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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 27, 2020 19:25:55 GMT -6
Hey guys, posting this in the same thread as to not clutter up the site. SonEQ Pro and StonEQ 4K are currently on sale here and here. SonEQ Pro is the product that I first tried out from Sonimus, and is what originally lead me to wanting to help them spread the word a bit in the first place. Instead of just letting you know it’s on sale and being done with it though, the least I can do is share my experience with SonEQ Pro as I aim to do when recommending anything. That way you can better determine if it’s a tool that could potentially benefit you, or at least make for a solid $34 impulse buy haha. When I first tried out SonEQ Pro, I went in expecting a run of the mill EQP-like, but I found it to have equally as much in common with solid state stereo bus/master EQs like a GML or something else in that ballpark (minus fully variable Qs). With the variable drive (which does not alter gain) turned up you can definitely get a passive, inductor based tone with a bit of low end fullness and “tube sparkle” up top, but it is also capable of surprisingly transparent processing with a transient response that's night and day compared to my hardware MEQ-5, or the EQPs I used to own. In addition to this, every single band is parametric, instead of the standard 20Hz, 30Hz, 60Hz, 100Hz, etc selections. Not only is this great paired with the extra 3 bands (5 in total + filters, mid bands have 2 Q positions) to get really surgical with tone shaping, but since the low band allows you to boost and cut simultaneously like a Pultec, you can get very selective when using the EQP boost/cut truck. Instead of having to settle for 30Hz, 60Hz, or 100Hz when I feel like a kick drum or bass could benefit from this technique, I can dial in any intermediary frequency to ensure that I’m not causing the bass to step on the kick's toes, or vice versa. Or I can better match the fundamental of a vocal if it’s too thin for my taste. I also appreciate that unlike most plugins that take even a bit of inspiration from Pultec, they did not separate the filters into an additional plugin. I mean, you can’t blame companies for doing so, the original Pultec filter units sell for a ton anymore, but Sonimus didn’t go that route. As far as a personal wishlist, I would love to eventually see fully variable Qs with SonEQ Pro to really drive home the improved precision, and maybe a \2 switch for extremely subtle boosts and cuts for bus/mastering work. But even without this, I’ve found that this EQ goes the extra mile as is, and the lack of those features haven’t prevented me from enjoying it on everything from drums, to guitars, to vocals, and mix buses. Hopefully this gives you a better idea of the product than I originally had trying it out for the first time. I’m happy to answer questions about either plugins to the best of my ability, and if I don’t know the answer to something I’ll shoot an email over to Sonimus. Like all of their products, both have timed demos if you’d like to try before you buy. Have a good weekend everyone! Attachments:
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 22, 2020 19:08:55 GMT -6
I can 3,000% recommend the Stagers. I have the SR-3 myself, and I love it on tons of applications. I have also regularly worked with (but do not yet personally own) their SR-2N, which is the one smack dab in your mentioned price range. The 2N is one of my favorite ribbon mics to act as a pseudo sub mic on a kick drum, as well as on electric guitars or drum rooms (plus drum crotch mic). I have not gotten a chance to record vocals with the SR-2N for any real amount of time so far though. I have recorded a ton of vocals with the SR-3 and SR-1A, and the SR-2N uses the same magnets as the 3 and same transformer as the 1A. So I can only assume it would work great there as well when you wanted really smooth, dark-ish vocals that still have solid clarity. Or doubled with a condenser while recording vocals. The SR-3 I particularly enjoy on vocals since it has just the tiniest bit of extra air, transient response, and overall definition, but not enough so to put it even close to the brighter, tighter condenser-like qualities of my AEA N22 (another great mic you could probably find priced in your range on Reverb or something). The Stagers are still happening. This thread is more so about finding a second pair of ribbons in addition to the Stagers. Gotcha! Well if you want something on the opposite end of the spectrum as the SR-2N and Fatheads (I own a pair of the Lundahl Fathead IIs and also really enjoy them), I get a lot of great use out of my AEA N22. Active ribbon, extremely crisp and detailed for a ribbon, almost like a smooth condenser with some ribbon qualities thrown in. I've enjoyed all of the AEA mics I've used, but that one pops out as something that would potentially give you additional variety/versatility. The Bumblebee looks really cool and I'd love to build one at some point, but I've never used one myself.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 22, 2020 18:52:58 GMT -6
I can 3,000% recommend the Stagers. I have the SR-3 myself, and I love it on tons of applications. I have also regularly worked with (but do not yet personally own) their SR-2N, which is the one smack dab in your mentioned price range. The 2N is one of my favorite ribbon mics to act as a pseudo sub mic on a kick drum, as well as on electric guitars or drum rooms (plus drum crotch mic). I have not gotten a chance to record vocals with the SR-2N for any real amount of time so far though. I have recorded a ton of vocals with the SR-3 and SR-1A, and the SR-2N uses the same magnets as the 3 and same transformer as the 1A. So I can only assume it would work great there as well when you wanted really smooth, dark-ish vocals that still have solid clarity. Or doubled with a condenser while recording vocals.
