Honey3 packs all the power and musicality of a world-class American console, highly regarded by many industry professionals for its musicality and logical layout.
Since 1975, numerous top-selling records have been crafted on this marvelous piece of audio engineering, including gems like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, Paul Simon’s “Graceland”, as well as many hits by AC/DC, ABBA, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, and many more.
Acustica Audio managed to find one of these consoles in a stunning condition so Acustica Audio called up their collaborator SoundDrops to meticulously sample the console in its entirety, replicating its full sonic DNA inside the companies plugin suite, which you can now use to sweet up your tracks.
The original console design doesn’t feature a compressor though, hence Acustica Audio built one. They built a superb-sounding VCA unit and transformed into an home-brew processor, whose character is a natural extension of the original designs.
Honey3 includes 4 separate plugins. A home-brew version of a famous EQ (CLASSIC), a faithful VINTAGE version of the same unit, the above-mentioned VCA compressor, and a channel strip that includes select modules, wisely chosen by the Acustica team. Let’s take a closer look at what’s inside the suite.
WHAT YOU GET:
- Honey3 Vintage EQ (A 4-Band standalone Equalizer with high and low cut filters derived from a 70s American series console).
- Honey3 Classic EQ (A 4-Band standalone Classic Equalizer with high and low cut filters inspired by a broadcast console built by the same renowned American manufacturer).
- Honey3 Comp (A versatile VCA-based channel compressor based on a feed-forward topology).
- Honey3 Channel-strip (A Channel strip that includes some of the previously cited standalone plugins)
Each plug-in included in the Honey3 suite comes in a “Standard” version and an alternative “ZL*” version which operates at *zero latency and is thus suitable for use when tracking, at the cost of extra processing resources. For further details consult the Honey3 user’s manual in the Overview section.
HONEY3 is based on Acustica Audio’s Core 13 engine:
- NEW Core 13 engine improves on the previous version by introducing Acustica Audio’s new VLA™ technology (Vector Loading Acceleration), which makes the response of the plugin much faster.
- Upgraded SASM (Symmetric & Asymmetric Saturation Modeling) high-performance saturation algorithm;
- Introduction of a new post-production sample de-noising tech for cleaner deconvolved impulses called STT (Super transient technology);
- Full compatibility with Client/Server architecture integrated by default in Acqua plugins;
- Engine optimization introducing a new highly efficient algorithm. This innovative technique is applied to all the deconvolved impulses for further de-noise processing and subsequent elimination of any incorrect low-level behavior (including the so-called “echo bug”).
