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anonymous 17 September 2002

Has anyone out there (here?) had the pleasure of comparing the hardware counterpart to your plugins Which ones and how did they stack up?
What are the closest to the real thing? The UAD? The Powercore? How close to the real thing was it? Does it really sound like a 1176? What's the record for the most question marks in a post?

Comments

anonymous Fri, 09/20/2002 - 11:49

I actually have an 1176 silver face in the studio right now, as well as the Bomb Factory plug-in. My take is this: the hardware wins hands down. The hardware seems to have wider frequency response and a less sharp attack on the signal. I use the 1176 plug-in frequently, but it just can't match the real deal. Doc.

anonymous Fri, 10/11/2002 - 02:56

Howdy,
I don't have the UAD plug-in, but I am going to do an absolute shoot out between the Bomb Factory and the hardware next week. I am going to run the same signal through both, with identical settings.
I will venture this- the UAD is probably better than the BF 1176ln because of the DSP procesing. The UAD is probably better than whatever stock compressorplug-insyou have available, and probably better than most compressorplug-insin general. The UAD is probably not going to sound as good as a hardware 1176, but is cheaper and can be applied to multiple signals.
What is your recording setup? Doc.

KurtFoster Fri, 10/11/2002 - 09:09

I hung this sign on the wall to help keep me grounded.

FACT:
JUST REMEBER WHEN YOU BUY AUDIO EQUIPMENT,
IF IT'S NOT ANALOG, IT'S CRAP!
You better really need it, because it's crap moron.
The day you buy it, it will be obsolete.
In a year it will have no value whatsoever.
Go ahead, try to sell it! ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ruk-ruk-ruk-chortle-snort!

For me, these have become word to live by.

anonymous Fri, 10/11/2002 - 11:16

well, that's why my system is so outdated. Because I wait for the technology to be worth crap before I buy it! (computer technology that is). For instance, that new system that Opus and folks have been talking about for the 2nd quarter of 2003? I am just as anxiously awaiting it... because my 533fsb 3.0 ghz computer I'll build at that time will be a smokin' deal.
Anyways, back to the topic... I am more curious than anything. I believe that most folks with the outboard gear hanging around are not going to be purchasing a UAD-1. I can respect that and feel that is reflected in the lack of response to this topic (that, and perhaps my poorly chosen title for the post).
Most people can't walk up and compare a UAD with its hardware counterparts, so I was curious if anyone had and what they thought. Not just for my purposes, but for the knowledge of others that do not have the luxury of doing a taste test. I've heard nothing but great things about the UAD-1 so basically I'm just a waitin' for that UAD-2 so I can pick one up! Cheap.
TC Powercore? I like the idea of having both, but deffinately think that PCI is going to change and thus, the hardware will too. Hopefully it will be backwards compatible, but you just never know. As the technology improves there is this prevailing attitude that the previous technology has somehow gotten worse. I don't buy into that theory. Sure I would like to have the latest and greatest, but that makes about as much sense as investing in a boat. (no offense to any boat owners out there...)
Still, I can't afford the analog counterparts. So I watch prices fall, keep my ears open and learn so that I don't make the mistakes I have made in the past when it comes to purchasing gear. Really, you can do everything you need to do in a computer these days. And for those of you who think that you can't, it IS done everyday in every possible genre you can imagine. I mean, jeeze, how good does that analog outboars pre sound on an mp3 track anyway? The average consumer just doesn't seem to care. Sooner or later the technology market is going to settle on a standard that is a cross between functionality, consumer demand, and profit margin. That will probably leave us at 24bit 96khz accross the board for a while.
although, my friend that just took a 7 hour road trip with Rupert Neve said he had a chance to check out that 1 bit system (I forgot which big boy develped that one) and said it sounded pretty darn good.
Said he and Rupert just talked about BMW's, though. He said 7 hours and no audio topics came up... and he enjoyed that. I guess that's what happens when those guys have been doing this as long as they have.
But I digress...
so, I was curious if anyone had done an AB test. Of course I know the analog is going to win everytime. Of course I know I can't afford 8 1176's for mixdown. Of course I can afford a UAD or Powercore card. Even more so when I buy one in about 6 months when something new and improved is out there. That still won't make the UAD sound any worse than it does now. However, it would be nice to hear exactly the type of shootout mentioned for the bomb factory plugs. I wouldn't expect that the UAD would sound better than the real deal, but would be interested to know how close it gets. And not an opinion like, "it sounds like a good compressor". I know it's a good sounding compressor. But how close does it get to the real deal? Pretty damn close? Not close at all, but sounds pretty damn good? Sounds ok, and pretty darn close? Certainly captures the essence and tonal characteristics, but probably loses about 15% of the character of the real deal?
Certainly sounds analog, but not like an 1176?
Doesn't sound analog at all?
I wouldn't be hanging on to a 100fsb athlon 1ghz with 512megs of pc133 if I was interested in investing in what is hot on the market now. Hell, for 1000 bucks I can build a nice 533fsb 2.26ghz pIV with two 8meg cache 60 gig hard drives with all peripherals. Now that I have seen the posts for the new standard coming out next year, though, it just makes sense for me to hang with what I have (it does still sound the same as it has for the last two years...) and piece together the above mentioned system when I can pick it up for 500 bucks.

what was I talking about, again?

