Pulsar Modular Sidecar

Very interesting, I felt the plug tone was very close, maybe a little light on the bass, but the api console and compressor had a dimension, breadth and weight, that I preferred ?

Obviously, much more money, so the plug represents good value.

So there’s Pulsar Modular. And Pulsar. And they both make plugins? I am so confused.

Cheers,
Geoff

Demoing now, and liking its sound very, very much. The options on the 'sidecar' plug are a bit overwhelming in terms of going down a minutiae-tweaking rabbit hole, but I reckon with some more experience around the subtle sonics there, these options may prove useful and quicker to dial in. The EQ feels great. Definitely my favorite 550b-style plugin (not that I've used them all, by any means); feels a lot like the hardware (which I have used a lot).

I really don't want to buy this.

I've got my ITB EQ and comp game dialed in and it works for anything I throw at it.
But I love API, know it well and have always wanted a plug that comes damn close to the real thing.
Definitely tempted.

On sale $189 not crazy money.

www.pulsarmodular.com/product/p455-mdn-sidecar/

Anyone compared to the UAD Vision strip (which I really dig)?

The guy in the video said he had done a previous video comparing UA to his board, so they must have been vision?

Is the comparison available to see?

UA oversells it’s unison technology and the wonders of Luna.

Not certain, at first blush, it’s criticisms of your methodology have much credence for me, as UA definitely has a dog in the race , and Bowser can do no wrong in its eyes: like the owner who never sees their dog taking a dump in your garden!

Probably like most folks here I have too many plugins to count. And I kind of soured on plugins which cost hundreds of dollars after getting a bunch from vertigo, acoustica and their ilk and finding that as my ears have grown those plugins just can't quite match hardware.

All this is to say I've been following the Pulsar Modular story since it's inception on the purple site, back when the dude was offering a free copy if somebody would burn their underwear. And yeah he got a lot of grief for launching a company named Pulsar that was too close to an already famous company which produces great plugins and is also called Pulsar. Bygones.


He used to throw out fun quizzes on the purple site and the first person with the right answer would get a free copy. No small change given that they typically run 300 bucks a pop.

I ended up winning one of the quizzes and was promised a free copy, of what would became known as P440 Sweet Spot EQ, eventually when the product was finally developed and released (list is $342 now).

A full year after I won that question quiz and the p440 was released I reached out with a feeble hope I could get my free copy.

Turns out the dude is pretty stand up, I got a NFR copy of the $340 plug-in for answering a trivial question a year before it's release. To me that's admirable, I realize it's no skin off his nose but still word is bond.

Tried out the p440 and it was indeed a stellar plugin, and I'm sure lots of people get great use out of it. It's not right up my alley right now but that is probably because I'm really focused on building a couple of hardware signal chains and don't have much time for plug in diving since it doesn't directly benefit my aims.

In terms of feature sets, Pulsar is laden with sweet tricks and tidbits. These are really not one trick ponies.

In terms of sound, I've owned some plugin classics like Kazrog True Iron, Spectre, Saturn, a billion Acustica Pres, etc. And about half a billion EQs of note, for example Pensado EQ, ProQ3, and too many to list.

Compared to the hardware I've experienced and the canonical saturation plug-in devices I'd say that Pulsar does a great job of getting a particularly satisfying saturation sound. But it's still not quite up to snuff when driven in terms of hardware like transformers and tubes or inductors. I felt that the EQ of the p440 was quite flexible but not really my cup of tea as it seemed to be notable rather than subtle even when set to subtle.

Pulsar has an exceedingly generous demo. And will apparently renew your demo like three times. So it's worth a shot to give it a go and check to see if it's something that can add value. The plugins seem pretty special, the one that I tried was definitely notable not only for its great flavor but also for its low CPU. I actually prefer Acustica's sound, but unfortunately AA's plugins are just essentially unusable on my system for multiple instances (which, if I can only have an instance or two then I might as well have hardware).

But you got to have a thick skin if you're going to dive in to the Pulsar threads :-)

When did the Vision come out? Regardless, UA considered the console they emulated for the plug-in to be a “vintage” API and different than the modern ones.

I just noticed that. I've only been using it on groups and the master so far, I'll ask Ziad about it.