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Post by Quint on May 10, 2024 6:44:26 GMT -6
I'll probably only grab this if they ever update it to native or at least a newer version with a resizable GUI. I tried to demo it some months back and the plugin window was teeny tiny on my 1440p monitor. Is this thing made for ants? UA finally made resizable GUIs a reality in April. Took forever, like everything else they do, but it did finally happen last month. MacOS only though...
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Post by Quint on May 8, 2024 12:51:00 GMT -6
Just yesterday night I was creating a big playlist with the best Albini records as a reference. WTF. I wish I knew more about his life. He had a ton of anecdotes. I hope someone writes a biography. Can you share that playlist here when you’re done? Been listening to this playlist for the last couple of hours.
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Post by Quint on May 8, 2024 10:53:10 GMT -6
Shit.....
I know he could be divisive, and some people didn't like him (I was personally squarely in the pro Albini camp), but I always thought really highly of him, and his general "fuck the man" approach to life. I always cracked a smile when certain people would take offense at things that Steve said. Hell, there were whole threads on GS about such things. A lot of the music that he was involved in cuts a path right thru the heart of my formative years.
This hits hard. He will be sorely missed.
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Post by Quint on May 8, 2024 2:19:30 GMT -6
I have a Drawmer 1978… amazing stereo FET compressor with a very flexible side chain that’s awesome. Would the AS 1178 be kinda redundant? It never occurred to me until this very moment that the Drawmer 1978 might be trying, to one degree or another, to emulate the 1178. Now my curiosity is piqued.
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Post by Quint on May 7, 2024 14:36:59 GMT -6
I swore off all things Acustica a while back. However, I checked in recently to see what this new Ultra stuff was about. In a nutshell, the Ultra line of plugins are maybe supposed to be working a little better (not as buggy or laggy), but at the expense of not sounding as good as the older stuff. Which is a big letdown and kind of defeats the purpose of using Acustica in the first place, which is for sonic reasons. And it sounds like Acustica is kind of quietly abandoning (not updating) a lot of the older plugins either. Ultra is the way forward, it seems. Throw in all of the other usual Acustica shenanigans and plugin bugginess, plus Zaphod's usual ego trip stuff, and I think I'm gonna continue to stay away. Plus, I don't use Nebula, but it seems like it's maybe kind of getting slowly abandoned as well? I bought the clipper and it’s Ultra. It’s pretty killer. The last time I compared a couple of their plugs, there were a few I did think might sound a little better, but they’re just so clunky. Fire the Clip? That one? I can't keep it all straight. There is such an endless stream of new releases from Acustica. If it's Fire, I believe that plugin is actually a departure from the usual convolution thing that Acustica does, and is all or at least partially algorithmic.
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Post by Quint on May 7, 2024 13:34:07 GMT -6
I swore off all things Acustica a while back. However, I checked in recently to see what this new Ultra stuff was about. In a nutshell, the Ultra line of plugins are maybe supposed to be working a little better (not as buggy or laggy), but at the expense of not sounding as good as the older stuff (cleaner, less vibey).
Which is a big letdown and kind of defeats the purpose of using Acustica in the first place, which is for sonic reasons. And it sounds like Acustica is kind of quietly abandoning (not updating) a lot of the older plugins either. Ultra is the way forward, it seems. Throw in all of the other usual Acustica shenanigans and plugin bugginess, plus Zaphod's usual ego trip stuff, and I think I'm gonna continue to stay away. Plus, I don't use Nebula, but it seems like it's maybe kind of getting slowly abandoned as well?
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Post by Quint on May 7, 2024 11:40:11 GMT -6
Ive never had the pleasure of working on a heider desk, but I did spend a couple years at a studio that had a four pack of heider 312s racked up and ooooooh boy they were sweet🤩 Is the Heider desk you guys are talking the DiMedio? Yes
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Post by Quint on May 7, 2024 6:51:38 GMT -6
“ If you want access to the full library, DSP will continue to be the only way to go. That said, I do think a new Apollo has to be around the corner. We'll see if UA finally upgrades the chips to ARM or something. If they release a new Apollo without an upgraded FPGA and DSP chips, I'm gonna have to really think about my continued investment in UA. I mean, I already am, but that might be another nail in the coffin.” I agree with all your points and never thought UA would port all plugs ins, for the reasons you stated. The next gen Apollo will be a real harbinger of whether UA is at all serious about addressing the chip performance/ price inequalities inherent in its platform. The current ua environment works for those who value its workflow, but there are definitely other games in town, we’ll see whether UA steps up its processing/price game. The workflow is the only thing that keeps me around. But even the workflow isn't without it's problems. The limited routing on the Apollos is kinda shit. It's the number one thing I want to see improved in the next gen Apollo, even more than the DSP chips. The current FPGA is a real bottleneck for routing. But some more higher powered DSP would be welcome too.
