SGA1566

SGA1566 is a hardware preamp emulation designed like a two-stage 12AX7 tube preamp. It can add a lot of life and fatten up tracks recorded digitally or through solid-state gear. The plugin is excellent for use on pretty much any mix element, from vocals to bass. It also works great as a saturation plugin for buses and the master channel. The control scheme is pretty sophisticated, with knobs for Input and Output gain, as well as a Gain knob that controls the amount of drive to the tube section.

One of the coolest features is that the Baxandall EQ section can be placed before or after the distortion, adding versatility. SGA1566 is notorious for eating up a lot of CPU. To remedy this issue, there is a switch for high or low performance, but the sound has more fidelity at the higher setting. It can also be run in mono or stereo.