ENOUGH!!!

My feelings on tubes have been posted here and other forums enough to where you have probably got a good idea of my maxim: if there’s a window so you can see the tube, the tube’s inclusion in the product is as a gimmick or marketing ploy, not because it will impart any magic powers on the gear. There are (rare) exceptions to this rule, but for the most part it is a safe rule of thumb: if you can see the tubes from the front, it doesn’t matter if they’re in there or not, because it’s still a shitty piece of kit.

Which brings me to what is pictured above. The only thing dumber than tubes added to a product just so you can say there are tubes in it (and sorry, Korg, but I’m talkin’ bout you…) is putting a picture of an imaginary tube on your plug-in UI. I, of all people, know that the user interface of a plug-in does in fact do a lot of the talking about that plug-in. But I draw the line, you know?

Now, I don’t have anything bad to say about TL Labs otherwise. I mean, they’re one of those snobby sorts of companies that only make TDM and RTAS shit, and charge an arm and a nut for their plugs, and use (gasp, choke) iLok for their CP (an utterly pointless exercise if ever there was one) but I’m sure they’re very nice people. But a fucking tube? Come on.

Well, never mind all that, yeah, go ahead and check it if you’re a PT user and have half a banger to drop on a compressor plug-in with a real live tube in it.

As a rather amusing aside, I was thinking of Antares’ The Tube plug-in the other day, and mentioned to Adam that it would be funny if Audio Damage released a plug-in called “The Op-Amp” and it had perfect models of all the shitty dimestore op-amps that are found in low-end Chinese-made gear. We would release it in TDM only, and charge $799 for it with iLok CP. It would probably sell like hotcakes.