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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 13, 2024 17:14:01 GMT -6
I tried the Silver Bullet plugin after 3 pieces of hardware(compressor, Fusion, saturator) and then some plugins and it really added the things I thought were still lacking. Punch, more depth and width, and eq balance. The SB is just so versatile. The eq on it really allowed me to sort of rebalance things. On some of these mixes the vocals were a bit low but this allowed me to fix that without having to do a remix. In the videos I've seen, it sounds like the plugin is really spot on. Matty wasn't using any dither before the hardware insert though, so I'm not sure how that changes things. When I add dither before the insert, it definitely changes the sound a lot. So, with the SB hardware, it looks like we get to choose one module for the extra space? Choosing between the Hitmaker 4000 Colour and the Tape79 would be tough. Those WesAudio eqs sound great, but I have a feeling a SB would be a much better investment. And going back to the PQ, I noticed that the hardware doesn't have an input knob like the plugin. No meter on the hardware that I can see which would show you what kinda level you're feeding it. If Paul at Audio Animals was feeding it a good amount of level, then the plugin really is near identical. I still can't tell them apart with my eyes closed. So, that would be a real waste of 5k+ potentially. The philosophy behind the SB is really cool. Sounds like there's always going to be something interesting going on with it.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 13, 2024 17:02:20 GMT -6
For years Dan advocated working at 44 or 48 because of IMD. He said there was no way to get rid of it. Then he got a new computer and went up to 96k and never answered my question as to why he did that as far as I can remember. The Dan Worrell video about sample rates showed that 44k with upsampling plugins was perfectly fine. That's what I do until I want to do a final master with hardware. At 44k, I don't think I'm using a lot of plugins that don't upsample. Satin, UAD 1176 blue, some UAD FX, PA 902, UAD CV, UAD Harrison. Not sure if Softube Trident A Range upsamples. Basslane Pro is linear phase and I imagine it does whatever it needs to do. There are a lot of plugins that still alias pretty noticeably at 96k if I recall. But it all boils down to if you like the way something sounds in the way that you're using it.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 13, 2024 3:23:05 GMT -6
Fire Of Unknown Origin is just tremendous from beginning to end. Got it for Burnin during Xmas 95 and it was a pleasant surprise how great the whole thing was. My next favorites have always been Club Ninja and Revolution. There's a few albums I need to revisit.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 18:29:51 GMT -6
It was always about saturation and "nuking" stuff - which I have to be honest - I didn't really get...I chalked it up to him being in a completely different genre. But it's making more sense what aliasing was such a big topic for him - he was putting distortion on everything... BTW - I'm not disparaging him...it's just making more sense. Does anyone remember if Dan ever went into detail on his plugin chains? I'd love to know how many plugins he was using per session. A lot of plugins have a lot of problems and it will definitely pile up if you're using dozens of things that are introducing stuff like aliasing and phase issues.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 18:13:48 GMT -6
I like to say that everyone needs to follow their own path and that's what we have to keep in mind. Dealing with people nowadays requires a lot of patience because so many are into denying facts and reality like some MLM cult member. With a lot of subjects across a lot of avenues of communication, I'll share tips, advice, etc. But I know a lot of people won't listen or even acknowledge it. And that's ok, it's what I expect. People I know have gotten Covid or into other problems because they didn't listen to me. It was their choice to make. All you can really do is put your best info out there, give people a chance to hear it, and remember to save yourself. Interesting point and I have to agree that many people nowadays are very magnetic, both positively and negatively. Meaning, easily pushed towards things they resonate with and easily in resistance to things they don't. I don't know if this is due to larger societal polarization or some sort of shift in the collective consciousness, but it does seem to be happening more often. Sometimes even just mentioning something that is "out of resonance" with someone else nowadays can result in an unpredictable reaction, there is literally a war against or for everything nowadays. I guess the internet was always a bit like that, but nowadays it seems to be in every corner. That being said, I tend to be more attracted to positive attitudes, even when critiquing, judging, or discerning different components of audio. The best is when people with different points, pros and cons of something can come together and say, 'cool I see your perspective and respect that, but also this is why it doesn't work for what I'm doing.' Everyone hears music differently, everyone uses gear differently, and that should be fundamentally understood. If you are rigging up an online ego, all sorts of weird situations can arise and people maybe get a bit