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Post by kilroyrock on Apr 18, 2016 6:08:29 GMT -6
Interesting, I think it sounds very good. My biggest concern with this product is that it won't be supported long term, desktop preamp form factor is annoying and for it's price tag I can buy a Lauten Clarion and it's a mic that in 20 years I'll still be able to use it without a software update or any bullshit like that.
It's my biggest fear of something like this. My neighbor's all about it, so when he gets it I'll give it a try, but I haven't been able to play with some of my old favorite plugins (decabuddy for example) due to no AAX support of old plugins. Slate's dragon is awesome - plugin modeled microphones though? In 20 years it'll be a clean microphone and preamp. Or sitting in a box on top of your HD2 pci-x cards
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Post by Martin John Butler on Apr 18, 2016 8:33:41 GMT -6
I thought the 47 sounded good, but not great. If this thing was $499 it might be a great value, considering the tone of most mics at that price range is usually not so great anyway. I think if you shop carefully, you can find a $600-$900 mic that simply sounds better.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 18, 2016 8:48:28 GMT -6
...could even be in 2 years, let alone 20. Like with any computer technology though, you have to look at the investment as a sunk cost of doing business, not as something that will have any monetary value.
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Post by Johnkenn on Apr 18, 2016 9:21:18 GMT -6
It has just been my experience in life that if it sounds too good to be true...then it usually is.
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Post by rowmat on Apr 18, 2016 10:10:53 GMT -6
His eyes in the video are like wandering orbs in a haunted house portrait which seem to follow you everywhere... Don't worry there's a bunch of Steven Slate updates and bug fixes due out next week which address the eye issues as well as an entirely new set of human interaction algorithms. There's also an new expanded language pack which will include Mandarin, Latvian and Swahili.
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Post by joseph on Apr 18, 2016 19:46:41 GMT -6
Fail
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Post by sceneofdarhyme on May 26, 2016 14:15:37 GMT -6
just got an email that it is shipping now. just realized, that VMS is the first mic you need an ilok to unlock the full potential :-)
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Post by jcoutu1 on May 26, 2016 14:21:32 GMT -6
I love how this was announced nearly 2.5 years ago.
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Post by tasteliketape on May 26, 2016 14:33:59 GMT -6
Should this be in the snake oil thread ? Just an observation
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Post by Johnkenn on May 26, 2016 18:04:25 GMT -6
My Slate email was effusive in its praise of the VMS... Maybe I'll pick one up used.
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Post by Martin John Butler on May 26, 2016 18:48:09 GMT -6
This has been I think the longest running thread here. I asked way back when about the possibility of Slate releasing just the emulations without the hardware. My mic's really clean, so any emulation would start off fairly neutral. So, a couple of years go by and voila! I get an email from a company called Gauge-USA. They're Chinese manufactured mic importers who take a little more time to keep good quality control on their inexpensive mics. I bought their U-87 clone for a student and it was quite close in general, though sibilant. It was actually pretty good for acoustic guitars. The emails offer a discount on a $24 plugin that emulates most of the classic mics. For $24, plus a few dollars discount, it was a no brainer, and I tried it for fun. Here's where it got interesting, i added the plug to my mic, and each one sounded pretty good, but the m49 sounded really good. The thing is, my mic is based on the Neumann style, to me, it's kind of 75% U47, 25% M49 style, so it didn't need any extra help. I happened to have two other good mics around, the Soyuz 0-19, an FET with a K67 style capsule, same as the incredible 0-17, but FET. It really didn't need help either, it's already a $2,000 mic. But.. I had the very nice Avantone CV95. It's based on the Soundelux U95 design, but with a tube. I scrolled through the various mic emulation presets, and whoa, the m-49 was killer with this mic. It really sounded like an M-49 now. My point is, for $24 you might find one of these presets fits one of your mics and feel like you got a new mic. Wayyyy worth the cost of entry, and clearly, Slate could release the plugs without the hardware and still make a killing, I think. Take a look: www.finalmix.biz/Final_Mix_Software/Mic_Clone.htmlAttachments:
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Post by donr on May 26, 2016 22:31:59 GMT -6
This has been I think the longest running thread here. I asked way back when about the possibility of Slate releasing just the emulations without the hardware. My mic's really clean, so any emulation would start off fairly neutral. So, a couple of years go by and voila! I get an email from a company called Gauge-USA. They're Chinese manufactured mic importers who take a little more time to keep good quality control on their inexpensive mics. I bought their U-87 clone for a student and it was quite close in general, though sibilant. It was actually pretty good for acoustic guitars. The emails offer a discount on a $24 plugin that emulates most of the classic mics. For $24, plus a few dollars discount, it was a no brainer, and I tried it for fun. Here's where it got interesting, i added the plug to my mic, and each one sounded pretty good, but the m49 sounded really good. The thing is, my mic is based on the Neumann style, to me, it's kind of 75% U47, 25% M49 style, so it didn't need any extra help. I happened to have two other good mics around, the Soyuz 0-19, an FET with a K67 style capsule, same as the incredible 0-17, but FET. It really didn't need help either, it's already a $2,000 mic. But.. I had the very nice Avantone CV95. It's based on the Soundelux U95 design, but with a tube. I scrolled through the various mic emulation presets, and whoa, the m-49 was killer with this mic. It really sounded like an M-49 now. My point is, for $24 you might find one of these presets fits one of your mics and feel like you got a new mic. Wayyyy worth the cost of entry, and clearly, Slate could release the plugs without the hardware and still make a killing, I think. Take a look: www.finalmix.biz/Final_Mix_Software/Mic_Clone.htmlGood Steer, Martin. This software appears to be sonically useful and inexpensive. How'd you find it?
