Eventide Anthology XII vs x42-plugins

Eventide Anthology XII is a bundle of 32 plug-ins for audio mixing and mastering. It combines vintage hardware emulations with newer processors, including EQs, compressors, delays, reverbs, pitch changers, modulation effects, and distortion. The collection also covers dynamics, chorus, phaser, flanger, channel strip, and multi-effects, and supports external sidechain. Eventide highlights its patented Transient/Tonal splitting technology. Anthology XII adds 10 plug-ins to the prior Anthology bundle: three reverbs, three modulation effects, two pitch shifters, a distortion, and an EQ. Formats are AAX, AU, VST2, and VST3, with AU on macOS. It runs on Windows 10 or later, x64, or macOS 10.14 or later on Intel or Apple Silicon. An iLok account is required, but a physical dongle is not. Eventide says the plug-ins should work with compatible DAWs and lists Pro Tools, Ableton, Logic Pro, Cubase, FL Studio, and Reaper. Anthology XII costs $999, paid once; a 14-day trial is available, and there is no free plan.

x42-plugins is a collection of audio-processing tools offered as LV2 plugins and standalone JACK applications for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its audio, MIDI, and utility tools include equalizers, meters, synthesizers, tuners, and sequencers. The Meter Collection has needle and bar-graph meters, an EBU R128 meter, phase displays, and spectrum analysis. The Equalizer is a four-band parametric EQ with shelf and high- and low-pass filters, zero latency, and spectrum and spectrogram displays. LV2 plugins need an LV2-capable host; standalone applications require JACK. The FAQ lists Ardour, Harrison Mixbus, REAPER, Audacity, and Carla among LV2-compatible software. x42-meters, x42-eq, and x42-whirl are included with Harrison Mixbus and Mixbus32C. Source code is available under GNU GPL version 2 or later. Without a valid license signature, plugins process audio, but their GUI stops responding to mouse input and eventually fades to black. Listed one-time license prices are 19.00 USD for Whirl Speaker, 29.00 USD for Equalizer, and 49.00 USD for Meter Collection.