carried away sometimes with how they respond emotionally to this type of environment. Humans are weird as shit. There is a lot going on. The people who wield the power and have the biggest spheres of influence want society engineered socially in certain ways. Most of this revolves around corporations. They want us miserable so we'll consume. They minimize and deny that we still have a level 3 biohazard circulating so that we'll consume. Our increasingly disastrous and polygamous dating market is the result of targeted attacks on women aimed at manipulating them into turning against the men in various ways. As a result of that, we now have a huge industry of shows and podcasts aimed at the 30% or more of the men who have been frozen out of the dating market. And a lot of that is about bringing on women who have very high standards that only 5% or less of men can meet and then letting the audience beat up on them by paying to have the host read their verbal tirades. But the women don't know that these new standards are only met by a miniscule percentage of men or that a lot of this 5% is gladly taking advantage of their new found abundance of options and putting something like 20% of women in polygamous situations without them knowing. There was just something where a mob-connected guy sued 27 women for talking about him on "are we dating the same guy?" right when he got indicted. I've heard other stories of men "dating" someone and then they go on dating apps and can instantly have a woman in their bed the second their "girlfriend" doesn't do what they want. And these guys would go through several women a week. Then we end up with a lot of angry women who think the other 95% of men are exactly the same. When certain people are reminded about the level 3 biohazard still circulating, they snap. "It's over" or "It's a mild cold" and "why are you still wearing a mask". Used to hear that a lot until this current ongoing wave. Now just about everyone who said that to me had to concede that I was correct even if they haven't changed their risk-taking behavior. Denying this made denying other things into a normalized idea. You don't like a fact, just deny it exists. Create your own version of reality. On a lot of social media, long Covid advocates get censored, shadowbanned, you name it. It's in the interest of governments and corporations to downplay all this. Kick the can down the road and see who survives. It's like eugenics. All over social media, it's rampant narcissism. People taking pictures and video of themselves like they're "The Narcissist" Lex Luger in 1993. Zealotry used to be confined to small circles. Now it has become the norm. People who haven't been exposed to cult behavior in something like Amway or Primerica can be very susceptible to brainwashing campaigns. I've already seen people become brainwashed and do crazy stuff like stay at a meeting from 7 pm to 7 am routinely and lose their jobs as a result. It's tough to fathom the mindset of supposed "leaders" who think that basically forcing people to do that after spending thousands and thousands to tour the country at company conventions is a rational idea. Of course, the point was to get you further enmeshed in the brainwashing. This is what we see with a lot of politics too. One side is always leaning towards authoritarianism based on claiming to have the moral high ground, it just depends what year it is. What I've noticed is that people don't really scrutinize what politicians say if they agree with what they're saying. Doesn't matter if it's based in fact or not. Internet groups do become radicalized. We go back 25-26 years ago, and it's a lot of people into pop culture stuff that was frozen out of the mainstream market venting their grievances at the things that were on MTV and radio. People have been prone to zealotry since the beginning of Internet discussion. With our audio, I think we can hold companies accountable without being zealots. If someone wants to use a plugin or piece of hardware with objective flaws, all you can do is present your case. It's on them if they want to invest their money in it. People are gonna do what they want to do. It's often a fine line between a passionate expression and being a zealot. But a strong expression directed at a harmful action is never really a bad thing. Like speaking out against record labels and exploitive contracts the way someone like Steve Albini does.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 16:41:19 GMT -6
Over the years I spent a decent amount of time studying this over on the plugin analysis thread with guys like Andy from Cytomic. And I've tried to commit a lot of what Dan said to memory while also saving a lot of discussions he was involved in. He said minimum phase filters for oversampling were bad if I recall. And that this was something in Softube plugins aside from the FX. He also said Tapedesk was an "aliasing nightmare" or something like that. CLA76 was also one he hated for various flaws and I'd say the UAD 1176 is tons better. But Dan was using settings I never used. These insanely fast attack times. For all I know he had completely different taste and goals from me. But I always appreciated his deep technical analysis. Over the years I've kept sort of a mental list of plugins with aliasing issues and other objective flaws. Compressors not oversampling the sidechain was another Dan pet peeve. Often he was the only one who dissected them enough to find this stuff.