The SR-3 I particularly enjoy on vocals since it has just the tiniest bit of extra air, transient response, and overall definition, but not enough so to put it even close to the brighter, tighter condenser-like qualities of my AEA N22 (another great mic you could probably find priced in your range on Reverb or something).
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 14, 2020 14:04:32 GMT -6
Ok, in the proper thread this time haha
I just picked up a Bettermaker Mastering Limiter I have yet to set up! Anyone have any favorite applications besides the standard use in a mastering chain (which is where I'll normally be using it). I think it might be cool on certain drum buses and maybe even guitar buses while mixing, largely thanks to the really surgical saturation section.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 14, 2020 14:02:41 GMT -6
I just picked up a Bettermaker Mastering Limiter I have yet to set up! Anyone have any favorite applications besides the standard use in a mastering chain (which is where I'll normally be using it). I think it might be cool on certain drum buses and maybe even guitar buses while mixing, largely thanks to the really surgical saturation section. Wrong thread brother. This is the gear you got rid of thread... ah shoot my apologies, I saw that other thread near the top this week and totally misread this as the "new gear" thread.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 10, 2020 21:24:54 GMT -6
The Phoenix Verb to me is he "cleanest" reverb. It's very natural and halls sound like halls. Well worth having as an option. They had a sale on couple of months ago for $29, and I snagged it. I almost bought it when it was $200, but liked the Relab Lexicon sound a little more for what I was doing musically. Very cool, I'll give it a go next time it's on sale or something. I've heard it mentioned quite a lot recently.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 8, 2020 19:33:29 GMT -6
Depends on how many channels you need. But the Apollo or something like MOTU would be much easier. I switched over to a pair of Motu 16As and have absolutely loved them. Extremely high end conversion that is fairly reasonably priced, with the most convenient expansion options I've seen thanks to the AVB/ethernet and thunderbolt. I think it may be the best product Motu has ever made personally, I wasn't too into them before I got the 16As though besides a much older Motu unit I have laying around still. To answer the OPs question though, I would recommend thunderbolt. Especially with the Mac trash can, which I also work on a lot. There are some great hub options as well, and you'll never have to worry about bandwidth or latency.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 8, 2020 19:29:34 GMT -6
I've been curious about summing for ears. I'd buy a Dangerous 2 Bus + in a minute if I could. UAD usually wins plug-in shootouts by a nose. I have the Relab XL480 since it came out and cost $400. I'd bet the UAD version is a little better, but will I buy it, no way, especially since I have Liquid Sonics 7th Heaven, Sound Toys Little Plate, UAD's EMT-140, the Relab, Phoenix Verb and a few others. Thanks for the heads up here topshelf. I might just try the Brtson summing plug. I can see the interface is a little pedestrian and confusing, but it looks like it's learnable. I have some plug-ins I bought for their sound quality and they're so confusing to use I don't touch them. The Elysia EQ comes to mind. Awesome to hear! Yes, definitely not the prettiest plugins in the world, but very usable and straight forward still. The only thing that wasn't immediately apparent to me is how they handle their grouping, but then I found out every group needs it's own instance of the bus plugin (which I was already using, just not linked to the channel plugins). It is very easy to do, just a little different than how I've seen it handled before but no less effective. I love the 2 Bus+ and was very close to getting one myself, but very narrowly ended up getting the Looptrotter Satur-8/24 in the end. I love how the op amp-based saturation on the first 8 channel sounds, plus the extra 8 channels and ease of expansion. I typically run it pretty clean with subtle saturation here and there, and the Sonimus virtual console line honestly reminds me much more of the results than most other virtual console/summing options I have. It just took me forever to find out about Sonimus haha. Big fan of the reverbs you mentioned as well, Little Plate is one of my most used plate verbs at this point and ends up somewhere on almost every mix, same with Relab. Phoenix Verb is one of the major reverbs I have yet to try out though. And I'm glad, always happy to share my findings here!
