Solid Dynamics combines a compressor and a gate/expander. The filters are hidden in the foldaway tab at the bottom, along with preset management and factory presets.
You can switch between the E- and G-type EQ curves, and you get +/- 20dB gain on the four main bands (a couple more dB than a real SSL). Solid EQ is a six-band design with two fully parametric midrange bands, high and low shelves with individual bell shape option, and high- and low-pass filters. The Guitar Rig shell can run as a VST, AU or RTAS plug-in, and even standalone. Like NI's other studio effects, they have to be used within either the free Guitar Rig 5 Player or Guitar Rig 5 Pro, if you own it.
NI's plug-ins are Solid Dynamics, Solid EQ and Solid Bus Compressor, and they're available singly (€99 each) or in the more competitively priced bundle that we're reviewing here. Understandably, the G EQ is viewed as more musical, while the E EQ is better suited to surgical tasks. In contrast, the G Series bandwidth is affected by gain, having the same sharp width as the E Series at the maximum, but becoming gradually broader as gain reduces.
For a selected Q setting, the E Series has a constant bandwidth at all gains, so it can be quite precise at low gain.