Pulsar Massive Review

We take a look at the new hard hitting EQ from our favourite French developers in this Pulsar Massive review. The newest EQ VST plugin brought to you by Pulsar Audio.

Every once in a while a product comes on to the VST market which has an air of class placing it above its peers and offering a little “je ne sais quoi”.

This is one of those moments. Pulsar have released a beast which punches your mix into outer space. It emulates the Manley Massive Passive which was an EQ that captures the best of the EQ world from over the years. All this is yours in one VST.

Pulsar have been busy in recent months developing some excellent replicas of classic audio equipment such as the Echorec and the game changing FET compressor 1178.

The newest project in their range is the Massive EQ, and again they hit a home run again with getting things just right. We took it out for a spin to test what was on offer.

Installing the EQ and iLok

All Pulsar plugins use iLok as their activation tool of choice. While some people are not keen, I don’t have a problem with it and never have done. There is a bit of pain if moving hardware, but that is a topic for another day.

As far as this Pulsar Massive EQ review goes, the installation was quite simple to follow and straight forward. A few clicks for the demo install and then the iLok activation and we’re in.

A quick scan of plugins from Bitwig Studio 4.2 as per the normal when installing new VST plugins until the plugin appeared along side my other Pulsar VSTs and we are now ready to go.

Pulsar Massive Review Initial Thoughts

So how does it look? Classic – a lot of knobs and dials to take on board. To the beginner it may look a little crowded and convoluted. To the experienced handler of the original outboard kits of this type this will be all to familiar for you.

After all, Pulsar are all about creating the retro experience so you can experience what handling a classic plugin was like but from an in the box experience (or as close as possible to it).

I like it though. I like the ability to see all the dials and by no way am I an experienced engineer from yesteryear but can appreciate the craftsmanship which has gone in to emulating this piece.

Preset Sounds

The choice of presets which comes with the Pulsar Massive is a good place to start for anyone looking to learn how this EQ works. There are over 50 presets which come bundled with the package covering all areas of the mix from Bass to Strings to Drums.

Additionally there are 3 sets of presets hand crafted from famous award winning producers and mix engineers such as Andrea Lepori (Rolling Stones, Jack Savoretti, U2) and Maor Appelbaum (Meat Loaf, Faith No More).

All of these presets are worth a try and offer a great starting point to learn the features.

Our Pulsar Massive EQ review offers a particular style to its sound which derives from the various mechanisms which have been included in the emulation:

• Input, output, and internal gain stages are entirely tube and transformer operated.
• The whole equalization circuit of the original hardware is passive and is expertly emulated.
• The full parallel topology of the EQ gives completely different kind of response to a digital equalizer with the same settings.

All these little pieces of clever engineering add to the soul of the product and help it stand up amongst a quite busy EQ playing field.

Parallel EQ Band Gains

Parallel EQ band gains don’t accumulate as in most other EQs,
but rather recombine to produce natural-sounding corrections.

Drive Control

Pulsar Massive’s accurate models of transformers, tubes, and inductors.

Presets

Over 50 presets from famous mixing and mastering
engineers and initial settings to get you started.

Rocker Switches

Switched and Dials to tweak those sounds.

Our final thoughts are that the Pulsar Audio Massive EQ is certainly worth the money for the features it gives you. The versatility of the product allows you to add it to anywhere in the mix and will handle anything you throw at it. 

The processing power required is well managed and our Pulsar Massive review has shown that it takes full advantage of modern CPUs allowing it to do more with less.

Despite the tremendous amount of complexity in the audio algorithms you’ll be able to use a large number of instances on any project.

The resizable interface and wise choice of modern features will make Pulsar Massive your go-to colour-EQ and one which we highly recommend.

Pulsar Audio Review

Pulsar are an amazing plugin company offering up a wide range of vastly accurate hardware emulations. From the FET compressor 1178 and not to forget the Echorec plugin they certainly have some clout in the audio plugin world.