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Post by Quint on May 7, 2024 6:09:39 GMT -6
That’s interesting, so in a way it is backing away from its subscription plan so it will not include all plug ins, forcing people to keep on buying old design sharc chip devices, if they want more ua plug ins. wonder when there will be a new Apollo or new satellites, cards with chips with higher processing capacity? “The SHARC processor portfolio currently consists of four generations of products providing code-compatible solutions ranging from entry-level products priced at less than $10 to the highest performance products offering fixed- and floating-point computational power to 450 MHz/2700 MFLOPs.” Well they were never gonna port the 3rd party stuff, and that's like half the catalog or something. Which leaves about a 100 or so DSP plugins that UA directly developed, 50 or so of which have already been ported to native. I guess UA sees the remaining ~50 as less important to port, because they get used less. Also, there a significant number of those remaining plugins that are either pretty old, are plugins like those in the Precision line (and therefore not in high demand to be ported), or are otherwise stunted by licensing issues, such as what is going on with thr Neve and SSL stuff. So, realistically, there's probably a fairly short list (<20) of UA developed plugins that remain which are both desirable for UA to port and which they actually even have the ability to port. Hence the slowdown. Sounds like we'll maybe see a trickle trickle of a DSP port to native every few months, at best, going forward and, even then, there just isn't that much worthwhile and available low hanging fruit left for UA to port. If you want access to the full library, DSP will continue to be the only way to go. That said, I do think a new Apollo has to be around the corner. We'll see if UA finally upgrades the chips to ARM or something. If they release a new Apollo without an upgraded FPGA and DSP chips, I'm gonna have to really think about my continued investment in UA. I mean, I already am, but that might be another nail in the coffin.
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Post by Quint on May 7, 2024 5:27:54 GMT -6
That's two people in this thread, both whom currently/previously own an API console, that they say they love the Pulsar and have it parked on drums. Hmm... I've gotta demo this soon.
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Post by Quint on May 7, 2024 5:24:51 GMT -6
I use it as one of my parallel drum bus enhancers to blend in some weight and thickness. It's a compressor that adds a bit of saturation similar to what tape adds. I say it's nice, but there are certainly a TON of other options these days that are probably more straightforward in how you use it and knowing what you're getting. I'm sure I have a dozen other things to choose from right now. But I have a setting in my template that I know what it does, so I keep it in there. I really wish UAD would make it native. Doubt we'll ever see it native. UA has announced that they are slowing down on native ports of existing DSP plugins because the "heavy lifting" is mostly done and they've already ported most of the most heavily used plugins in the DSP catalog.
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Post by Quint on May 6, 2024 19:57:09 GMT -6
I’ve got a comparison to my API console in the video from the first post in this thread (in case you missed it). I'd already watched it. Twice.
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Post by Quint on May 6, 2024 13:25:11 GMT -6
I completely get it, about the essay. I was just looking for a quick yes or no, if that was possible. And it sounds like you're a yes. It certainly doesn't do anything to dissuade me from my interest in the plugin. I could totally see where I might just get rid of the UAD API summing on busses in Luna, and replace it with the P455. Then use the UAD API Vision on each channel during tracking, with the possibility of ultimately replacing each of the Vision channel strips with the P450, come mix time. I was always really a fan of how the first Foo Fighters record sounded, and that was done on a Heider API, I believe, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is supposed to be the same console where this sidecar was parted out from. Ive never had the pleasure of working on a heider desk, but I did spend a couple years at a studio that had a four pack of heider 312s racked up and ooooooh boy they were sweet🤩 I need to pick up at least a pair of the CAPI Heiders one of these days.
