MB Howies179

"Music today doesn't need more loud. It needs more glue, more weight, more smooth." -Howie Weinberg Masterdisk. Bob Ludwig. Howie Weinberg. A common thread through thousands of of masters and hundreds of Grammy Nominations and wins is the sonic imprint of the NTP 179-120. This compressor/limiter has a mythical reputation, and is basically unobtainable in modern times. Until now. Introducing Howie's 179 We worked with legendary mastering engineer Howie Weinberg to capture the essence and nuance of his personal 179-120s. From the details of the dynamics processing to the boxtone and distortion characteristics of his specific units, Howie's 179 is a loving recreation of Howie's pair of NTP 179-120 compressor/limiters.

Based on his 40+ year mastering career working on the biggest albums across all genres, Howie has zeroed in on the range of settings that are the key to getting the most out of this legendary processor. The Howie's 179 plugin provides a streamlined UI that takes that experience into account, while also adding the required controls to make it easy to utilize the compressor/limiter in the box rather than in an analog loop; add in recallability and not being limited to a stereo pair, and Howie's 179 opens a new world of possibilities for you!

"The 179-120 was built in 1975 for the very first Neumann mastering consoles, the SP 75 and the SP 77. When I started at Masterdisk in '77, it was just there, bolted into the wall, part of the furniture. Bob Ludwig leaned on it. I leaned on it. It became a staple for both of us on records all through the '80s and '90s, and most people who love those records have never heard its name. That's exactly the point. It's the most unobtrusive stereo bus compressor ever made. The sound is big and smooth; it holds a record together without ever telling you it's there. In my opinion, it's one of the finest-sounding stereo compressors ever produced. I still have my pair racked up in Laurel Canyon, and for years when people asked me how to get that glue, the honest answer was - you can't. There are only a handful of these left in the world. That's what makes what Metric Halo and Make Believe Studios did so special, they didn't build something 'inspired' by it, they captured my actual units, exactly. Music today doesn't need more loud. It needs more glue, more weight, more smooth. This is where I've always gotten mine, and now it's in your DAW." -Howie Weinberg

Some of Howie's Mastering Credits

The Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Prince, Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., Twenty One Pilots, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Joe Cocker, Fiona Apple, Soundgarden, Arrested Development, Herbie Hancock, PJ Harvey, Nirvana, Daft Punk, Elvis Costello, Mariah Carey, Garbage, LL Cool J, Deftones, UB40, Iggy Pop, U2, Public Enemy, Don Henley, Metallica, Gorillaz, ZZ Top, The Black Keys, My Chemical Romance, Danzig, The Lumineers, Public Image Ltd., Filter, Marilyn Manson, Pantera, Disturbed, Queensryche, Papa Roach, Cage the Elephant, Bush, Tenacious D, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Vessel, Sugar, Bjork, Phish, Rammstein, N2deep, ELO, The Clash, Limp Bizkit, Creed, Muse, David Lee Roth, Yoko Ono, Chic, Ice Cube, Sonic Youth, Modest Mouse, Sinead O' Connor and more… Howie has received 20 Grammy awards and 76 Grammy nominations, 4 TEC awards, 2 Juno awards, 1 Mercury prize award, 200+ gold and platinum records, and has over 8.6k total credits.

"This thing is insane. I'm kind of pissed that our secret weapon is now available to the public. Howie's 179 is legendary, and MB/MH knocked it out of the park with this one. It's a perfect match to the hardware!" -Will Borza, Howie Weinberg Mastering Deftones, The Black Keys, The Lumineers, My Chemical Romance, Foster The People, Thirty Seconds To Mars, YUNGBLUD

Intro Sale Price: $89.00 (intro price until August 20, 2026) MSRP: $179.00

Designed for producers, musicians, mix and mastering engineers who want that final weight, smoothness and glue for their productions. Howie has used the 179-120 on over 2000 mastering projects - 76 of which have been nominated for Grammys and 20 of which have won. Add Howies179 to your toolkit today!

Key Features

• Detailed model of Howie Weinberg's NTP 179-120
• Add smoothness, weight and glue
• Apply the analog saturation of Howie's units
• World-class Signal Processing and Workflow
• Adjustable UI size
• MH Preset Manager - Provides cross-platform presets

Try It Free for 30 Days

We want you to hear how MB Howies179 can bring your mixes to the next level – that's why we have a free, fully functional 30-day trial of MB Howies179 available for download. Try MB Howies179 for yourself today!

The +DSP version of this plugin running with zero latency on hardware is included all Metric Halo 3d Audio Interfaces.

System Requirements

Mac
CPU: Intel Processor or Apple Silicon
Disk: 64 bit
OS: Mac OS X 10.10 or newer

Windows
CPU: Intel Processor
Disk: 64 bit
OS: Windows 7 or newer