Are Analog Obsession’s Harqules and Varimoon plug-ins worth the premium price?
5,0 / 5,0 | 
Developer Analog Obsession has released a pair of — you guessed it — analogue emulations. These are Harqules and VariMoon, an equalizer and compressor that look pretty great and all… but still, at USD 199 apiece, it’s no wonder they are called the Diamond series. Stuff’s expensive!
Anyway, whether Analog Obsession’s products are worth the price depends on your own decisions, needs, and liquidity. Both employ component and circuit modelling, striving for an authentic analogue sound within the realm of digital. AO is emulating the line-amps, filters, transformers, op-amps, it says, along with everything else that made the original units tick.
Harqules’ high- and low-pass filters reach 12dB/Octave. The EQ has four bands with variable gain and sweepable frequencies alongside an auto-adjust Q. The low band has switchable shapes – bell and shelf.
Varimoon models the famous Fairchild 660 compressor/limiter, which mostly means simple controls and musical sound. Fiddling with the input knob affects the compression character and harmonic distortion. The release knob is stepped, and more control over compression character is provided via the DC and AC Threshold knobs.
Price & availability
The USD 250 price of Harqules and USD 199 price for Varimoon means these definitely aren’t for anybody, but it’s how Analog Obsession chose to roll. Harqules and Varimoon are available in AAX, AU, and VST2 formats for Windows and Mac computers.
More information
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