In this free On Test video Julian Rodgers test drives the Symphony ECS Channel Strip. This plugin has been available as a DSP plugin for Symphony users for a while but it is now available as a native plugin. The settings are tuned by Bob Clearmountain - That’s got to be a good start!

Apogee produce a small number of plugins designed to work in DSP in their audio interfaces. Their dual path technology offers a best of both worlds approach which is powerful and transparent in operation. If you are using a compatible Apogee interface the DSP is available for plugin processing but if you are working on another system away from your hardware the dual path plugins switch to native mode and keep processing, just without the near zero latency afforded by the DSP.

The Symphony ECS Channel Strip now being available as a native plugin means that this dual path topology is now an option when using this plugin too but even if you aren’t an Apogee hardware user you should still check out this plugin as it sounds great and is incredibly simple. If it’s good enough for Bob Clearmountain it’s good enough for anyone…

What Is Symphony ECS Channel Strip?

The Symphony ECS Channel Strip has a simple 3 band EQ with high and low shelves and a swept mid with two Q settings, a variable low pass filter which is assignable to the audio path or compressor side chain. A simple compressor with a mix knob for parallel compression and a drive knob. Lastly there is an output knob for the all important level matching. There is no access to the attack and release times of the compressor. And it sounds so good it really doesn’t need more features.

Apogee Symphony ECS Channel Strip is available now for Symphony Desktop and Native as VST, AU and AAX for Mac and PC. It costs $99 or can be accessed via a rent to own system for 14 payments of $6.99, pause or cancel anytime.

Why Apogee Symphony ECS Gets An Expert’s Choice Award

I didn’t expect to like the ECS Channel Strip nearly as much as I did. However when i used it the decision to give Symphony ECS Channel Strip an Editors Choice was easy. It’s simple and it sounds great, particularly in the HF band of the EQ where some equalisers tend towards harshness. There are plenty of tools out there which are far more capable in terms of facilities and choices. However I found using this plugin I was able to dial in a sound and move on. A fast mix tends to be a good mix so for that reason the decision to award an Expert’s Choice award was an easy one to make.