Imagine if Steinberg updated ALL of those older plugins to this quality, like Quadrafuzz and distortion!
Originally I considered the whole channel strip concept as a toyish addon. Well, did some everything-louder-than-anything-else-mix recently and used the strip including Magneto, Envelope Shaper & Maximizer on some busses to take all the consciously generated exaggerations in sound design even a step further - at a very late stage of the mix - and it worked surprisingly well.
Especially Magneto made the difference here with the instant access to distortion of a selectable range of frequencies. Changed my view from toys to tools honestly. Good one!
+1 for at least QuadraFuzz. It’s kind of interesting as it is now but not always beautiful, although those four bands would maybe take the over the top in a VST3 201X technology package? Only thing is it’s a hardware simulation from a DIY kit by Craig Anderton from … the Ming dynasty? But true to form Steinberg could call it QuadraFuzzONE!!! 
*after all, it’s Freddie’s topic! 
And yeah! Me too! I really like what you can do with Magneto II and the other little tools. And it’s already there so it won’t waste any insert slots! At the same time the slots ARE there so if you need a 3rd party plugin … voilá 
!
No worries!
I hope they add more of these fantastic plugins to Cubase setup but with better integration.
I would like if Steinberg made it possible to select example the “RND Portico Plugin-EQ” as selectable as the default “TRACK EQ” (if you want to). All with the include on board analyst so you don’t need to use plugin version working in Cubase 7 (if you don’t want to). You should be able to control it with hardware controller too.
To make it clear what I actual mean!
This one--------> http://macprovid.vo.llnwd.net/o43/hub/media/1093/8213/03_EQ.png
is the sound and use of “this one” integrated and selectable as the default Track EQ in Cubase 7--------> http://www.steinberg.net/uploads/pics/Neve_Portico_Equalizer_5033_Screen_shot_05.png
…a cool idea, right! 
Merry Christmas!
http://www.steinberg.net/en/products/vst/rnd_portico_plug_ins/rnd_portico_plugins_start.html
Best Regards
Freddie
If you could control it with MCU, I would buy the plugin for this reason alone. An eq of that caliber available on every track as default would be indispensable.
Aloha D and +1.
Same here.
I put it on a ‘minimal setting’ and it sounds really nice.
And as BriHar posted:
This got me to thinking, what is being emulated or modelled in these plugin effects - not only what for a machine, but with what medium specifications?
Great point IMHO.
‘Ampex 456’ or ‘Agfa’ or something else?
As I remember from ‘back-in-da-day’;
when compared to Ampex, Agfa gave you an additional 2db at 10k.
So it had a bit more of a ‘sheen’ to it and you could
‘hit’ it a bit harder.
Sounds to my ears like some of that is going on here as well.
But it might just be the very kool eq features.
{‘-’}
I just tried Magneto II against a drum buss – it’s good!
A very smooth, clean drive.
It won’t get “nasty” (in a good way) like the Waves J37, but if a more subtle, woody drive that leaves the low-end mostly intact is needed, it delivers warm, crisp character.
I’ll definitely be using this.
Thanks, Freddie for bringing attention to this!
I mean, this is a religious thread, is it… I bet Magneto 2 is exactly the same algorithm as it was in old Magneto from 10 yrs ago, which nobody would ever dare to use on real tracks, what to speak of master track, because it was considered a toy. Now in Magneto 2 same exact algorithms suddenly sound better than Waves and SPL and so on… Marketing is really fun. With proper approach one can sell anything, jest repack it, and there it goes for gold…
cheers Freddie… as usual like your posts.
tried magneto and like it. didn’t notice the subtle effect it has as i only use it sparingly, never took any notice. but now have it spread-out on drums etc and sounds a lot nice and easy to use
Even if it should be the very same algo like in the old Magneto (which I never really used) the selectable frequency range might make the difference. This simple parameter set is brilliant in its impact.
Most of my rock/pop-mixes have a good portion of saturation at some point mostly created with the UAD tapes and stuff alike. Still Magneto II as a strip plugin in its default position after the insert slots can add to that in a very nice, synergetic way.
It’s a while ago now that I discovered that for me and the effect hasn’t worn off. On the contrary, it proofs to work really well in the ‘real world’ (finished mixes/masters on all possible playback systems).
Puma0382
bang on!!!
Really good, one of the best around.
I used magneto all the time in SX but then they got rid of it so I never used it anymore. It was amazing back in the day. Now she takes up to much processing for nothing. Sausage fattener is way better and much easier on the cpu. Magneto is great but I think it’s the same as before.
It is a little hard to use on the strip so far, because it’s pretty subtle, and I’m not actually getting ‘tape’ cues to help determine it’s ‘language’, well lets say this would be a DREAM tape machine with the very best fidelity!
Thing is, I guess my tendency is to dial things in until I hear something substantial, tweak, and then dial it back down till I barely hear it. But with this I dial it, but getting most of the sound from the EQ contribution (reminds me a TON of Virsyn Tape actually in that aspect, where you need to hit the tape against the inbuilt EQ for the sound).
I fear overusing it on the channel levels, I may try too hard. But on single sources, it’s a great option, I like it as an option to Kramer and Satin, and I have no problem layering tapes
I’m going to go ahead and try to get it across a mix while building and hopefully use it as a subtle colored gain stage, and I’ll probably ‘get it’ then.