The Sound Board

Never been a big fan of most Brainworx plug-ins but there are couple that punch through my reservations with complete ease, and one of those is elysia's Phil’s Cascade. I mention it because Phil’s is, for a brief time, on sale for … $9.99, which is, well, ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.

Difficult to explain what the plug-in does — it’s a complex combination of enhancer, saturator, dynamic processor, filter, exciter and a few other analog/organic-sounding processes — and also rather challenging to get completely comfortable with it quickly — definitely not a plug-in you master on the day you buy it — because almost all the parameters interact with one another in some way or other, but if you persevere and spend enough time with it, you’ll gradually discover what a unique, powerful and versatile tool this really is.

I don’t use MODO without it. In fact, MODO through Phil’s Cascade gives you MODO UltraDeluxe. But it’s also great on drums — any Toontrack kit I’m familiar with sounds MUCH better when sent through Phil’s Cascade (with appropriate settings, of course) —, keyboards, vocals, … and there’s probably a good way of using it on mock-orchestral material as well though I haven’t tried that myself yet.

None of the video-demo’s do justice to the plug-in's powers in my opinion. The only way to get a feel of what it is capable of, is to spend some time with. Or, at its current price, simply buy the thing.

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I agree, it's a great plugin. I've had it for a few years and don't use it as often as I should, I default to Big Al and Kelvin for things like this, but it's a fantastic alternative to those with its own features and tons of excellent options. A steal, at the moment, as many PA plugins are nowadays...

Could someone explain to me what this plugin actually is? Looks like some kind of analog emulation but I have no idea about what the original hardware is. Is it some kind of tube saturation?

It's not a compressor, it's a saturation and tone-shaping tool, more like a tube preamp emulation. Subtle "warmth" to full-on distortion, depending on how you crank it. It's not an emulation of any famous piece of equipment, it's a unique design.

Most Plugin Alliance plugins come with very good manuals, including this one. Here it is. It'll explain better than I could.

Additionally, it looks like all the NEOLD plugins are on sale for about $70 and that's the best deal PA has ever had, I think those are some of the best.

Thanks progger. I know Phil's Cascade. It is all about "Klirrfaktor".

I was wondering what plugins punched through his reservations as well, and guessed Elysia's Alpha Compressor.