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Post by Quint on May 6, 2024 13:01:20 GMT -6
But is it a convenience/ease of use/practicality thing, or do you actually feel like it sounds just as good as hardware? Not even API, specifically. Just hardware, in general, and all of the sort of tone, 3-D etc. that comes with it. Tough question, I realize. I'm just genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on the matter, as I would trust your opinion on this. Ultimately, I'm gonna test it out myself, but I don't have an API console to compare against, so I'm still curious to hear others opinions, and I believe you have worked on API vintage consoles before, and also just generally are well versed in hardware. Yep work regularly (and teach!) on legacy + desks, and used to own a 32ch 1608 at my own studio. Id say the plug sounds as good as hardware, yes. But to be honest, that answer would require a bit of an essay to fully explain so take it with a grain of salt! I completely get it, about the essay. I was just looking for a quick yes or no, if that was possible. And it sounds like you're a yes. It certainly doesn't do anything to dissuade me from my interest in the plugin. I could totally see where I might just get rid of the UAD API summing on busses in Luna, and replace it with the P455. Then use the UAD API Vision on each channel during tracking, with the possibility of ultimately replacing each of the Vision channel strips with the P450, come mix time. I was always really a fan of how the first Foo Fighters record sounded, and that was done on a Heider API, I believe, which, correct me if I'm wrong, is supposed to be the same console where this sidecar was parted out from.
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Post by Quint on May 6, 2024 12:49:00 GMT -6
How do you feel this compares to hardware, generally speaking? Given your hardware setup, that seems like a pretty good endorsement of the Pulsar if you're using it on your drum buss. It’s definitely simplified my recalls. Haha. the compression and the subtle tone changes are what make me favor it. Theres a nice variety of dimensionality available from the different tone options, and I find they help postition the drums front/back position nicely. the compressor is simply awesome. I generally use the lower ratio one, and it’s tough to make it sound bad. Just dial attack for transient shape and release for groove and density, and bobs yer uncle. the linked input/output is a cool way to adjust overall sense of fidelity. I like that it doesn’t feed the compression so you can experiment more freely. And the bias control has a nice darkening / softening effect. Again great for front to back positioning. this all combines to make for quick and easy experimenting that would otherwise require a LOT of patching with hw. But is it a convenience/ease of use/practicality thing, or do you actually feel like it sounds just as good as hardware? Not even API hardware, specifically. Just hardware, in general, and all of the sort of tone, 3-D etc. that comes with it. Tough question, I realize. I'm just genuinely curious to hear your thoughts on the matter, as I would trust your opinion on this. Ultimately, I'm gonna test it out myself, but I don't have an API console to compare against, so I'm still curious to hear others opinions, and I believe you have worked on API vintage consoles before, and also just generally are well versed in hardware.
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Post by Quint on May 6, 2024 11:39:16 GMT -6
I couldn’t really find the ‘special’ in this when I demo’d it. Not sure if I was using it in the way that’s supposed to bring that out though. It seemed like kind of an odd setup. I should give it some more time because some people seem to really dig it. It’s lived on my drum buss since I got it. Love the tone, compression, and eq, and i especially love the way they interact. How do you feel this compares to hardware, generally speaking? Given your hardware setup, that seems like a pretty good endorsement of the Pulsar if you're using it on your drum buss.
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Post by Quint on May 6, 2024 11:37:51 GMT -6
I couldn’t really find the ‘special’ in this when I demo’d it. Not sure if I was using it in the way that’s supposed to bring that out though. It seemed like kind of an odd setup. I should give it some more time because some people seem to really dig it. For what it's worth, and if you haven't read it, the GS thread for this plugin has a lot of good discussion and suggestions on how to use and gain stage this plugin. The gain staging seems to be particularly important, while also maybe being a little unorthodox, so I could see how someone might miss the "special" on a first demo. I'm going to be sure to go thru that thread again whenever I demo this, and try out the settings, as suggested.
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Post by Quint on May 6, 2024 10:56:41 GMT -6
I've finally gotten around to further investigating this plugin. I'm hearing a lot to like in the various sound clips I've listened to. I need to demo this, but this has the potential to supplant the UAD API stuff I use. Seems like a cool plugin.
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Post by Quint on May 4, 2024 11:41:35 GMT -6
UC1, UF1, UF8 - Impressive level build quality. The setup, downloads, installs, reg, iLoK were fast. This may run Cubase/Nuendo with MMC, but for the information it needs to communicate with, I haven't found a single limit or hiccup that hasn't been solved in the past year. SSL has already configure so much in advance. Here in 2024, it is more functional and deep out of the box, even without any personalization assigned to the controllers yet. Quickly evident how much more superior the layout and functionality is. Impressive. Exceeded my expectations.
Got a song to mix by Monday, i'll use it as a surface level learning curve tune and deep dive after that. After dumping UAD and Softube, I am really looking forward to finishing this album on this.
Planning how to build an offset frame for it in the coming weeks.