But what it really boils down to is your ears. If something has aliasing issues, you probably won't like the way it sounds. High-end hardware is classy. It's full and smooth, but clear too. Plugins that are well-engineered like Satin, have this sort of quality about them. But it also runs at 384k. Overloud Gem stuff can give you a ton of instances and there's apparently a price to pay for that. But you could still get a good sound out of it, you just have to find out what settings create problems. So, you experiment and find the strengths and weaknesses of each plugin. Dan seemed to get frustrated when he wanted to use a plugin a certain way and then just couldn't without aliasing, cramping, or some other issue popping up. Plugin compressors routinely seemed to drive him up a wall aside from the TDR stuff, Fuse, and the Weiss. There was probably a couple others in there.
I'd have to go back through old notes I've made and threads I've read in the past to contribute to a list of problematic plugins. It's been a while since I checked out the plugin analysis thread.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 16:20:22 GMT -6
I like to say that everyone needs to follow their own path and that's what we have to keep in mind. Dealing with people nowadays requires a lot of patience because so many are into denying facts and reality like some MLM cult member. With a lot of subjects across a lot of avenues of communication, I'll share tips, advice, etc. But I know a lot of people won't listen or even acknowledge it. And that's ok, it's what I expect. People I know have gotten Covid or into other problems because they didn't listen to me. It was their choice to make. All you can really do is put your best info out there, give people a chance to hear it, and remember to save yourself.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 16:11:22 GMT -6
Lately I've been liking to use the UAD Culture Vulture in parallel at the top of my sub-mixes along with Satin in Studer mode followed by Satin in Type A. And I've got Softube Trident A-range before Satin for the filters and the saturation. Eqs with less saturation can't play that role. If the UAD Harrison has saturation, guess we can count that too. On tracks, the saturation of the UAD 1176 and the PA902 are both very helpful. When I run out of UAD DSP, I'll swap in Decapitator since it got pretty close to a hardware Culture Vulture in one of those saturator shootouts on Youtube. Maybe when I build a better computer I'll be able to run the Silver Bullet on sub-mixes. Right now I can't get enough cpu to pull it off. Never heard of Klanghabitat and I will take a look for sure. Dopamine can be a decent substitute for Satin's type A, but it creates a thicker, more compressed sound.
There's probably a decent amount of saturation in FX like Softube Atlantis.
Using plugin saturation the way I am now allows me to make a lot of moves that make my ITB mixes way better than they ever were. It's what I use instead of bus compression and I don't run anything across the whole mix until I go into a master session. Then it's hardware, the PA PQ, and utility plugins. Having access to hardware has made me understand the different stages a lot better and how to better maximize the potential of plugins. You realize what can't be done by slapping hardware across a mix. And you get a good idea of what top notch hardware sounds like and can then better understand the quality of plugin emulations. The hardware is sort of a measuring stick. You could even look at investing in it as you would investing tens of thousands in audio school. The hardware might actually be cheaper and give you a better rate of return if you apply yourself, actually.