KurtFoster Fri, 10/11/2002 - 14:43

Brock, :w:
Part of the problem with a plugins vs. hardware comparison is with the hardware there are differences between individual pieces. That is to say that each 1176 or LA 2a will exhibit its own distinct sonic signature. I imagine (at least hope) that the software modelers probably took measurements of several different units and then averaged the results. As far as the UAD card the only problem I'm having with them is the latency question. I have a rack of "Legacy" comps and I'm going to keep them but I still would like to have their counterparts in 1's and 0's land. I'll wait however until the latency issue is dealt with. As far as the T.C Powercore, I don't see anything there that interests me but I have a rack of "Legacy' reverbs also. Your issue with ever changing technology is valid and it is one I have sniveled about for a long time. Unfortunately, I don't think that 24 /96 is the end. I am hoping the SCAD / DSD 1 bit system may become a stable de facto standard for at least 5 or 10 years. Until at least then, I'm staying at 24 /48 just for data / file size reasons. SCAD / DSD viability in the near future may be related to that too. Better sound, ability for data steaming, no system latency, no buffers, no Nyquist filtering and analog like frequency response. Being an old fart I am spoiled by the experience of living through 20 years when audio technology was reasonably stable. 2"- 24 track was it and nothing usurped it until digital came along. Some great points Brock......Fats

anonymous Fri, 10/11/2002 - 18:42

This thread reaches to the very core debates onplug-ins Are they as good as the real thing? Should they try to be like the real thing (should they try to simulate hardware)? What are they good for.
I will try some blind testing next week and report back. I will also formulate a major statement onplug-ins I'm talkin' a line in the sand. I just drank a milkshake and boy am I feeling PUMPED. Doc

anonymous Mon, 10/14/2002 - 06:46

Latency with the UAD, Powercore, and "native"plug-insare no longer an issue. Samplitude 7.0, Nuendo 2.0, and others have all conquered this little gem of a eff up in vst. Direct x has had delay compensation in programs such as Sonar for a while. Now that this hurdle is behind, and system power vs price have reached a point where they can actually perform as advertised we have a brave new world in front of us. What happens now? Suddenly mic pres become affordable for the average bear, because they haven't spent all of their dough on verbs and compressors.
Real time convolution. what a trip. Someone would kick some major booty if they came out with a DSP card that just did this. As many instances as technologically possible. With a huge library of high quality impulse responses included...

what was I talking about again...

KurtFoster Mon, 10/14/2002 - 09:52

Brock,
Do you know if Cubase has worked out the latency issues with the UAD card (or vice versa)? Cubase is what I'm currently set up with although I am thinking of switching to Nuendo...it
seems to be more compatible with other products out like the baby HUI (I love that name!) and now as you mentioned the UAD. It also seems to be a more professional program....I just hate the expense. I guess I should just bite the bullet though and do it! My philosophy has been to get the best cheap thing I can find because it's just a throw away in a year or two at best. I don't really consider sound quality any more when purchasing digital technology because I have come to the conclusion that even at its best, most digital gear sounds like crap when compared to analog. (See my post "Why 24/96 digital still sucks!", in Producers, Engineers, and Hardware). Thanks, Fats

anonymous Mon, 10/14/2002 - 10:40

Your right on about digital vs analog (except for the stuff that costs so much you might as well go analog anyway). The trade off, though, doesn't justify 150.00 bucks a reel for 15 minutes at best quality.
About Cubase, I think delay compensation will be in the next, or the next after update. Not there yet. But now that Nuendo 2.0 is out Cubase will be getting the attention. You should wait until Nuendo 2.0 is out and see what kind of crossgrade they offer from cubase. do you have SX or VST? either one of those is system link compatible, so by crossgrading you will have a couple of programs that you can link together if you are into that sort of thing. The cool thing about delay compensation in these latest releases is that it is universal to all the plugs. What a concept. I still have a hard thime believing that they didn't figure this out from the start. The coolest thing is this convolution stuff that is happening. You can find all kinds of impulse responses out there (some have done a much better job than others of recording them...it's a pretty tricky process). I have even found several that were done for surround reverbs and the Samplitude convolution lets you use those. The version 7.0 that is coming out will allow you to use as many as 10 instances in real time (that's how many they estimate that a 2.4ghz pIV can handle, anyway). Even two or three on aux sends finally gets a reverb that rivals a hardware counterpart. I have started a collection of impulse responses that are available on the web right now. I figure that there will be a lot more available in the future, but right now people are putting out all kinds of environments and even recording impulses through high dollar reverb units. Samplitude's website has every factory preset that comes with the TC M3000 verb. I have found impulse responses from cathedrals in Havana, Cuba as well as ancient cathedrals form all over Europe. It is pretty amazing. I haven't completely gone through and gotten rid of the ones that are just too poorly recorded to use. I also want to try and weed out all of the ones that are lower sample,bit rates. Some of them are just horrible. A suprising amount of them are pretty darn good, though.
With cubase, though, you can use the UAD delay compensation plug-in on a group and just route everything that doesn't have a UAD plug through that group. This will delay all of the other tracks so that everything is as it should be. Doesn't cure the natural delay that exists even with VST and direct-x plugs. For things like verbs I find that it really doesn't add up to much that you can't fix with shorter pre-delay settings. Things like compression, however, are much more vitally important in this respect.
That baby Hui is the ticket for me. I don't expect much out of life, and certainly do not want a control surface that costs over a grand and still gives you limited functionality. I will take limited functionality for 600 bucks Alex... Talk about something that is going to be absolutely worthless in the future... (hey! that means that someday I will be able to afford one!).
I'm trying to figure out if Samplitude is going to still support the Logic control. If so I am hoping I can score one pretty cheap from a disgruntled Logic PC user.

