Luna Neve Summing vs 8014

Lots of beanies

Had a listen and the comparison was interesting; I did prefer the neve console in all situations but the UAD stuff was very similar just slightly missing a cohesive warmth relative to the Neve.
Cheers, Ross

Perspective:
reverb.com/item/3990081-neve-8014-recording-console-1973-original

I'd say it's dumb not to. 

If a $300 tool can deliver 95+% of a $140,000 tool, it's a meaningful calculus. 

95+ % ..... mmmmh.

Well, at the least, I admire your commitment to the products you sell :-)

I have $1000's of dollars of your plugins and they are truly great - but I've found I'm happiest avoiding
comparisons to their hardware equivalents and definitely avoid percentages!



 

See, I was wondering about this video. I still haven't had the time to properly sit down and give it an honest listen. I've been on the fence about the whole Luna summing thing anyway.

I could see where I might, at the very least, use the Luna summing during tracking to give it an easily achievable approximation of the final sound I'm shooting for, but then strip the Luna summing off for mixing and go out to hardware summing or at least do a bunch of hardware inserts (once that's available in Luna).

Now one thing that definitely appeals to me about Luna is the Console Emulation channel strips. Being able to non-destructively use channel strips (and not eat up my dsp), and have Luna shuttle things back and forth between dsp and cpu, means I can avoid making some eq decisions until mix time, and do so without having to be so careful with dsp usage.

I like to make decisions and print hardware compression on the way in, but I still like to have some flexibility come mix time when it comes to eq. That has been a big appeal with Luna and probably the number one reason I've been wanting to try Luna out.

But back to summing, yeah, it sounds like that video leaves something to be desired. Maybe I'll get time this evening to finally sit down and give it a real listen.

95% yeah? Well, that's your opinion.

But I wont go there, because it's really not possible to quantify those kind of things. It's more a matter of believe, I would say.

Hearing on that partciular video, plus my personal experience with UAD, that I think sound great and has its fair usage around here, I say that it adds 0% of what I'm after when I use my hardware chain on the mix bus, or when I send a track to one of my hardware devices. Does it sound great? yeah, of course. But I would still think about passing throught my chain.

And about comparing prices, well, someone could say that you can achieve those sonic qualities with $100, $30 or even for free in plugin land. Or $500, $1000 with an unique hardware on your desk. But what about the workflow? What about interacting with the console, knobs, faders? What about all the cables, patchbay, heat, somethings suddenly not working.

So yeah, saying "this plugin is $300 for 95% of this $500000 console" is a bit silly and superficial to me.

I don’t disagree. If budget wasn’t an issue, I’d go for the console every time. But I completely appreciate what the UAD universe brings to the table.

I had 2 issues with the videos (I only watched tracking and mixing, I don't master so I didn't bother).

Issue One: The levels in tracking were off from the console and the UAD, so I was trying to make adjustments while I listened. The UA stuff sounded good and close for sure.

Issue Two: We are not told whether the mix was done with the tracks from the UAD signal paths, or the console signal paths. 

I came away a little confused about this too. I was hoping to hear summing set up on the real console to somehow mimic the groups and Luna Neve Summing.

I am just interested for curiosity … I am very, very happy (which I may have stated on some other threads here) with the LUNA summing and I have both the Neve and API and when SSL or any other comes out I will buy straight away. The reason is that LUNA and its summing extensions has allowed me to go ITB and sell my RND5060 plus a couple of compressors so the cost of the summing extensions definitely worked out to my benefit compared to HW summing.

From a comparison perspective … I did a load of tests (between my RND5060 and the Neve summing extension which was the one available at the time) and its not that the Neve/API summing is “the same” or even “95% there” compared to a console or my RND5060 … its different but damn good is what I felt and I took the leap and never looked back :-)

I should add, I used the funds from selling the summing and compressors to but real preamps as I already had some and found I preferred them to unison pres on drums in particular but as its a small commercial space I felt having a variety of real pres for some minimal brand recognition was useful.

And if course we should all remember its not the pres or summing … its the song and performance that sells records/streams :-)

I just listened in the car. I didn’t think one was dramatically better than the other. From what I could tell, the mixes were vastly different. I would roll some of that bottom and top off of the Luna session. Thought the bass might have been better from the console.

Yeah, I guess what happened was 2 completely different mixes. Don't know how you can compare this way. Defeats the purpose of the video, imo.

And I think I just kind of hated the Luna mix, probably not because of the tool, I guess. The console one, even needing some treatment, have qualities that are very hard to get - depth and a beautiful but controlled low and high end. Luna's is all over the place, harsh and boomy at the same time and flat as a pancake.

Maybe it's just one of those things that ticks all the wrongs points on my personal taste, but anyway.