With that said, there is some quality saturation with plugins. They are faithful enough to the hardware that you can utilize them for the same purposes. The character is retained pretty well. Then you can get creative with chains of saturation plugins mixed with utility plugins to achieve some really good results.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 7, 2024 6:14:30 GMT -6
The SPL PQ plugin does some natural widening too I've noticed. Try pushing the input some though.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 6, 2024 17:32:26 GMT -6
The Fusion is cheaper used now than it was when I got mine in 2022, sometimes I've seen them at near $1600. Try using Affirm or Klarna if you can get access. Or 48 months on VK if you got a card. My guy there was willing to do 48 months on anything. Access Analog has two as well, I think. The plugins are not all that close if you watch the multiple videos comparing them. My experience corroborated what I saw on Youtube. But I also have very limited hardware experience. What other hardware wideners are there? The Drawmer, one of the Vitalizers, and the Overstayer piece that Access Analog has in the Magic Garden chain? There's probably some I don't know about. I'm not sure if I consider the Portico's SFE to really be a widener. It can get phasey and I've heard it's just a mid-side eq simplified. I've never had the Fusion's SW get phasey on me.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 6, 2024 17:25:50 GMT -6
The Fusion widener is $199? There have been times that SSL put all the Fusion plugins on sale for around $25 or $29.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 6, 2024 14:44:55 GMT -6
The issues with Vintage Drive have been reported pretty well in various places. I don't feel a need to use it. You need really well-recorded stuff to minimize the problems. With the Violet Eq I started using the 50hz and 16khz settings. Been using the 30hz HPF too. Cranked the Space and Width more than I did before. These settings work better with my current mixing strategy where I'm using Basslane Pro and UAD Culture Vulture on busses. The transformer works really well for me. There aren't a lot of utility hardware pieces like this. It's as valuable as more expensive things I've used. Maybe it would be a lot more expensive if it wasn't made in China. The HF compressor is also useful and unique. I'm not sure what I would replace it with if given the opportunity.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 6, 2024 14:29:08 GMT -6
The Fusion one was the best I tried. Though I don't really use it a lot. Instead I just work off of the basic low frequency mono preset on Basslane Pro across my busses. I'll use the Fusion hardware across the whole mix. Basslane Pro has some widening functions. The article below was very persuasive as to why the methods used in BLP are going to provide better results than others: flotownmastering.com/blog/center-that-subThen I'll use BLP again across the whole mix after going through hardware.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 5, 2024 17:21:11 GMT -6
The new Silver Bullet is something that looks very intriguing too.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 4, 2024 21:02:11 GMT -6
I think I'm just going to build a Titan with Prometheus and Hyperion for now. Then maybe look at the Trinnov Nova. I'm not convinced that one of these 6k eqs would really have a huge advantage. Maybe further into the future consider something like an Overstayer MAS. Rhea and Dione might be something I look into down the line if I can justify the cost. Building a new computer with a 14900K processor is probably the priority as I need to make the most out of ITB mixing.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 3, 2024 15:18:31 GMT -6
A lot of people have been having issues with their Novas on GS. This is something I put on my list to check out down the line as maybe I could use monitors in here if I got it.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 3, 2024 15:14:42 GMT -6
Thanks for the heads up, picked this up and their Doubler/Widener. I’ve got some old mixes that had Sonnox stuff on them and it’ll be nice for recall purposes if nothing else UA…well let’s see if I were to complain about something is that the EQ section of the Vision channel strip is a really pain to adjust…you’d think clicking on a knob and “turning” it wouldn’t be so difficult. I actually like the EQ and filters a lot but it definitely can be frustrating and I can’t imagine after 5? years since its release I’d be that hard to fix That doubler is really good for creating fake doubles when you don't want to use Revoice Pro for time reasons. If I can't get a good result with Softube's Fix, I'll usually go to this one. They don't make the other one redundant.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 3, 2024 15:12:37 GMT -6
