Metric Halo MB Howies179 v4.1.17 [WiN-MAC]

• Product: Howies179
• Developer: Metric Halo & Make Believe Studios
• Version: 4.1.17.281
• Format: VST, VST3, AAX, AU
• Requirements: Windows 7 or later, macOS 10.10 or later
• Source: mhsecure.com/products/software/Howies179

Howie’s 179 is a compressor/limiter plugin from Metric Halo and Make Believe Studios, built as a direct capture of mastering engineer Howie Weinberg’s own pair of NTP 179-120 hardware units rather than a generic model of the 179-120 design. It sits on a mix bus, master bus, or individual track, reproducing that specific pair’s dynamics behavior, box tone, and distortion character. Recallable settings, flexible mono or stereo deployment, and controls built for in-the-box use differentiate it from the fixed, non-recallable stereo hardware pair it’s modeled from.

Key Takeaway

The core value is a direct capture of one specific, otherwise unobtainable hardware pair — Weinberg’s own 179-120s — with recallable settings and mono/stereo flexibility the analog originals never had. Zero-latency processing is tied to owning Metric Halo’s own 3D interfaces; run as a standard plugin elsewhere, it carries normal host plugin latency like any other compressor.

One Pair, Not the Design

Howie’s 179 is built from Howie Weinberg’s own two NTP 179-120 units — the specific pair racked up in his mastering room — rather than a generic model of the 179-120 design averaged across multiple hardware examples. The capture covers Weinberg’s units’ individual dynamics behavior, box tone, and distortion character, the same properties that vary unit to unit on analog hardware built decades apart from a common design.

That specificity cuts both ways — a mix engineer who has used a different pair of 179-120 hardware, including Bob Ludwig’s own pair from the same Masterdisk era, isn’t hearing that pair reproduced. Howie’s 179 is built from the two units Weinberg supplied, not from the 179-120 circuit as a general reference design.

Recallable, No Longer Stereo-Locked

The original 179-120 is a fixed stereo hardware pair with no recall — a setting dialed in on the analog unit exists only as long as the knobs stay where they were left, and reproducing it on a different session means resetting every control from memory or a written-down number. Howie’s 179 carries that same processing into a plugin that saves and recalls its full state with the session, so a setting from one mastering pass loads back exactly on the next without touching a knob.

The hardware’s stereo-pair design also means it processes two channels as one linked unit — Howie’s 179 isn’t locked to that same stereo-only deployment, so it loads as a mono instance on a single track or a stereo instance on a bus, wherever the processing is needed in a session.

That flexibility shifts responsibility onto the engineer — the original hardware pair processed both channels through one physical unit by definition, so stereo image stayed inherently linked. Loading separate mono instances across multiple tracks in Howie’s 179 means each instance runs its own independent detection, and keeping those instances matched across a mix is a manual task the single hardware unit never presented.

New Controls, Same Captured Core

Howie’s 179 adds controls built specifically for running the compressor/limiter in the box rather than patched into an analog loop — controls the original hardware signal path didn’t need, since it lived permanently wired into a mastering console rather than inserted and removed on a plugin chain. The plugin also carries an adjustable UI size and the MH Preset Manager, which keeps presets portable across sessions.

Those additional controls sit apart from the modeled hardware stage itself — they’re software-side conveniences added for plugin use, not part of the dynamics processing captured from Weinberg’s units, so the sonic character comes from the compressor/limiter modeling while the workflow controls are Metric Halo and Make Believe’s own addition on top of it.

The MH Preset Manager keeps presets portable across the Mac and Windows builds, so a preset built on one machine loads the same way on the other rather than needing separate management on each platform — useful for a mastering room running sessions across more than one workstation.

Zero Latency Needs Metric Halo’s Own Hardware

A +DSP version of Howie’s 179 runs with zero added latency when hosted on Metric Halo’s own 3D-series audio interfaces, processing on the interface’s onboard DSP rather than through the host’s plugin buffer. That version is included with those interfaces rather than sold separately, giving tracking and mixing sessions the same real-time feel as patching into the analog hardware.

Zero-latency processing is tied to owning Metric Halo 3D interface hardware — running Howie’s 179 as a standard AU, VST, or AAX plugin in any other setup processes through the host’s normal plugin latency like any other native compressor, with none of the +DSP path’s real-time advantage. A studio without Metric Halo interfaces gets the modeled dynamics and box tone, not the zero-latency tracking path.

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