P42 Climax MOD

Beautiful saturation and mojo for anything you put through it. Adds depth and character instantly. Once you get used to the workflow, dialing in the perfect sound is a breeze. Fantastic sound from this plugin.

I downloaded the trial and was blown away. Some of the best ITB saturation I've ever heard. And the support team is friendly and responsive.

I was skeptical about this plugin. I downloaded the demo and I have to admit, I'm blown away! I compared it to all my other saturation plugins, but none achieve that nice saturation like P42. It manages to color the sound and give it so much energy without losing detail or sounding thin. You simply have to demo it and I think you'll be convinced as well! A must have plugin that I'm hoping to buy soon after the demo period is over.

It's a good plugin... But I've taken a star off for the silly price tag. Given that it's $100 more expensive then some of the other high end saturators available. I'd recommend it only if you can get it at a discount.

positive
- Main knob adjustment is fine, allows good control of output
- saturation sounds good
- fat saturation possible, gives good lowend on programmed drums
- some presets are good, eg Kick Punch nicely cleared my self programmed kick and made it rounder
- tuning the default preset gave a bass sound more definition in a subtle manner, without destroying the mix
- works in conjunction with other saturators (eg. VSM-4, to clean up muddiness in one of my cases).

negative
- need to give full adress when requesting trial key
- UI looks amateurish/unfinished
-- clipped graphics, not smoothed edges of cutout graphics
-- knobs not sharp, look blurred
-- UI elements placement looks a bit off
-- too many elements of different shape in the UI
-- on mouse over tooltip stay visible when leaving element (and look off compared to each other)
-- DI switch settings are not clear, at strange positions, needs markers. Also mouse needs to travel a long way to switch DI states
- needs an output meter to quicker be able to set the output trim setting
- price is very high (215€, even discounted by 20% it is high), other plugins can do similar things (at least in my ears), which are priced 50% or less of that price.

compared against other saturators I use (in about the same price class) the workflow is not immediately clear.
compared against VSM-4, Kelvin, Overstay M-A-S. P42's results are not as immediate and clear.
Maybe need to test it more, but on the other plugins it was more intuitive to use.

I'm beta tester for some well known companies and this would be the feedback I give them about the product.
It's not in any way towards or against the dev, I try to stay neutral, and this is usually honored by the companies I test for.

The P42 Line Amp brings the mojo for sure. It can be extreme but I prefer how subtle it can be. The interaction between the EQ shelves and filters is really intuitive. In fact one of the major strengths of the P42 is that it is so quick and easy to dial in sounds. It is particularly great on individual drums (the way it can transform a snare is actually amazing) and bass, but really it is useful on everything. The CPU hit is so low that you CAN use it on everything too! Highly recommended, it rolls with all the best plugin saturators and tone shapers out there.

A line amp emulation - tone shaper, colour box plugin that purports to sound as good as or even better than a single channel $1700 piece of hardware.

Well that's a comparison ! Does it hit the mark ?

Well I don't own the said piece of hardware but I certainly like the sound of the " Pulsar Novation P42 Climax ".

Said to emulate the Motown sound (Wolfbox DI) for you electric guitar and bass players. Also can match the sound of a Neve 1080 amongst others. The "fusion" presets are great for the 2 bus and can be tweaked to taste. Frankly this sounds great on all individual sounds and is very simple to use.

Works a treat. And without plagiarising a used slogan " probably the best tone shaper in the world ", certainly could well be ITB. Obviously this is subjective and there are some many fine ones out there but this one wraps very well around the sound with a most analogue feel. Have yet to compare fully with my collection of known brands plugs but I am liking this.

So a lot of fun can be had with this plugin, with its' low CPU allowing many instances and serial loading for even extra girth and grit.

A highly flexible and useable plugin available in the now usual formats with low and high shelf, air, oversampling, saturation slider, dry wet mix, High pass and low, amongst others, with zero latency.

Nice uncluttered tool box type interface with some room for any further "add ons" for the developer to include, should they feel the need to enhance further on the recent 1.8 update.

In reality the $249 price seems a bit of a bargain, considering how many instances you can use and the sound achieved. I have just finished a mastering compilation, so very useful not to have had to continuously patch things in for each track. Recall would have been a pain for the 14 or so songs.

Time to sell off some of your old, no longer needed emulations ! Maybe get rid of that noisy piece of hardware that needs re-capping, taking up space and draining on the electricity ? Hmm food for thought, energy prices are rising :(.

Yes, very happy with this next level in the box tool. Still getting to know all the myriad of uses and you can too with the very generous 40 day, fully unrestricted demo for 2 computers. You can even save your own presets in preparation for the inevitable .

