I love the Silk circuits on Rupert Neve gear. It’s one of those things that can be hard to explain because the difference isn’t always huge. You turn it on and think, okay, that sounds nice. Then you bypass it and suddenly the record feels a little flatter and you want it back.

The Master Bus Transformer is my favorite version because you have Red and Blue Silk and can use them together. Broadly speaking, Blue emphasizes harmonic content toward the low end, while Red shifts the emphasis higher. So you can add some weight and density down low while bringing a little excitement into the top.

One of the producers I manage, 206DEREK, has a Master Bus Transformer at his studio, so I’ve spent some time with it. It’s an incredible piece of hardware.

It also costs around $4,000.

SweetEQ is obviously not an MBT emulation. We didn’t model Rupert Neve’s circuit and I’m not going to tell you a $79 plugin magically turns into $4,000 worth of hardware.

But messing around with SweetEQ made me realize that what I liked about Silk wasn’t necessarily the circuit itself, but what it was doing to the way I perceived different parts of the record.

Instead of asking how much bass I wanted to add, I could ask how I wanted the bass to feel.

SweetEQ lets you add saturation to different areas of the frequency spectrum. For something in the direction of Blue Silk, put Low around 7%, set the pitch around 124 Hz and Density around 13%. Then play with the Mix knob. You’re trying to get the bottom to feel thicker without sounding like you boosted the bass.

For Red, try Lift and High around 5% and start with Mix at 50%. Adjust the Mix until the top feels a little more alive.

My favorite is using both ideas together. Try Low at 7%, Density at 13%, Lift at 1% and High at 1%. Move the Mix until it feels right.

Then bypass it.

I eventually ran the same music through Derek’s MBT with Red and Blue Silk. I wasn’t expecting them to null. They’re completely different designs. I just wanted to know if SweetEQ could get me in the same neighborhood.

And being as objective as I can, I was surprised by how close I could get. Close enough that eventually the technical comparison became less interesting than the musical one.

Which one did I actually want to listen to?

I love hardware and I’d happily have an MBT sitting on my mix bus. But most people aren’t choosing between a $4,000 piece of hardware and a $79 plugin.

You don’t necessarily need to recreate the circuit.

You need to figure out what you love about what it does.

Try the settings. Then bypass it.

I’m curious if you hear what I heard.