Meet Your mix buss’ best friend
Celebrated mix engineers like Dave Pensado, Bob Horn, and Jack Douglas use the high-end Black Box Analog Design HG-2 tube processor on their mixes. The emulation of sweet tubes and creamy-sounding transformers not only make tracks sound richer and fuller, they also make them sound louder, bigger and punchier at the same peak level.
Paint Tracks with Different Colors
HG-2 emulates four different vacuum tube stages combined in series and parallel circuits to color your mix and individual tracks with a wide range of rich and varied harmonics. Separate gain controls for emulated 6U8A pentode and triode tubes are placed in series between buttery virtual transformers warming the plugin’s input and output.
Dial in the perfect blend of pentode and triode tube sweetness
...then adjust the Density control to drive both tubes harder without changing their relative balance or the plugin’s output level, adding more girth and mass. The Calibration menu emulates the effect of an internal trim adjustment in the original hardware unit, instantly modifying the HG-2’s high-frequency response to produce Dark, Normal or Bright coloration.
Sprinkle, punch und tube softness
An added Air knob lets you control how much high-frequency fairy dust you sprinkle on vocal tracks, string instruments, piano and full mixes. Turning down the Mix control adds back dry signal at the plugin’s output, combining HG-2’s beautiful tube softness and luster with your mix’s perfectly preserved detail and punch.
- 8:25
Black Box Analog Design HG-2 - Walkthrough | Plugin Alliance - 13:12
Plugin Alliance - Black Box HG-2 - Mixing With Mike Plugin of the Week - 14:01
Black Box HG-2 Demo with Bob Horn | Plugin Alliance - 33:24
Black Box HG-2 HARDWARE review and VS the PLUGIN- The MAGIC Box 🧙🧙🧙#blackbox #hg2 #saturation - 7:10
Michele Canova Iorfida - Artist Focus - 2:26
Black Box HG-2 - Mixing with Craig Bauer | Plugin Alliance - 7:57
Black Box HG-2 - Demo | Plugin Alliance - 4:20
The Plugin That Dave Pensado Uses on Every Mix: Black Box HG-2 | Plugin Alliance - 0:39
James Ivey of Pro Tools Expert Talks HG-2 and bx_subsynth | Plugin Alliance - 0:45
Black Box Analog Design's Eric Racy at NAMM 2017 | Plugin Alliance - 1:18
Tube Tone from Black Box Analog Design
Overview
Features
- Additional digital controls like Input Gain, Density, Calibration, Air and Mix
- Separate gain controls for virtual 6U8A pentode and triode tubes
- Parallel Saturation circuit selects one of two modeled 12AX7 tubes—one voiced more aggressively than the other
- Saturation Frequency selector to add generated 12AX7 harmonics
- Calibration menu to mimic internal trim adjustment
- Variable Density control to boost gain equally for virtual pentode and triode tubes
- Variable Air control to add silvery sparkle and sweetness above 10 kHz
- Added Mix control to adjust wet/dry balance
Audio Examples
Industry Reviews
Dave Pensado
The HG-2 plugin is destined to become a classic. The hardware unit seduced its way onto all my mixes for the last couple years, and now the plugin is finding its way onto multiple tracks like… Read More
James Wiltshire
21st Century mixing is now totally dependent on controlled distortion and overdrive techniques. The Black Box HG-2 spews out harmonic warmth and crispy tones in bucket loads without the need for… Read More
Josh Newell
Most saturation plugins drastically change the sound of your source material without giving you any control over the coloration. You either like their sound or you don't, so you're stuck with one… Read More
Deniz Koyu
Valve distortion plugins that actually sound like the real deal are very rare but this one nails it! Sounds fantastic on clean 808s and drums in general, as well as guitars, pianos or anything… Read More
David Arnold
It's like being able to move the mics around after you've done the recording. A great tool for emphasis, clarity, highlighting and allowing your sounds to be where you need them in a mix.
Customer Reviews
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Black Box Analog
★★★★☆Very good glue on the Drums -
I have the hardware, too
★★★★★I own the Black Box HG-2, which sits in my analog mastering chain. The plug-in is quite faithful to it. I can use either and great result. The only key difference is that my hardware unit was fitted… Read More -
My main saturator
★★★★★This is one of the best plugins made at this time -
the best saturator ever made
★★★★★i use it every time especially on the kick and bass, it changes the quality of the sound and make it louder without distortion. it works like a magic. thanks plugin alliance. -
meza
★★★★★so good pluguin
Specifications
Supported Plugin Formats
AAX DSP, AAX Native, AU, VST2, VST3
Supported Operating Systems
macOS 15 down to macOS 12
Windows 11 down to Windows 10
Mac
Intel, or Apple Silicon
PC
x64-compatible CPU
System Requirements
Display resolution: 1440 × 900px or 1280 × 960px or higher
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Downloads
With the Installation Manager you can select, download & install all the Plugin Alliance products. Select any and all formats you need for your system! Mac & PC.