Hello! This is Jooyoung Kim a mixing engineer and music producer.
Today, Softube’s new plugin, Empirical Labs Prof Punch-Knuckles, is released.
I received the NFR code for this product from Plugin Boutique for this review, and if you purchase the plugin using the links included in this article, I’ll earn a small commission that helps me keep going… 🙂
Let’s start!
Distressor and Mike-E
If you really interested in mixing hardware, you may know the Empirical Labs’ Distressor (EL-8) and Mike-E (EL-9).
The goal of the Distressor’s development was to create a versatile unit that could emulate the sonic signatures of many vintage compressor types, such as opto, FET, and tube designs. However, it wasn’t sound like those, but the saturation character was really great! Now, it is a compressor that has become a modern ‘classic’.
Mike-E is a channel strip whose compressor section is based on the Distressor.
And Prof Punch-Knuckles is a saturator based on those two pieces of modern classic hardware.
Empirical Labs Prof Punch-Knuckles
There three types in this plugin.
In the manual, those types are explained like this.
- Toasty: Based on the saturation in the compressor of Mike-E
- Crunchy: Based on the preamp distortion of the Mike-E
- Distress: The compressor circuit of Distressor and Mike-E
(The frequency response and the compression curve corresponds to each type’s designated sequence)
The ‘Toasty’ and ‘Crunch’ types look like soft-knee limiters, but the ‘Distress’ type clearly behaves like a hard-knee limiter.
Furthermore, the low-cut and high-cut filters aren’t merely simple attenuators. They instead emphasize the frequencies around the cutoff, creating a resonant effect.
There are 3 modes too,
- XFRM: Transformer distortion tone, emphasizing low frequencies
- Wide: A wide-range distortion
- Tape: Emphasizes the distortion in the top end
Harmonic distortions are quite different depending on the types and modes. I didn’t include the graph, however, because it wouldn’t be helpful for clarity.
Over All
Having used this plugin a few times, I now understand why the Distressor has been a long-time favorite. The sound of the Distortion mode is superb, and I anticipate utilizing it in several upcoming mixing projects.
I strongly recommend it specifically for the quality of its saturation.
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