I never thought of Dan as trying to insult people here. He called out a lot of objective flaws in products. Corrected untruths. Gave us in-depth analysis rooted in provable facts that no one else did. Sometimes I was puzzled at his tastes like when he told me modern Iron Maiden albums sounded better than the classics or that the O2 headphone amp was terrible(he never did answer my question as to why he felt that way as far as I can recall). But I just chalked it up to him being a bit eccentric. I've always wanted to hear his work. Perhaps it wouldn't suit my taste at all. After all, I've never embraced the way the TDR stuff sounded. Never got into Fuse either. Don't get me wrong. They're both very good companies, but I just never fell in love with them. With what he said about the Softube stuff recently and some of their design choices it made sense as to why I didn't like the sound of their non-FX plugins when used certain ways. His info about Satin and the SP2016 got me using them again when I had put them aside for a long time. This recent stuff here, I was kinda waiting for him to give us the big narrative as it seemed he was connecting some dots. One point he seemed to be making was that modern hardware sounds more transparent and perhaps isn't worth having because of that. I'm not sure. The high-end stuff I've heard and/or worked with sounded classy. It could be clear, but also full and have some vibe to it. Still a big difference between plugin emulations and hardware versions of a Shadow Hills, VSM, or a Stamchild. Didn't he not care that much for the Weiss stuff a while back? I seem to remember him commenting about it over the years but now he's acquired it and thinks it's top notch. He always kinda digging, seeking out some kinda broader answers. It was always interesting to see where he went. Admittedly, I would kinda tune out some of the most eccentric stuff he said and just focus on things he wrote that were clear cut evidence of an objective problem. That's what I like to do, try and take real data and facts and then sorta follow my own path with it. At the end of the day, that's all we can really do. We don't need to try and be like anyone or strive to emulate certain subjective standards and styles. Adhering to objective principles like dithering is completely different though. Dan was big on that kinda stuff. The thing that probably rubs people the wrong way about him is the absolutist way he talks at times. "this thing suck", "this thing is terrible", he doesn't use a lot of tact at times. When he'd say that about something I used, I'd often wonder what he found that would lead him to that conclusion. He left GS a while ago, I think. Hopefully he comes back here as I don't know that he'd pop up on KVR or VI-Control. Probably not on Audio Science Review either. I'm sure his writeups on here took hours to do at times, he certainly put the effort in. Too bad he deleted his profile, he probably had more lurker fans than he knew and some of us will want to go back and read things he posted. My guess is that he wants to avoid the temptation to come back and spend hours a week on here. I don't think he hates everyone here enough to screw us out of reading his work. Too bad he doesn't have a website or anything, at least not one that I know of. There was a lot of useful knowledge that deserves to be preserved. Hey - he’s welcome back…all I wanted was for him to consider whether what he was about to say was going to come off like a butthole. Dan was starting to be a butthole…in every thread. Let me add a caveat to the welcome back. He mentioned he was “wasting my time posting here.” Which I found a bit…well…bitchy. I chalked it up to just being upset and frustrated…BUT if that’s truly how he feels, that he is bestowing us with knowledge sitting at the right hand of Dick Swettingham and Rupert Neve from on high…(although, I’d pay to hear that discussion) then maybe it’s a good break. To be fair, I am sure I did not read a lot of the other threads he posted in. He was always very hyperbolic and unpolished. Didn't have much of a filter. Not very calculating in how he said things. You almost have to sort of decipher what he really means when he gets into all the hyperbole. His knowledge often checked out when compared to things someone like Andy from Cytomic said in the plugin analysis thread. Like with the Metric Halo biquads problem. Sometimes he'd do things that I found puzzling. I was always fascinated by how he kept blowing up his monitors. I guess he turned them up so loud trying to uncover some specific detail that they couldn't handle it? Sounded like some mad scientist stuff.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 2, 2024 20:47:44 GMT -6
I never thought of Dan as trying to insult people here. He called out a lot of objective flaws in products. Corrected untruths. Gave us in-depth analysis rooted in provable facts that no one else did. Sometimes I was puzzled at his tastes like when he told me modern Iron Maiden albums sounded better than the classics or that the O2 headphone amp was terrible(he never did answer my question as to why he felt that way as far as I can recall). But I just chalked it up to him being a bit eccentric. I've always wanted to hear his work. Perhaps it wouldn't suit my taste at all. After all, I've never embraced the way the TDR stuff sounded. Never got into Fuse either. Don't get me wrong. They're both very good companies, but I just never fell in love with them. With what he said about the Softube stuff recently and some of their design choices it made sense as to why I didn't like the sound of their non-FX plugins when used certain ways. His info about Satin and the SP2016 got me using them again when I had put them aside for a long time.
