The Radiator by Soundtoys is a dual drive tube input channel and EQ that is based on the legendary Altec 1567A tube mixer from the ’60s. Radiator adds a tube warmth for your mix with a vintage vibe and a super magic tone that is characteristic when mixed especially with bass and drums. The original hardware from which Radiator has been inspired was a rack-mounted five input tube mixer with removable transformers and simple EQ knobs and a tremendous 97dB of gain. Back in its day, the Altec hardware was used on many of the early Motown hits.
The original 1566A and the 1567A played such a big part in the shaping of what we know today as the sound of Motown which was between 1961 and 1964. Big names in the Motown history wen through the Altec mixer, like The Supremes, The Marvelettes and more. The mic preamps that are loaded on the original green-faced Altec mixers have a particular captured warm sound and are also very loud. They where simple to use and only have a knob for bass and another for treble.
Radiator plug-in brings all this classic and historical goodness sound to desktop recordings. Soundtoys have managed to capture the distinctive warmth and punch from the original hardware, including the modelled bass and treble tone controls. There also is a mixing control that will let you parallel processing with saturation and harmonic effects with input and output amplifiers. The magic happens when all the circuits come together and interact in a way that allows for a wide range of tone to be creative with.
These original Altec mixers have always been relatively inexpensive and were widely used to bring analogue sound and character to computer-based music recording and production. Over the last complete of years, they have gained popularity again with bands like Marron 5 and the Black Keys.
Image: Soundtoys
