Is Waves BB Tubes snake oil?

[b mcgibney]

Lots of kiiler reviews but Is it over hyped? Not a lot of money for the next 8 hours but does it do anything really special?

[smurfyou]

The amount of advertising and paid hype is a big turn off. I'm not even interested in demoing it. I have enough saturation. And if it's more than just saturation they could have said that instead of insisting it's magic fairy dust.

[Eric Lambert]

I passed on BB and it was incredibly easy to do so. I wouldn't call it snake oil but they definitely have a lot of marketing hard at work.

[mattrixx]

It's included in Mercury, so I have it and to be honest, I've never really been a super fan of sat plugs, but it's quite good and easy to tame.
There's so many sat options these days.

[noiseboyuk]

I was hoping the Beauty control in particular brought something a bit fresh to a very tired sector, and it is good. But on the other hand - we're talking very subtle here. IMO 80% of the difference you hear in the demos is purely the make-it-louder effect. Once you've compensated for the level increase, you find yourself aurally squinting until you reach the point where you go "oh, it's just distortion now". (You can push Beauty about 50% more than Beast in that department.)

It doesn't do nothing, its good for a saturator. But if you have a good saturator already, this won't change your world.

[Ben Jenssen]

I bought it after a quick trial a few days ago. Put it to real-world use last night on a drum bus that was kind of not sitting right. Instant satisfaction. Just molded the sound with the two knobs until the drums fell right into its place in the mix. Quick and easy. pulled back the mix knob a bit, and job done.

I don't care what people say, if it works, it's good.

[FunkzzaJ]

Tried it. Inital impressions are naaa..hhh. My goto remains HG-2 from Plugin Alliance. It is a gem IMO.
/T

[Eric Lambert]

Originally Posted by FunkzzaJ

Tried it. Inital impressions are naaa..hhh. My goto remains HG-2 from Plugin Alliance. It is a gem IMO.
/T

It's a crowded genre with a lot of great options being released over the past year or so.

[thin ice]

There are a few Waves plugins on my Mac, but I am trying to resist anymore after my WUP bill turned up. You just never know what the price may be next time.

[Stephen Bond]

I love it. Sure, a crowded market but always good to have very capable friends around! Some old friends who we deemed 'essential' you find one day that almost nothing is essential. I Massey TapeHead for example.

The real reason what you need a large of saturation plugins is this. In the old days, the kit gave us saturation and distortion at every turn. Now it is banished we miss those old friends.

Stephen