Although an unknown developer to me, they do seem responsive to users and have some other products of interest that I looking forward to try out. Judging by the standard of this one I will be in for a treat .

Great tool !! Love the saturation that can be subtle or agressive but never harsh. The Air switch and the Hi-Shelf/Low-Shelf are also very useful and musical. Can be useful for individual tracks or busses (even mastering session).

Congrats Pulsar Modular .

So far whatever I run through P42 feels more alive. It thickens things in a pleasing way and is fun to use. I'm also able to get more clarity without harshness.

The CPU usage is very low, and I like the improvements the dev has already made to it. I'm not crazy about the GUI, but given the sound and the low CPU usage I can roll with it.

I did not think I would ever see myself spending what this cost on any plugin - honestly. I'll start with that. But after seeing a lot of positive comments on a forum I frequent, I decided to download the demo.

My experience with this plugin was immediate and unequivocal. In my opinion - and this is so far, who know what the future holds - this is the best EQ/saturation product on the market today. The sound is dynamic and "alive" in a way I honestly have not heard ITB (though I think Acustica comes close - I love Acustica).

I have, own, and use saturation from Tone Projects, Goodhertz, Softube, Kush and many of the major players in the field, and there are some great ones. This one - I feel - is alone in its class at this point. Not that it is a simple saturator, it isn't. It's a tone shaper, and I would argue, has such a wonderful and varied spectrum of possibility that it is a tone swiss-army knife while also imparting some saturation and brings sound alive in a way few ITB offerings even come close to.

So, yes, it's a whole lot of money for any one digital tool. I had a hard time with that. I would suggest downloading the trial and work this bad boy out. Push it, do dual mono if you can. Then try to not buy it.

First off for the anti dongle fraction: no dongle, no dongle software required.
Second for the anti c&r fraction: it is c&r.

If you're still interested, there's a 40-day fully functional trial for 2 computers.
Enough time to consider the individual pros & cons.

Price tag is highly anti-cyclical, so it must bring something on the plate ...
and it does.

It is a riddle to me how an emulation can go that far
to appear so true and authentic vs the original sound
within a fair amount of usage (can of course "destroy" the sound).
As a regular user of AA plugins I am pretty surprised by the quality of the P42
and welcome it's capacities frankly missed in AA land.

P42 doesn't force the sound into it's predetermined routines,
rather goes with the given sound and enhance what's there.

Maybe that's what hw units did back in the days,
I cannot judge that but I had the impression it must have been like this.
To call it a preamp may be right when we talk about those "back in the days" units
otherwise it is so flexible one can easily say
it is also a sound shaper, a distortion box, an enhancer and what not.

All that definitely in a quality unheard before, so 5 stars all the way.

As soon as I inserted the plugin, I was pretty impressed.

At my studio we work a lot with subtle saturation for tracking, doing so I get to use a diverse array of preamps, from vintage tube preamps, 60s/70s transformer-based, European, American up to more modern gear.

As I was impressed upon listening to the P42, I checked to see if it wasn't the init setting that was louder than my unprocessed material, which is a trick too often seen and heard. But no, peak levels were similar, but I could hear a beefing up of the low end, more density in the sound from the saturation compression and harmonic colouration. Also, transients didn't get butchered but so slightly sweetened.

Whatever track or source material you're working on, boosting the saturation slider emphasises the aforementioned effect on the sound and it takes quite some action before the sound breaks up. When it does it sounds sweet.

I must say that while I give it 5 stars for the sound, which matters most, I would have given less for the GUI which at first sight gave me a « made with Synthedit » déjà vu of when I started out with free plugins, associated sometimes with less reliable ones.

However, in the week that I've been demoing it, sometimes with many instances it has been rock solid, not a glitch.

While priced a bit strong, it works on a broad spectrum of material and with the available controls can be setup for finesse or scorching hot sound.

Definitely worth trying.

I have to admit to being initially put off by the price of P42 Climax, but after downloading the demo and putting it thru it's paces, the harmonic richness won me over. It has seen usage in so many mixes that I began to to realize it's true value. I'm still learning it, but I'm looking forward to finding even more ways for the P42 Climax to elevate my mixes as we get better acquainted.

This is the first plugin I've reviewed. I own a lot of plugins (a LOT) and a lot of really great ones too but this plugin is truly something special.

I saw it described as a desert island plugin recently and it truly is. I find myself using it to shape sound more than any other saturator or even EQ I own and there's nothing I've tried it on that it doesn't improve.

Add to this the fact that the CPU hit is so low it can easily be on every track. It don't know how they've done it.

It's on the pricier side of plugins but seriously give it a demo - I'm confident you'll like what you hear. This is one everyone should know about.