This recent stuff here, I was kinda waiting for him to give us the big narrative as it seemed he was connecting some dots. One point he seemed to be making was that modern hardware sounds more transparent and perhaps isn't worth having because of that. I'm not sure. The high-end stuff I've heard and/or worked with sounded classy. It could be clear, but also full and have some vibe to it. Still a big difference between plugin emulations and hardware versions of a Shadow Hills, VSM, or a Stamchild. Didn't he not care that much for the Weiss stuff a while back? I seem to remember him commenting about it over the years but now he's acquired it and thinks it's top notch. He always kinda digging, seeking out some kinda broader answers. It was always interesting to see where he went. Admittedly, I would kinda tune out some of the most eccentric stuff he said and just focus on things he wrote that were clear cut evidence of an objective problem. That's what I like to do, try and take real data and facts and then sorta follow my own path with it. At the end of the day, that's all we can really do. We don't need to try and be like anyone or strive to emulate certain subjective standards and styles. Adhering to objective principles like dithering is completely different though. Dan was big on that kinda stuff.
The thing that probably rubs people the wrong way about him is the absolutist way he talks at times. "this thing suck", "this thing is terrible", he doesn't use a lot of tact at times. When he'd say that about something I used, I'd often wonder what he found that would lead him to that conclusion. He left GS a while ago, I think. Hopefully he comes back here as I don't know that he'd pop up on KVR or VI-Control. Probably not on Audio Science Review either. I'm sure his writeups on here took hours to do at times, he certainly put the effort in. Too bad he deleted his profile, he probably had more lurker fans than he knew and some of us will want to go back and read things he posted. My guess is that he wants to avoid the temptation to come back and spend hours a week on here. I don't think he hates everyone here enough to screw us out of reading his work. Too bad he doesn't have a website or anything, at least not one that I know of. There was a lot of useful knowledge that deserves to be preserved.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 30, 2024 20:56:59 GMT -6
Hey - I get just being turned off by a company. I emailed Evanna Manley one time (the email was on the site at the time or something like that.) I had a song in the top 5 at the time and would have been remiss if I hadn’t asked. Asked if they offered artist deals - it was a very polite email. Got an email back from her that read (this is from memory, but wasn’t far off) “are you Sting or Prince? Because they both paid full price for theirs.” Dude. I will NEVER buy a piece of Manley gear. Ever. She can kiss my ass. At the time, I was flush with money and would have bought a shit load. But I spent it somewhere else. I would have been fine with a “No” that a little more humble - like “I would love to discount, but we don’t have artist pricing as a rule so it’s fair to everyone…etc” But she decided to try and put me in my place. Kiss. My. Ass. So I completely understand feeling slighted. Manley seems kinda passe in some ways. For anyone who hasn't tried comparing the PQ plugin vs the Massive Passive at Access Analog, I highly recommend doing the test. The Vari-Mu v9 was pretty good, but I'd be surprised if it was really better than some newer stuff that has come out since then. Just based on things I've tried and what I've heard in those GS samples where they had all those compressors compared. Sure, you have to take into account the converters and whether someone used dither or not. The Manley Slam was one of the better ones if I recall, but I didn't like it as much as either of the Shadow Hills or the Alpha. Either way, we have a lot of options and don't need to be beholden to any one company whether it's hardware or plugins. A lot of times it can be better just to be limited once you have at least the basics covered. After hearing and being able to use some stuff considered top tier, I lost pretty much any interest I had in buying more. Maybe if I won the lottery or received a huge inheritance I'd build a few 500 series racks with a lot of Wesaudio and also get some Bettermaker so I can mix almost all analog with digital recall. But I'm not sure I'd really need to. Recently I watched the latest Audio Animals video and Paul goes through his whole chain and deactivates devices one or two at a time. Left me with the impression that one doesn't need so much