Virtual Mix Rack employs a 500 series style rack that up to 8 “modules” can be housed. Obviously this would be a must for a plugin who runs more plugins inside of it. VMR comes in all of the usual flavors of plugin i.e.: AAX32/64, VST2 & 3, AU, and 32Bit RTAS and also employs better use of native processing to allow for more instances to be used across more tracks. The flexibility of being able to chain together or audition each individual compressor in one window proved very useful, thus the concept was taken a bit further. We all saw the beginnings of this approach in Slate’s Virtual Bus Compressors ( review here) when we were given the VBC Rack option to link all three compressors together.
This may seem a bit redundant but once you see exactly what you can do inside of the rack, you will see why Slate chose this setup. No, these plugins cannot just be placed in an insert without the actual “rack” being used.
Virtual Mix Rack attempts what other software developers have tried to make catch on but unfortunately have not: a modular set of plugins housed inside of a proprietary shell. Virtual Mix Rack is here and we’re going to look under the hood to see if it was worth the wait. Steven Slate, (who a friend of mine has called the “Criss Angel of Pro Audio”) excitedly announced VMR well over a year ago and the recording community have been tapping their foot in anticipation. Unless you’ve been living in some analog cave (which sounds pretty cool now that I think about it), you’ve heard about Virtual Mix Rack.