Aquamarine 4 from Acustica (High-End Mastering and Mixing Plugin Suite)

In my upcoming episode with audio engineer Chris Williams, he told me that this Aquamarine 4 plugin suite was probably his all-time favorite because it sounds so good.

So, after recording with him I downloaded the trial of this plugin suite and Holy Moly I was extremely impressed with the sound quality. It’s been a while since I heard a vintage-gear plugin sound this awesome. Going forward I’ll probably use Aquamarine on my vocal subgroup (so it affects all the voices in each episode).

The Aquamarine 4 suite is made up of:

• Aquamarine 4 (standalone Mastering discrete/optical compressor)
• Aquamarine 4 EQ (standalone Vintage Passive Equalizer)

I believe it normally sells for around €199 Euro, which equates to around $220 USD.

But the best news is that you can try this plugin for free 😉

A bit more info:

It includes a monster compressor that we sampled from one of the most highly regarded – and not exactly cheap – units on the market – featuring a smooth and warm sounding opto comp section and a super punchy, discrete VCA-style dynamic processor which can go from a subtle 1.2:1 ratio – for a gentle dynamic massage – to savage ‘Flood’ limiting, for more creative compression effects.

The discrete VCA section can invariably suit many different scenarios, plus the attack time has been exaggerated to reach almost zero. Aquamarine also features a high-pass filter allowing you to control the compressor’s response to bass frequencies and a mix control which builds on the original unit’s functionality by providing onboard parallel compression.

A ‘BRAND NEW’ VINTAGE PASSIVE EQ FROM THE 1950s: Aquamarine 4 now features an astoundingly precise recreation of an American ultra-rare passive equalizer from the 1950s. And when we say ‘ultra-rare’ we say it for a reason. The owner of this unit, which we sampled in Berlin, explained how only a few of these beasts – possibly less than 5 – can still be found in good working order. We don’t know how the others sound like compared to the one we are bringing you this time and if they present any differences due to component variations or simply due to maintenance. What we know, though, is that the DNA of Aquamarine’s EQ is the exact same one as its hardware counterpart and we like to consider it a tribute to this iconic piece of engineering.

Want to receive the Daily Goody in your email, daily or weekly? Subscribe free here.

And please keep in mind, the Daily Goody is only a tiny little tip, fact or lesson everyday. Please don’t expect any of these posts to be long, earth-shattering masterpieces that instantly answer every single question you can think of and completely transform you into a world class podcast engineer. “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.”

.