easlern
Boredom artist
If I understand/hear it right, it’s a bit of analog emulation (like some saturation when you drive input, comp, band gain, etc). But probably the bigger factor is the workflow- the q and band ranges, parameters of the comp, stuff like that were honed over a long period of time in analog form, so supposedly they work really well in digital form too. There’s no reason a stock eq wouldn’t do just as good a job, but the workflow has an effect on the sound I think, even if there’s no analog emulation going on.