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 8, 2020 19:19:20 GMT -6
Does Satson and Britton use oversampling? 2X or 4X? I just confirmed that Satson CS is currently the only plugin with oversampling currently, though now that they've implemented it into whatever backend they use to create the plugins. So you'll probably start seeing it a lot more often all over the place with their products. I haven't noticed any high end/anti-aliasing issues personally though, and 48k and up it should be a non-issue.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 7, 2020 18:49:40 GMT -6
On a side note, I just found out that there is a 30% off bundle deal going on with Burnley 73 + Britson for the next couple days. Both together for about $70 here for anyone looking into them.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 7, 2020 18:39:09 GMT -6
Does Satson and Britton use oversampling? 2X or 4X? sirthought I know that Satson CS has up to 16x oversampling. I'll double check for you if that's also the case with Satson and Britson. Both definitely have internal 64-bit floating point and zero latency though.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 4, 2020 18:46:20 GMT -6
I use the Sonimus SonEQ and StoneEQ (SSL ish model) a lot. They are a great company. I agree, I personally find it cool that instead of just offering full emulations of both Brown and Black EQ types, they take their favorite parts of each and combine them with some unique aspects here and there. So instead of flat out getting double the options to mess with which seems most common anymore, it is a single EQ that allows you to achieve aspects of both EQ models.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 3, 2020 10:14:11 GMT -6
I've been trying to tell folks to buy Britson for console-like summing rather than the $300 Neve summing extension from UAD. I believe they sound very close in what they add to a mix and the Britson is overall more versatile in the end. You've got the right idea haha, I wish I found out about them sooner than I did. I recently discovered that their Tuco compressor lets you switch between "modern" and "vintage" stereo modes too, which is cool since even sequential pairs of old (and even some newer) hardware is rarely perfectly matched. On a drum or guitar bus it adds that little bit of extra width in a way I've rarely (if ever) seen a plugin offer, and is also just an extra nod towards authenticity whenever needed.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 2, 2020 17:45:09 GMT -6
drbill - being the 3A aficionado you are, we would LOVE to get your input on the sound of our V3A! 😉 OK. I can do that. Send me one and I'll put it up against the Serpents. Happy to do it. DM or email me. I'm excited to hear this myself, since I have 2 Serpent Chimeras that I love, as well as 2 Brutes (which are kind of in their own ballpark) as far as solid state 500 series optos currently. audioscape always does a fantastic job though, and their D-Comp is the next purchase on my list as soon as they get back in stock.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 2, 2020 17:24:18 GMT -6
Huge fan of Satson/Britson. I use them all over the place for quick HP/LP filters that sound excellent. Satson is probably my favorite software HPF. Awesome to hear! I've really been enjoying the filters also since I normally have Satson or Britson high up in whatever chain anyways. I've been enjoying just throwing SonEQ Pro on a track too for the bit of color, and then using the filters there as well. I appreciate that they included the filters in with both SonEQs since a lot of Pultec/passive EQ plugin lines put the filters in it's own plugin since the old Pultec filters are selling for quite a lot anymore. I'll be sure to play around more with the Satson HPFs in particular on a wider range of applications.
