SoundToys SuperPlate coming in May, includes five different plate models, cheap upgrade to v5.4 suite from v5.3

[mhschmieder]

I've been using SuperPlate all week in production work, primarily on percussion instruments at the moment, which interestingly goes against the advice of a few articles I read that said plate reverb always makes things sound more metallic and thus should never be used on percussive instruments or instruments made of metal such as brass.

The funny thing is, those have traditionally been the main instruments I use plate on, as I find it softens the harsh upper frequencies without losing transients.

Anyway, it took a bit of time to learn the new GUI properly and to match my settings on Little Plate for various starting point presets I created earlier, and I couldn't find the user manual on my computer so had to open my least-used browser so as to minimize resources impact while doing production work. I'll find time later on to try to save all their manuals in PDF form to my hard drive.

Be aware that there is a semi-hidden second page of controls, but once I found them, I was too far along to want to work with them on THIS specific project.

I did try the other plate models and almost switched to the middle one on some material, but after more tweaking, found that I still prefer EMT 140 plates over all others, for the most part. I didn't care much for the gold EMT; it sounded harsh to my ears, and the final two models seemed less transparent to me but I may use them later.

I'm not convinced I can exactly match Little Plate with Super Plate as the parameter choices are different, even after studying the manual and trying to compensate for differences in how things are mapped. But ultimately I grew to prefer the larger feature set of Super Plate and got great results. Very warm and natural and it blends great with room reverbs.

I had thought I might switch to my room reverbs for the overdub tracks to blend with the all-on-one-mono-mic band track, but the plate reverb surprisingly blended better, and more naturally, than using the same reverb (I have four for this album, all custom grown settings using Genesis's The Farm reverb and the Muscle Schoals Fame reverb from IKM).

[labman]

Thank you for that personal report. I appreciate it

[mhschmieder]

I tried many different settings on acoustic guitar, 'ukulele, and resonator guitar last night, and all sounded harsh, metallic, artificial, muddy, and dark. Just as I suspected would be the case. And yet, several articles say these are the main instruments you should use Plate Reverb on, aside from Lead Vocals.

[mikehalloran]

…
I'm not convinced I can exactly match Little Plate with Super Plate as the parameter choices are different,
…

For those who have Little Plate and have not purchased the upgrade to Super Plate or the complete 5.4 bundle, your iLok license for LP is surrendered as part of the process.

[HCMarkus]

…
I'm not convinced I can exactly match Little Plate with Super Plate as the parameter choices are different,
…

For those who have Little Plate and have not purchased the upgrade to Super Plate or the complete 5.4 bundle, your iLok license for LP is surrendered as part of the process.

From Soundtoys:

Highlights

Five Analog Plate Styles
Three Preamp Options
Infinite Decay
Built-in Pre-delay
Modulation Controls
Decay Ducking options
Full-featured EQ
Little Plate is included with your SuperPlate purchase

[mhschmieder]

Yep, that's how they've done things in the past as well, but their wording could have been better as they scared some customers. Little Plate did reinstall but just for licensing purposes; I don't think it was updated.

[mhschmieder]

The July 2023 issue of Sound On Sound has a free review of Super Plate. It's rare that they open up a new review to non-payers this early; usually you have to wait a few months.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/so ... superplate

I was just about to shut down for the night when I saw this, so I haven't read it yet; just a super-quick skim.

[mikehalloran]

The July 2023 issue of Sound On Sound has a free review of Super Plate. It's rare that they open up a new review to non-payers this early; usually you have to wait a few months.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/so ... superplate

I was just about to shut down for the night when I saw this, so I haven't read it yet; just a super-quick skim.

Well worth the read. Thanks for posting it.