The softkey customization is pretty cool. It was definitely a selling point for me. You can assign hotkey shortcuts to soft keys on the UF8/1, and have those trigger whatever. You can even set up macros. Short of doing something more complex with Stream Deck and/or Keyboard Maestro, the customization on the SSL stuff is the next best thing. And SSL is constantly upgrading and refining these controllers. Most of the other controllers out there seem pretty stagnant.
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Post by Quint on May 3, 2024 11:53:51 GMT -6
Happy to engage in fact based conversations wherever they occur. He's right about the uad forum tho. If Drew fart on someone's face over there, they will say "oh, uad's fart, so warm and with lots of depth, I could not leave without it" Everytime I go there, I leave feeling that it's most value is as a social experiment about the relation between humans and brands. It's also an experiment in the dynamics of mob mentality.
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Post by Quint on May 3, 2024 10:50:16 GMT -6
The offers were designed to give "power users" better pricing and they took advantage of it, big time.Translated: The offers were designed to give SOME "power users" (whatever that means) better pricing if they were willing and interested in buying plugins in a short time frame, from a list of unowned plugins they may or may not entirely have an interest in purchasing, but UA made a lot of money! Users with 2 more more UAD devices, and/or 80+ plugins owned. And as mentioned, everyone was free to ignore and not buy. Why would they if they're not interested??? Of course they would not. So TONS of users scored lots of plugins they wanted at historically low prices. And yes we made money. That's sort of the point of having a business. This is a win for all involved. Corporate window dressing, at it's finest. Please go do your "control the narrative thing" over at the UAD forum with your fanbois. They eat it up over there. I know you think you're advancing UA's cause, but, you should consider that, at least around here on this forum, it might be having the opposite effect.
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Post by Quint on May 3, 2024 10:45:46 GMT -6
The offers were designed to give "power users" better pricing and they took advantage of it, big time.
Translated:
The offers were designed to give SOME "power users" (whatever that means) better pricing if they were willing and interested in buying plugins in a short time frame, from a list of unowned plugins they may or may not entirely have an interest in purchasing, but UA made a lot of money!
But nice offer UA!
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Post by Quint on May 3, 2024 10:12:06 GMT -6
I'm not gonna remember all of the details, and it wasn't a FULL cave, just a partial cave, but UA did offer a coupon or whatever it was to existing customers who owned more than "x" plugins and/or two Apollos. It was still kind of shitty because it was only valid for like two or three weeks, and maybe had some other restrictions that I'm forgetting. In any case it still continued to needlessly divide people up into arbitrary groups. An open ended, non-time-limited voucher would have been more appropriate, but I think UA saw this more as a way to squeeze more money out of long term customers, rather than as a way of actually offering a real olive branch. Anyway, now that I have U12, one ancillary benefit is that I'm just kind of checked out on paying too much attention, going forward, to sales and all of the other nonsense that UA creates in these situations. I've got everything I could want/need from the UA plugin catalog, and I kind of just don't want to pay attention anymore, other than when a new plugin occasionally comes along that I might be interested in. I can help Quint. UA didn't cave. I saw that long term users were not getting pricing they wanted when compared to the native deals we were offering new users. I convened a "user panel" and gathered ideas and crafted offers based on them. Myself and my team created the coupons and emails and sent them out. They turned out to be some of the most successful promos in the company's history, bringing in record revenue in Feb and March. There were no restrictions to these offers other than time. They were so successful that I am contemplating bringing them back at some point, likely in the doldrums of Summer. Hope this helps. There's a bit of inconsistency, contextual pieces of info you've left out, and rose colored glasses going on here in your synopsis, but I'm not gonna bother going down this road with you again Drew. The thread on the UAD forum is there for people to go and decide for themselves. We don't need to relitigate this here. And you can call it what you want, but UA didn't want to relent on pricing for older customers, but then finally did after enough complaints were lodged. If it walks like a cave, and talks like a cave, and has bats like a cave, well.... it's a cave. The thing is, I don't know why you or UA have to view this as such a negative? What is so wrong with UA admitting it was wrong, and then doing something about it? The ceaseless insistence that UA is infallible has been part of the problem.
