Black Box Analog Designs - HG-2 Saturation Processor - KMR Demo Room

Black Box Analog Designs HG-2 is a stereo mix bus saturation processor designed to add colour, natural compression and increased RMS on the master bus. Ideal for mixing and mastering, HG-2 effortlessly adds harmonic colour and texture without sacrificing the basic mix.
In this video, we put this stereo valve processor through its paces with different source material - no talking, just audio, so you can make up your own mind.
00:00 - Intro
00:05 - Drums
01:13 - Pop Mix
02:05 - Acoustic Mix
02:54 - Technical Specs
For more information on Black Box HG-2: www.kmraudio.com/black-box-hg...

[@donkeyfacekilla1]

goddamn i want one of these

[@JBrm]

Thanks for the demo, it gives a good impression of what the unit can do! A hint for future videos: you might wanna revisit the bus compressor settings for the solo drum track & the acoustic mix, they are choking pretty bad, which distracts a bit from the actual thing this video is about.

[@kmraudio]

Thanks for the feedback 👍

[@delightleo593]

How long will the tube last before someone can change it ?

[@Pottwerke]

Two to five hours. Then you have to change all tubes.

[@ourmindzdj]

@@Pottwerke this is obviously a troll hahaha

[@Pottwerke]

@@ourmindzdj You are right, it´s 30 minuts until you have to change them. My bad

[@ourmindzdj]

Tubes & valves are usually good for 1-3 years depending on how frequent they are used. I’ve had a lot of stereo valve & tube gear from Thermionic Culture and SPL and I changed every three years to be sure my left & rights are closely matched still. Three was also what TC recommends for their Swift EQ & CV but common sense applied. If you were running these for 12 hours everyday super hot, you’d need to revalue/retube sooner. I haven’t owned any Analog Designs gear (yet). Always best to ask the manufacturer for their recommendations and use as a guide. You should be able to hear when they start to dull down a bit, or if output one side begins to drop

[@Pottwerke]

@@ourmindzdj I change my tubes every 30 minutes. I drive them very hot with 8 Amperes of current. My beats are very hard.

[@yiurock4084]

lol barely any difference and levels not even matched. Just an expensive lava lamp

[@rawpoweraudio]

It can definitely be dialed in to be noticeable if you wanted to. A major benefit of something like this, with a subtle setting, is that it can reduce peak level, which allows for more headroom in the mix

[@juniorvicepresidentofzimba4946]

That you can hear no difference is probably do to with approach. In mastering and a lot of mixing, this is a brilliant tool.