Rupert Neve Designs MBP, 551 & 542

One of the biggest names in studio hardware has taken the plunge into software...

If there’s one proposition that has always underpinned Rupert Neve Designs’ business, it’s that there is still a place for quality analogue gear in the 21st Century. Whether it’s a six‑figure console serving as the centrepiece of a recording studio, a 500‑series chassis being carried to location sessions, or a rackmount processor sweetening the lead vocal on a big‑name tour, RND have successfully convinced engineers of the value of hardware in an increasingly soft world. And perhaps as a result, they’ve tended to resist the idea of branching out into software themselves.

To date, the only official plug‑ins to bear the Rupert Neve Designs badge have been Steinberg/Yamaha’s emulations of the Portico 5033 EQ and Portico 5043 compressor. These were released back in 2011, and are long discontinued. Fifteen years later, though, RND have teamed up with a new digital development partner to virtualise three of their most popular analogue products. Coded by Californian plug‑in legends McDSP, the new suite introduces meticulous recreations of the 500‑series 551 equaliser and 542 tape emulator, and the rackmounting Portico II Master Bus Processor. The plug‑ins are available for macOS and Windows in all the usual native formats, and are authorised using the iLok system. All three plug‑ins have skeuomorphic graphical interfaces that closely mimic the relevant hardware, including the host chassis in the case of the two 500‑series emulations. At their default size, the legending can be hard to read, but a steady hand and a keen eye will allow you to click on three small lines in the lower right‑hand corner and drag to resize.

I’m as partial to a piece of tasty analogue hardware as the next engineer, but have never had much opportunity to try out any of the Rupert Neve Designs goodies. However, the company were sufficiently confident in the accuracy of these emulations that they lent me a 500‑series rack with pairs of the 551 and 542 for comparison.

Take It To The Limiter

Ask a hundred engineers what sort of processing they like to use on the master bus, and you’ll probably get a hundred different answers. However, the vast majority would mention compression and broad‑brush tonal shaping, and these form the heart of the Portico II Master Bus Processor.

The layout of the MBP plug‑in closely follows that of the hardware, with minor changes around the implementation of dual‑channel processing.

The dynamics section bears recognisable similarities to the classic Neve 33609 diode‑bridge compressor, in that it offers a two‑stage path with a fully featured compressor and a one‑knob limiter. The compressor can be switched between feed‑forward and feedback topologies, and the side‑chain detector can operate in peak or RMS sensing modes. Time constants are freely variable from 20 to 80 ms for the attack and 100ms to 3s for the release. Unusually, for a mastering compressor, there’s no auto release option. The plug‑in recreates the hardware feature set closely, with only one minor ‘improvement’: the corner frequency of the switchable side‑chain high‑pass filter can now be swept, rather than being fixed at 125Hz.

My experience of the 33609 is confined to plug‑in emulations, which always strike me as having a pretty assertive sound: great for overheads or a drum subgroup, not always easy to dial in on the master bus. The MBP plug‑in can certainly wield authority, but wraps its iron fist in a rather thicker velvet glove. It’s easy to transparently shave a dB or two off the dynamic range, and if you do decide to go further, the wet/dry Blend control makes it easy to dial some of the unprocessed signal back in. I didn’t really miss the auto‑release.

Silk Screens

The hardware MBP is sufficiently pricey that few studios are likely to own more than one, so I’d imagine that in most cases it really does live permanently in the master bus signal chain. Buying the plug‑in gives you the opportunity to apply it anywhere you like, or indeed everywhere at once, and it’s certainly versatile enough to serve as an excellent general‑purpose compressor/limiter.

The MBP has two mechanisms for delivering tonal shaping, both of them a little unconventional. Within the compressor section, you’ll find RND’s trademark Texture circuit, which uses transformer saturation to add harmonic content to the programme material. The Texture dial controls the amount of saturation, whilst the Silk setting determines which part of the frequency spectrum it’s derived from. In the Red setting, Texture operates mainly on the upper midrange, adding air and sparkle much like the classic Aphex Aural Exciter. In the Blue setting, the harmonic content comes mainly from the bass and low mids, giving the impression of a fuller and richer low end without actually boosting the problematic sub‑bass range.

Used in moderation, both the Red and Blue settings are surprisingly versatile. I often couldn’t decide which I liked more on a given source, and wished I could use both at once! Fortunately, it’s always possible to add another plug‑in in the chain...

Meanwhile, as its name suggests, the MBP’s Stereo Field Enhancer is designed primarily for adjusting the subjective width of programme material,...