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Post by Martin John Butler on May 26, 2016 22:58:23 GMT -6
I have a friend at Apple I work with sometimes. He's a Logic and Final Cut Pro expert, plus he's a great musician and engineer. He uses a couple of the Guage-USA mics. He suggested I try one. I bought the $149 U-87 clone, and sold it to a student of mine a short while after. I just wanted to try it, and found it surprisingly good on acoustic guitar. So I get their emails now, and the Mic Clone piqued my interest, especially since the Slate system is $1,000!. At $24 it was worth it just to try it, and I figured if even one track is improved by "re-micing", it would be worth it.
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Post by ragan on May 26, 2016 23:05:00 GMT -6
I have a friend at Apple I work with sometimes. He's a Logic and Final Cut Pro expert, plus he's a great musician and engineer. He uses a couple of the Guage-USA mics. He suggested I try one. I bought the $149 U-87 clone, and sold it to a student of mine a short while after. I just wanted to try it, and found it surprisingly good on acoustic guitar. So I get their emails now, and the Mic Clone piqued my interest, especially since the Slate system is $1,000!. At $24 it was worth it just to try it, and I figured if even one track is improved by "re-micing", it would be worth it. That Guage mic you're talking about is a decent mic. It's also rebranded by Advanced Audio as their CM-87 for a lot more dough.
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Post by Shannon on May 27, 2016 0:24:22 GMT -6
FYI Funny thing I have built 2 of them. Those Guage mic recently and turned them into. Made Stereo pair of 87, they turned out better than thuoght. So it. Could be. Done
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Post by kilroyrock on May 27, 2016 6:04:12 GMT -6
FYI Funny thing I have built 2 of them. Those Guage mic recently and turned them into. Made Stereo pair of 87, they turned out better than thuoght. So it. Could be. Done I'm confused - Anthony Kilhoffer - “I used the Gauge ECM87 to record Kanye West and really liked it. You can check the track on iTunes. It is called "Forever".
These mics are 150 bucks each. Are you guys doing something to them or do these Chinese mics really shine? Or is this some sort of elaborate joke that I don't get?
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2016 6:32:57 GMT -6
Since i find the plugin at least interesting, i wonder, what happens if you really enhance their own mic. Is it much better, than taking just some clean mic, because it is to do it's magic on this? Probably not really. Maybe it is a tiny bit nearer. OTOH - a chinese mic may have downsides, you simply can not enhance/fix afterwards by any software you can think of. Therefore, the Slate thing sounded too good to be true to me from the start, too... Might try it more often with the MD441. A track with female voice actually sounded pretty good with a bit of C800 flavour. (Not surprising). Hey, it's a cheap piece of software worth fiddling around with...
