If you spend any time on Gearslutz at all then you'll be aware that Slate Digital has built a cult-like following in the past five years in the pro audio industry. The Virtual Mix Rack was heavily anticipated, as Slate’s team had really pushed the boundaries in analog modeling in all of their previous releases - this was to be no different. VMR boasts four emulations of highly sought after analog hardware units: the FG-116 (a model of Universal Audio’s 1176 compressor), the FG-401 (based loosely around multiple VCA compressors), the FG-N (a take on Neve’s 1073 EQ), and the FG-S (their version of SSL’s 4000-series Console EQ). One of the main goals of VMR is bringing multiple processing units into one plugin - a “virtual rack” - in order to make creation, saving, and recall of custom channel strips faster than ever. The rack unit itself is well-designed, allowing users to 'drag and drop' to bring new modules into the rack or to reorganise the modules as they see fit. Modules can also be dragged from one rack interface to another, which is actually a handy feature if you are working across multiple channels. Modules can also be individually bypassed and soloed which is helpful when it comes to zeroing in on your sound. As VMR was voted third place in the EQ category, we'll focus on the EQ modules - the FG-N, based on the Neve 1073, is an excellent EQ. Slate decided to modify the plugin, giving it an extra mid-range band and removing the stepped values to give the frequency knobs full range. The EQ sports a saturation control labeled “LINE” that emulates the sonic characteristics of driving the unit's preamp section. Next, the FG-S - it's based around the SSL 4000 console EQ, a legendary EQ derived from the famous SSL 4000 console channel equaliser, known worldwide for having recorded thousands of top selling albums at many famous studios since its inception. With two parametric and fully sweepable bells, a high shelf, a low shelf, a high pass filter, and all the analogue saturation inherent to the original design, the FG-S is a seriously capable EQ.