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Post by Quint on May 3, 2024 9:16:55 GMT -6
If I could also add some nuance to this discussion... Forgetting for a moment about who paid what for what plugins back in the day or whom is loyal to whom, I think a distinction can be made purely on what existing customers were being asked to pay NOW for future purchases versus that which new customers were being asked to pay NOW for future purchases. As an example, here somewhat recently (last year sometime), brand new customers were being offered to purchase U10 (or U11 or whatever it was at the time) for like $999. I on the other hand owned roughly 90% (~100 plugins) of the plugins in U10 (or U11 or whatever it was at the time), and you know what UA was offering me as an upgrade price to "complete the U10" bundle and purchase the remaining 15 or so plugins I didn't already own? $999. So I paid what I paid back in the day and I honestly don't care if people are getting cheaper prices now, compared to what I paid in the past. I think you and I more or less agree there. However, for FUTURE purchases, I don't think it's unreasonable for an old customer to expect to be able to pay at least the SAME per-plugin price as everyone else, whether they be new, old, or otherwise. If a new customer is paying roughly $10 per plugin on a purchase today, why am I being asked to pay $60 per plugin for a purchase I'm also making today? How does that make sense? And you know what, UA ultimately caved because they knew it was bullshit. UA handled this whole situation poorly, and created a lot of ill will among some older customers. UA is not going to get much credit for doing something that they only did because enough people complained about it. Maybe next time UA should lead with such offers to older customers instead of pissing them off with a "let them eat cake" attitude. ^^This^^ Quint, I stopped participating at UA forum so wasn’t aware that UA ‘caved’, what was its final offer ? I'm not gonna remember all of the details, and it wasn't a FULL cave, just a partial cave, but UA did offer a coupon or whatever it was to existing customers who owned more than "x" plugins and/or two Apollos. It was still kind of shitty because it was only valid for like two or three weeks, and maybe had some other restrictions that I'm forgetting. In any case it still continued to needlessly divide people up into arbitrary groups. An open ended, non-time-limited voucher would have been more appropriate, but I think UA saw this more as a way to squeeze more money out of long term customers, rather than as a way of actually offering a real olive branch. Anyway, now that I have U12, one ancillary benefit is that I'm just kind of checked out on paying too much attention, going forward, to sales and all of the other nonsense that UA creates in these situations. I've got everything I could want/need from the UA plugin catalog, and I kind of just don't want to pay attention anymore, other than when a new plugin occasionally comes along that I might be interested in.
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Post by Quint on May 2, 2024 15:28:19 GMT -6
People were literally complaining in here that UA is devaluing their brand by making things so cheap, I’m not missing the forest for the trees here 😂. We complained for years that the DSP ecosystem was old and being overtaken significantly by cheap, new computers. They started porting things to native and offered some pretty crazy hardware/software packages. Complaints about the plugins being old and expensive, they’re knocking prices significantly while also trying to pull in new users. Again, I see a company trying here, I’m legitimately sorry that a lot of you still feel this way. The reason I don’t get it is because I’ve probably gotten like close to 20 of their plugins for practically free in the last year, not to mention the massive discount I got from packaged hardware deals moving around Apollos and Satellites. Have y’all not been paying attention, or am I the only one that’s gotten some crazy good deals from UA the last year or two? I’ve been on an Apollo since they came out, I bought one the week they were announced and have had one since. Stayed away from a lot of cool plugins because they were way too expensive and never really saw a good enough sale at any point. I’ve filled every single gap on my UAD system in the last year or so, and I doubt I’ve spent more than a few hundred dollars. Did you guys just want more stuff for free? I feel like they’re trying here and it’s just never going to be good enough unless they’re loosing money… "WE" are not a monolithic unit though. I don't share some of the complaints you've mentioned in your post, and I never did. I was fine with the prices I was paying back in the day (but I always waited for sales, and probably paid on average $40 to $50 per plugin, even back in the day), and would still be fine paying those prices now, provided that I still got all of the things I came to expect with paying those older, higher prices, such as proper customer service. That said, if UA is going to insist on having Mickey Mouse customer service going forward, yeah, I am going to expect to pay Mickey Mouse prices, going forward. It's a two way street. In any case, I never needed the plugin prices to come down from where they were previously at and certainly would never have wanted plugin prices to come down if it meant that things would happen as they have over the last few years. As for DSP, I also don't share the complaints you say you or "WE" had about DSP versus native. I think it's cool that they've started offering their plugins in native format, but the usefulness of DSP has been apparent to me for a long time, and is as apparent to me now as it has ever been. I too got into Apollos back when they first came out and, at least in my case, it was precisely because of the low latency capabilities of DSP. In any case, there is more nuance to all of this than you're acknowledging or realize. I'd go back up to my previous post to see what I'm talking about there. You and I were typing at the same time when we posted our last posts, so I imagine you did not see my comments on the nuance of the situation. In a nutshell, and speaking at least for myself, I'm not, nor have I ever asked to pay less than new customers for purchases being made today. However, I'm also not asking to pay MORE than than new customers for purchases being made today either.
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