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Post by Ward on May 27, 2016 8:04:19 GMT -6
I have a friend at Apple I work with sometimes. He's a Logic and Final Cut Pro expert, plus he's a great musician and engineer. He uses a couple of the Guage-USA mics. He suggested I try one. I bought the $149 U-87 clone, and sold it to a student of mine a short while after. I just wanted to try it, and found it surprisingly good on acoustic guitar. So I get their emails now, and the Mic Clone piqued my interest, especially since the Slate system is $1,000!. At $24 it was worth it just to try it, and I figured if even one track is improved by "re-micing", it would be worth it. That Guage mic you're talking about is a decent mic. It's also rebranded by Advanced Audio as their CM-87 for a lot more dough. Is Advanced Audio selling the exact same microphone but just under their own badge for substantially more money? With no changes made? No tweaks? No capsule replacement even? I thought AA were one of the companies to watch and that they had a Warm/Stam type plan going on. Hmmm
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Post by Martin John Butler on May 27, 2016 8:20:42 GMT -6
No, the Guage ECM87 does get something right. I'm very familiar with U87's. I used one every day for a decade. The Guage somehow gets a little of its tone right. Sure it's a little crispy, but I think it could prove highly useful, like a stereo pair for room mics, or as extra instrument mics, when your KM84's are busy. I bet with a little tweaking from Shannon, they'd be quite alright. OK, want to hear a little of what the ECM87 can do? My 16 year old former student did an album as an exercise in learning Logic. We used only Apple's proprietary (ITB) plugins. His friend sang, and although he's not a great singer, if you skip to 1:00 in on the second track here, (Light On a Hay Mountain), you can hear what the ECM sounds like on his voice and the acoustic guitars through a less than $100 preamp in a bedroom. Then extrapolate, if it sounds like that, how might it sound through a decent signal chain with a good singer, and then add some Sinsay sauce, not too shabby, all things considered. Go here,skip ahead to around :50 in.. lukelondonandtheluckyones.bandcamp.com/track/light-on-a-hay-mountainalso, skip forward to :55 on this track, you'll hear a quite flat vocal and acoustic guitar done with the ECM-87. Remember, they're still kids, the vocal is pitchy and he pops a few times from proximity, but you do get a decent idea of the mic this way. lukelondonandtheluckyones.bandcamp.com/track/rock-central
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Post by ragan on May 27, 2016 9:07:29 GMT -6
That Guage mic you're talking about is a decent mic. It's also rebranded by Advanced Audio as their CM-87 for a lot more dough. Is Advanced Audio selling the exact same microphone but just under their own badge for substantially more money? With no changes made? No tweaks? No capsule replacement even? I thought AA were one of the companies to watch and that they had a Warm/Stam type plan going on. Hmmm It's not quite that simple. When Peter at Stellar and Dave at AA started ordering in big enough numbers, they could have the mics built to their specs in China instead of modding them back here. Once that happened, those same designs started going out the door of the factories under various names. So for years there have been equivalents to most everything Advanced Audio sells that you can get for cheaper. Sometimes the headbasket is different or a couple caps are clipped. Dennis (RIP, buddy) knew all about it and the whole backstory. It's pretty fascinating. I don't share any of it that he didn't share publicly because he always asked that I be discrete about it. A lot of it came out when Dave Thomas was spamming the living hell out of the massive 3U Audio thread on GS. He (Dave) kinda went toe to toe with Dennis and came out looking bad. He (Dave) couldn't stand seeing all the emthusiasm for the 3U stuff without trying to associate the AA brand with it (which is comical when you look at the guts of 3U and AA mics). Dave knows the hell out of mics, that's for sure, but he didn't do his brand any favors in that 3U thread.
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Post by Martin John Butler on May 27, 2016 9:32:45 GMT -6
Ragan, did you listen to the tracks I posted just above? Take a minute, jump forward to the vocals. They kind of remind me of the 3U mics a little, no?
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Post by ragan on May 27, 2016 9:38:05 GMT -6
Ragan, did you listen to the tracks I posted just above? Take a minute, jump forward to the vocals. They kind of remind me of the 3U mics a little, no? I haven't yet but I will. The 3U stuff is in a different league than the Gauge/AA/etc stuff with 3U employing custom (very good) capsules, Dale/WIMA/Fairchild/AMI components and accurate transformer coupled circuits, but that Guage/AA 87 is a really decent, clean mic.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2016 9:54:19 GMT -6
Hmm, "ssss", plopp.... ok, apart from that, actually not too shabby. But who said people would not pick sometimes a chinese affordable mic instead of a classic, blind? (Esp. against ones that need service...) I have kind of a hard time extrapolating this. In the last time i hear quite some self-produced or demo recordings that pretty much go into this direction... Sometimes i think they would have been better off using a dynamic mic, sometimes it fits much better and would have been actually really good, if they would have done something against the "crispy" character (and often also the mixer should should at least have heard of what a de-esser is, but didn't...). Once you compare that crisp sticks in the ear right from the beginning. If i ask people outside music scene or business, they don't even seem to recognize this at all, which sometimes makes me wonder, if i hear the gras growing or what? Surely this mic could work, expecially if someone like Shannon tweaks it and the singer knows his stuff and his voice fits for the general sound of the mic etc....
;-)
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2016 11:00:28 GMT -6
Don't know why, but i like the mic in the second and third track much more! Just found the time to listen to them also. IMO they show a bit better, what kind of potential there is with this mic. Not bad at all.
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Post by Johnkenn on May 27, 2016 11:22:38 GMT -6
I just got a Aston Spirit that has a really, really nice top...
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