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Post by topshelfmg on Aug 2, 2020 16:56:39 GMT -6
Hey everyone, RGO has long been my go to audio forum, so I wanted to introduce anyone who may not have heard of them to Sonimus. They’re a relatively new plugin company I only recently found out about, and while they may not have the worlds crispest GUIs yet (though they’re still definitely solid), the sound is phenomenal. Oftentimes a combination of both algorithm and sampling based modeling. A lot of their products have slowly replaced or augmented some of my favorite plugins in similar categories (many costing much more), and they do a great job combining modeling for a piece of hardware we see all the time like a G-Series or 1073/81, and altering it based off of other hardware and their own ideas, often resulting in some increased versatility. For instance, their Satson CS plugin not only models crosstalk in addition to THD and everything else (same with their Satson and Britson console emulations), but also replaces the channel compressor with something more closely resembling a G-Series bus compressor, but with tonal/response changes to both make it unique and to make sure it can handle all of the channel compression tasks just as easily. I’ve found myself using it as much for program/bus applications as I do for channel applications. Their SonEQ Pro originally looked like a standard EQP-1A emulation too me, but upon trying it out I found it is like this brilliant mix between a EQP-1A and a modern, parametric mastering/bus EQ, both sound and feature wise. It can still add plenty of color if you need it too, but with low drive/input can also stay surprisingly transparent and crisp with a much more accurate transient response than my hardware Pultec. Plus all of the bands are fully parametric opposed to your standard 20Hz, 30Hz, 60Hz, 100Hz, etc. SonEQ is still capable of pulling off the simultaneous boost + cut Pultec trick as well, and with a wider variety of frequencies to choose from and experiment with. Since Sonimus came to my attention, I’ve been helping them spread the word, so if anyone has any questions I’ll do my best to answer them. They also have timed demos on all of their plugins to check out as well until I release some full length reviews with audio examples, etc included. Including SonEQ which is 100% free, and gives a good idea of what to expect with SonEQ Pro in a more standard passive EQ package. Anyone else have a personal favorite out of the line up so far?
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Post by topshelfmg on Jul 24, 2020 14:39:14 GMT -6
Looks like someone bought his Pye for $20k too. I was actually surprised to see a lot of the stuff not going for retail and above. For instance his Chandler 176 went for about $700-$800 off I believe, which is pretty solid even if it was a random guy on Reverb selling it haha.
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Post by topshelfmg on Oct 16, 2017 23:12:42 GMT -6
And unfortunately, those are the 2 articles that had me worried in the first place when I realized it was grayed out.
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Post by topshelfmg on Oct 16, 2017 23:08:22 GMT -6
Oh wait... there is an "adjust for record latency button" now. Maybe that is the workaround.
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Post by topshelfmg on Oct 16, 2017 22:07:21 GMT -6
I'm pretty much fully switched over from 7 or so years of Logic to Cubase Pro 9... at least for editing and mixing. And in almost every way, I think Cubase is way better. But when asking about and looking into "low latency mode" for recording... or in Cubase's case... direct monitoring, it appears it isn't working. It is grayed out. And when I searched online, it appears that (as of 2011) Mac cannot support ASIO direct monitoring. This is a big deal if I can't do this and have to rely strictly on buffer size... so considering 6 years is a LONG time in computer years... is there now a solution? Do I have to use the built in Motu 16a DSP mixer? Cause I thought I had finally gotten away from mixers like that...
This is pretty worrying. I'm praying one of you have a solution! I could record in Logic and bounce to Cubase, but Logic has pretty terrible export options when it comes to stems... and really, pretty terrible export/bouncing features in general.
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Post by topshelfmg on Sept 18, 2017 20:55:51 GMT -6
And you think 1731 is the way to go over Litz in this case? All of the CAPI products I've used thus far I've really loved the Litz, but I can definitely see how the FC526 in particular can really benefit from the 1731.
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Post by topshelfmg on Jul 10, 2017 12:05:33 GMT -6
I tried this collection on one track so far, just the vocal bus and master fader. It's definitely of comparable quality to the top tube and sat plugs like Wave Arts Tube Sat, Radiator, SDRR, and Nomad's BBE. I'll test it and the HG-2 some more tomorrow. I've really enjoyed them as well. I need to get around to picking up that HG-2 plug though...
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Post by topshelfmg on Jul 10, 2017 12:04:17 GMT -6
Okay, so I bought in to this bundle. The thing that immediately got me all revved up is the bricasti stuff in the verbsuite thingy. Maaaaaannnnn....I know this thread is about the tube emulators but WHAT?!? I gotta shell out for a bricasti now? Anyone try these yet? Jeez...it's good. I like Tverb but in 5 min I felt like these bricasti emus are CRUSHING. You try these out bricasti guys? Yes, those IRs are great! I use them as my go to drum room verbs and a lot of vocals... both backing and lead depending on the genre.
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Post by topshelfmg on Jul 10, 2017 12:02:40 GMT -6
This video...I just can't. The metal. Even as far as metal goes.... the Slate forums said it was terrible as well. Really dig the VTC units though!
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Post by topshelfmg on Jul 10, 2017 11:31:40 GMT -6
Thanks man! Hopefully those stick around like a week or so.. I also might try to see if he is willing to just sell the monitors.
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