Acustica Audio BLACK - Big Things Come in Small Packages

Acustica Audio Black at it's core is a one knob plugin... gain. But what makes this plugin fascinating is that this gain control can be run through various preamps (in our case just the free one that comes with the free player) which have literally been sampled to try and produce the most "realistic" tones of a console or preamp sans using the real thing.
Acustics's Nebula and Acqua plugins have always sounded really good but for me the interface and general lack of user friendliness has made them a no go for me in day to day production or more specifically mixing work because they've always slowed me down way too much. With Black this marks a bit of a new era for me personally because of just how easy, fast, and intuitive this plugin is to use. That's the biggest thing for me with this plugin and why I'm excited to see how it develops overtime. I think it's definitely worth a look if you're a nerd like me and love this sort of finisher ear candy. This thing can add those small amounts of depth, dimension, and flattering tone shaping that audio nerds and casual listeners love.
Most likely you'd be using this plugin when you transition your production into the mixing stage and would place an instance of Black at the start of the chain on each channel, do a quick gain stage with Black, and then begin your mix proper.
Plugs Used
BLACK GURU (Navy Geranium Mic Pre's)
Cream (For Comparison)
Lindell 80 Series (For Comparison)
The Glue in Conjunction With Black
AXIS eq in Conjuction With Black
Pro L 2 - For Gain Matching

[@montanamaxxamillion]

Ok, what if I have preamp plugs already from Acustica? what will this offer me as opposed to the actual preamp that comes with the different bundles?

[@matt_nyc_audioengineer]

On the Lindell it looks like you hav the preamp gain set to 0. The THD only works on those plugins if you are using the functions in the stip. So just placing the plugin on a channel will do very very little/nothing. I'm not sure if you used the preamp on the channels that you didn't do any eq or compression. If you did you are good but if you just put them on then they weren't doing anything to those channels.

[@acecatman]

not really though, the plugin has an input calibration so if your signal comes in hot, you get saturation even with all the controls at default

[@Randallkoller]

Stop all that whining and get to work with the tools you got to work with!