stuff. Sometimes I thought stuff sounded better when he'd turn off an eq or a compressor or the analog limiter. Reminds me of when I'd stack similar plugins. Do we really need different eqs for each part of the frequency spectrum to master a stereo mix? Sure it could be helpful...but necessary? Some of these companies are far too arrogant even about repairs it seems. Luckily I have a really cool shop a few miles away that can fix most any of this hardware with minimal fuss. They even advertise that they can fix old Eventide and Lexicon stuff. So far I've only had to visit them for things that got damaged in shipping. If this shop wasn't around, I'd probably have been a lot more hesitant about owning anything analog. Is UAD just racing to the bottom now? Once these companies start with this bottom feeder pricing, it brands them as being largely for people who just wanna screw around. And often those types want to get into this so they can feel important or whatever. Pretend they're a bigtime producer. And a lot of that has to do with the marketing. "Buy our plugins and you will have a world class studio on your laptop and be on your way to being a world class producer". My perception of UAD before I got into it was that this stuff was the real deal. The stuff that was so classy that people were willing to pay a lot for it and run it on DSP devices. Now the perception is "UAD-the latest company to sell $30 plugins on Audio Deluxe". Now what companies are left that aren't racing to the bottom? Maybe just Cedar? I can say that their Adaptive Limiter 2 is well worth the cost. With UAD it's not just about making new people pay a fraction of what the earlier adopters did. It's also about damaging the investments we've made in the brand. There is a lot of brand association out there in the minds of the general public. A software list that once commanded respect can now be perceived by potential clients as "oh, it's just the stuff from the crack sites I downloaded and the other stuff that sells for $30". Cheap stuff also gives off the idea that it's cheap because it's either antiquated or because the company didn't put a lot of effort into it. The average consumer out there doesn't know what's what. In the eyes of a potential client, it means something to them if you've been able to acquire premium brands. In the absence of great word of mouth or salesmanship, these brands can tell someone something. Maybe all it says is that you took enough pride in your business to invest a lot. And that will in turn mean you have enough character to invest in their projects. Spending $30 on a UAD plugin does not take a lot of effort or risk. An invested person is perceived as having more motivation to get the job done. It's a lot harder to be perceived as a pretender too. There is probably no downside to being perceived as having invested yourself in premium brands.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 30, 2024 15:10:06 GMT -6
Why not just toss us all a free pick 4 custom bundle? Doesn't really offset much, but it's something I guess. They're devaluing their own brand by getting into PA and Waves territory with prices. That's as big a problem as giving all the new customers the best deals. Most of us have what we want from UAD already. It might be tough to find 4 plugins we'd have a use for. Maybe toss some coupons with the custom 4 as well? There aren't a lot of great ideas out there.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 29, 2024 21:18:23 GMT -6
Satin is over a decade old and still holds up. Surely there has to be a way to improve upon that with modern tech. I'm not sure what the most state of the art plugin is, but that's the one that springs to mind when asking myself that question. UAD going native should be about them pushing limits as they are no longer shackled by what fits on a Sharc chip. Oh, there is but bespoke DSP solutions are always expensive and even modern processors as powerful they are can be susceptible to a decent plugin session once you start spinning up convolution verbs, look ahead limiters, oversampled plugs, VSTI's etc. and then try to do things like overdubs. CPU processing can very much still be an issue and we're still living mainly in a place where threading is done per channel strip.
I've seen some of the later NI stuff MT voices which is cool but it's not like DSP is still irrelevant at this point. What will, in a Nostradamus style prediction be the final nail in DSP is GPU's. The amount of parallel processing they can do nowaday's is just mind boggling, they're cheaper, easier to access, don't require any bespoke hardware creations etc. and plugs are already being developed for them.
