Apogee Symphony ECS Channel Strip Plug-In Review
Long-Term Test
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Apogee, with the assistance of Bob Clearmountain, is offering the Symphony ECS Channel Strip plug-in for Mac and PC. ECS stands for EQ, Compression and Saturation and the Symphony ECS Channel Strip is meant to address each one of those challenges head on. We took the Symphony ECS Channel Strip for a long-term test and found it to be largely a nice solution at an affordable price. Our reviewers comments in quotes below.
Apogee Symphony ECS Channel Strip’s EQ is based on some unnamed 1970’s hardware and offers 3-bands, Lo Shelf, High Shelf, and a sweepable midrange. It contains a High Pass filter that ramps up to 300 Hz with an 18 dB per octave slope. It can either trim the low end from the signal or be employed as a sidechain high-pass filter for the compressor sensor for more active compression without pumping artifacts.
The Compressor has been tuned by Bob Clearmountain, who Apogee has a major crush on, and is very simple, yet effective. It’s based on the One Knob philosophy with Auto Makeup baked in. Our reviewers found it to be “almost too clean,” with “little character unless you crank up the Drive.” That said, it’s quite effective at taming the single, even if it lacks the usual attack, release or gain controls. Available is a Threshold knob, a Ratio control of either 3:1, 5:1 or 10:1 and a Dry/Wet mix knob.
Our reviewers found the 10:1 ratio to be solid for contouring loops, samples and other pre-recorded material “that needs an edge, but still remain relatively clean.” The 5:1 ratio was the goto for “analog and digital synths, Eurorack modules and drum machines.” Our rocker also cited the 5:1 for the best results on guitar. The 3:1 worked best on the master buss and vocals for our team.
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Last and probably least is the Saturation control on the Symphony ECS Channel Strip. “It can add some chunk to the midrange, but flushes the transparency of the compressor down the toilet.” Another reviewer found it added “unwanted harmonics to the low end,” while another thought that “using another plug-in after [the Symphony ECS Channel Strip] would be a much better choice for added grit, fuzz and distortion.”
A universal gripe on the Symphony ECS Channel Strip was it’s “circa 1998 graphical user interface.” Considering the effort that some much less affluent companies are devoting to their interfaces these days, “[Apogee] took the zero” on delivering something that “looks the business.”
Conclusion
For $100 bucks and coming in the AU, VST and AAX flavors for both Mac and PC, Apogee’s Symphony ECS Channel Strip is certainly worth a demo. It’s not the sexist EQ / Compressor on the market, but it works well in certain applications where you want transparency. Recommended.
Rating: 81%
Cheers:
+ Ease-Of-Use
+ Transparent
+ Good Results
+ Value
Jeers:
– Interface
– No Phase Inversion
Apogee’s Symphony ECS Channel Strip Plug-In costs $99 / €99.
The Future: As mentioned, the Symphony’s interface is severely lacking and needs a real upgrade to drag it into the new millennium. The addition of Phase Inversion would also be a real plus.
