McDSP APB-16 Demo with Founder Colin McDowell

Today I am sitting with the wonderful Mr.Colin McDowell founder of McDSP! Colin has just driven 6 hours to show off the new APB-16 – The worlds first programable analog processor!

Colin is a pioneer and the first person I heard of who made plugins that sound like analog equipment. I think every producer, engineer, and mixer I know has McDSP products!  There are many Different McDSP plugins that people favor but all of us have McDSP EQ and nearly everybody I know uses Analog channel. – it’s almost become a stock plugin.

The sound of McDSP plugins just makes things sound better and the simplicity just draws you to them.

I haven’t used the APB-16 yet but we’re about to do it on camera so you can all experience it for the first time with me. We have a session open here with Robert Jon & The Wreck’s “Gypsy”

This song was recorded pretty much live with no drum samples. What is interesting is the mix opened up with plugins missing, so it is going to be fun for me, I can pinpoint things that I would like to improve and frankly just use the new APB-16 on it.

Watch the video below for the full demo:

Very nice indeed, I love this! It is analog and digital technology married together!

It gives me the security that I feel when I’m feeding stuff through analog. compared to when you start putting a lot of digital plugins on because you love them, they have wonderful graphics, you can boost and cut tiny frequency. But at the end of the day with all that, you start feeling like your mix is sounding “Digital” – I hate that word.

Every mix engineer says the same thing and that is why every company make half of their plugins as analog emulations. – This is delivering on Colins Idea.

For me with the 16 instances, I’ll probably be busing, using it for coloration and to put energy into a mix.

About the APB-16 (from the McDSP website)
The McDSP Analog Processing Box (APB) combines the flexibility of software with the fidelity of premium analog processing. Each channel can be controlled by a Pro Tools plug-in giving true digital workflow with genuine analog performance. Processing options include compressors, mastering limiters, transient enhancement devices, multi-channel and multi-band applications, and so much more… we’re only getting started.

The APB-16 comes with a collection of APB plug-ins to route audio to the APB hardware and control the analog circuitry within. The user simply operates the APB plug-in like any other plug-in, but processing is done in the analog domain. Settings can be saved as a preset, plug-ins can be recalled with a session, and parameters can even be automated with sample level accuracy. APB plug-ins provide true digital workflow with genuine analog performance.