellers and as soon as you deviate from the hardware people complain, even though you are absolutely correct that many hardware quirks don’t make sense in a modern DAW at all. It’s funny about the gate: a small dev I like made an SSL style channel strip excluding the gate section…. The main complaint on the forums over and over was that people wanted a gate section. “Why isn’t a gate there?? It’s not an SSL without it”. Devs can’t win with channel strips. People think they want what they want, hardware accuracy, and that’s just the way it is even if I’m completely of your mind: give me vintage *inspired* tools that fit seamlessly into a modern workflow.