Containing five different preamp, EQ and compressor plug-ins plus a complete channel strip, Pink2 is Acustica Audio’s new flagship processing suite. Like the rest of Acustica’s Acqua plug-in range, Pink2 is based on the company’s dynamic convolution technology, which uses impulses and sine sweeps to effectively sample the behaviour of analogue hardware and reproduce it in software.
Although Acustica are coy about the precise origins of this collection of plug-ins, the API-style knobs on the GUI drop a pretty heavy hint. The suite includes a preamp module, two different EQs and two flavours of compression, though within most of these plug-ins there’s the option to mix and match a range of different hardware models. The 215 preamp features a one-knob gain control and eight different “colour” presets, representing the particular harmonic distortion characteristics of various vintage preamps and their modern, cloned counterparts. The 780 10-band graphic EQ is joined by the 1650 four-band EQ, which features four different EQ models individually selectable per-band. The 2412 single-band compressor boasts a number of useful fine-tuning features, including adjustable attack curve and sidechain EQ curve controls, while the 7236 is a three-band compressor offering both feed-back and feed-forward compression and a range of crossover filter types. Finally, the Pink2 Channel Strip combines a preamp, four-band EQ and compressor in one plug-in.
Pink2 is based around Core 12, the latest version of Acustica’s audio engine. This promises improved CPU efficiency — always a challenge with the demanding dynamic convolution process — and improvements to the plug-ins’ saturation modelling and elimination of unwanted artifacts. Pink2 is available in VST, AU and AAX formats for macOS and Windows, priced at 199 Euros.