I've gone with the less is more approach. Tried to make things work that still allow me to get audio playback for at least a few seconds before running out of cpu. Mixing where I'm just going track by track and either committing hardware or plugins just doesn't work for me. I like to be able to hear everything at once and adjust. What I've found is that I just don't like a lot of compression or limiting. The only time I'm using compression in a mix is on certain tracks. Satin plays the role of the compressor usually. When I listen to a lot of classic recordings, I don't hear tons of compression. Did a studio from 40 years ago even have enough hardware to use several pieces on each track? CPU processing is definitely a big issue because certain plugins will still only be able to run a handful of instances even on the best processors. The 14900k has plugin counts well above a lot of the other top-scoring cpus from what I saw in DAWbench results. It'd probably be enough for me to run multiple Inspiratas and put two instances of Satin on everything considering it has almost 2.5x the single core power of the Ryzen 1700 overclocked and maybe 4x as much multi-core. What was interesting to find out was that exchanging instances of low cpu Dopamine for high cpu Satin in type A mode didn't affect my ability to get the audio to play back all that much. Two stereo Inspirata was a lot more. UAD can still fill the need for extra cpu processing if they think on the cutting edge some. GPU processing is something I've heard about for years. It seems to be only a matter of time before someone figures out how to make it work.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 29, 2024 20:38:29 GMT -6
The thing with plugins is that the potential is often severely limited by cpu cycles. Just having the option of being able to load up a session with something like Satin all over vs some lower cpu tape plugin is a big deal. Lately I've been replacing instances of Dopamine with Satin's Type A preset and that was big-Satin is a marvel of a plugin. With UAD, putting the Culture Vulture and Harrison Eq I just got in the sale has made a huge difference as well. UAD does have some plugins that are capable of fullness and smoothness beyond most others. The DSP is helpful in maximizing cpu cycles available. Next thing I'm going to get is a new computer build with a 14900k processor. Of course, I'd rather have something like 50k to buy a bunch of 500 series racks and getting hardware versions of things I use like the 902, tape, Type A, 1176, etc. Get multiple Culture Vultures for sub-mixes. That would be something, but it's not viable. Instead, I'm trying to hone my mixes so that the hardware I have available has its potential maximized when used across the whole ITB mix. You can really get a lot out of a little if you just stick to things you're willing to commit to.
Above all, the quality of the recorded tracks is paramount. With well-recorded stuff, I don't hear anywhere as big a difference when using something like Dopamine vs Satin. This is the reason a lot of these highly regarded pros can get away with using stuff like a CLA76 all over everything as opposed to the much better UAD 1176. Of course, everyone here already knows that. I'm just reporting back what I notice in my experiments. It would probably be a while before I'm in a situation where I can compare recordings done with hardware and an Aurora N vs my Apollo Twin and Unison plugins.
UAD clearly needs something new besides Waves/PA prices. Need to come up with ways to push the limits of plugins. Satin is over a decade old and still holds up. Surely there has to be a way to improve upon that with modern tech. I'm not sure what the most state of the art plugin is, but that's the one that springs to mind when asking myself that question. UAD going native should be about them pushing limits as they are no longer shackled by what fits on a Sharc chip.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 28, 2024 16:14:30 GMT -6
People on Head-fi buy Hilos. They love to mess with stuff. A lot of people on audiophile forums are high on compulsion and low on objective audio knowledge. They are always toying with things, buying thousands of dollars of gear, etc, because they're trying to solve problems caused by flaws in the designs, impedance mismatches, and things like that. I've always appreciated the candor of guys like Dan because these companies need to be held accountable. These are business relationships we have with them and we can't lose sight of that.
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Post by viciousbliss on Jan 18, 2024 19:22:23 GMT -6
Mid-side can muck things up easily if you're not careful. Usually I'll only use it with Vertigo VSM stuff with the lows being saturated in the mid and the highs on the side. Not sure if Fusion's stereo imaging section counts, but I find that pretty essential. Can't say I'm really big on mid-side compression or eq on top of these two techniques. Maybe that will change if I work with a hardware eq like Hyperion one of these days. You can muck up any part of mixing from overcompression to muddy EQ adjustments etc. mid side is a very basic part of mixing or mastering in total. Of course, I just think mid-side is something that can muck things up easier and faster than most things. Often it's deceptive and you don't realize how drastically you just changed things.
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