KurtFoster Mon, 10/14/2002 - 13:20

DH,
Thanks for the info...it helps a lot to have something to look forward to. I have been hoping I wouldn't have to buy Nuendo….

_________________________________________________________________
Brock sez;

You're right on about digital vs. analog (except for the stuff that costs so much you might as well go analog anyway). The trade off, though, doesn't justify 150.00 bucks a reel for 15 minutes at best quality.

I was running an MCI JH 24 at 15 ips. Sounded great and I was getting 2" reels for $120 each new, so while the cost is substantially larger, it was do-able. I also found a place in LA where they close out used once reels for $60

Brock also sez;

That baby Hui is the ticket for me. I don't expect much out of life, and certainly do not want a control surface that costs over a grand and still gives you limited functionality.

Yeah it's where I would like to go. I have a place right next to my SR 24 that will accommodate it perfectly. It's going to look like it was made for it.....drool

anonymous Mon, 10/14/2002 - 13:33

man, I wish we had a place like that here in Austin. No used reels, though. I would do 60 bucks...
Nuendo is really worth owning. I've thought about it a bunch and ended up going with Samplitude Producer 2496. I am very familiar with it so it seemed like a logical choice when they offered their crossgrade offer. 200 bucks is a deal. Another 250 for the upgrade to 7.0, but that's still a hell of a bargain. For mastering that program is excellent. I dig it for tracking, as well. It's seems more set-up for an analog guy than a lot of the software that is out there. Logic for instance...
Nuendo is really nice, though, and I really enjoy using it when I have the opportunity. They have a really well behaved, knowledgable forum as well. I sometimes feel guilty for posting there not being a registered user...

KurtFoster Mon, 10/14/2002 - 22:26

Brock said:

The trade off, though, doesn't justify 150.00 bucks a reel for 15 minutes at best quality.

Actually the tape cost isn't what made me want to move into DAW, it was the maintenance costs on the console and tape machines. I spent $10K in 5 years on maintenance for an MCI 600 console and JH 24 2" machine. Unless you're a tech it's just a stupid waste of money. Your end product is CeeDee at best, usually mastered by some moron who ruins what you did anyway and a lot of times your stuff gets transferred to Blow Tools to be able to time stretch, pitch correct, edit. It became very difficult to compete with studios that were running DAW so why fight it. It is the wave of the future and it now appears that the native power is getting to the point that you really can do it all in one box. It just seems to be the right time to give up the "old ways" for the new, to get ahead of the curve before it buries me in the past.....Fats

anonymous Tue, 10/15/2002 - 06:44

Yep. You are right on there. That's what is so grand about the Radar II (if you get at least the mid grade converters). Just a stand alone replacement for 2" but without the medium and maintenance costs. They sound great too! Still have to have a peecee for flying back and forth for editing... well, you don't HAVE to, but it sure helps...
Space is the issue for me. All of my friends always asked me what my wife was doing with a guy like me. Well, she finally asked herself the same question so November 15th I lose half my equipment and move into an efficiency apartment. Like Hendrix said, though, "that's alright, that's alright, I've still got my guitar..."

KurtFoster Tue, 10/15/2002 - 07:19

A stand alone recorder means a mixer and I'm just not into that anymore, I have a couple of Mackies I can use for monitoring and (temporarily) routing (submixing) but I'm just going to track, mix, and master in the computer from now on. Maybe later I'll get a TLA or a Crest mixer that I can use to go to tape too but that's it! I can do surround, I can get a real total recall. Long term archiving is still a question, I'll probably use a number of different formats for storage just to be on the safe side. I skipped 20 bit and I'll probably lay out on 24/96 & 192. I'm holding out for 1 bit DSD / SCAD. I think PCM is almost at the end of its useful life for audio. All the top mastering engineers have been talking about DSD for quite a while and now I am seeing some 2 track units coming to the marketplace. It won't be too long now before all the OEM's start telling us how our PCM systems sound like s**t and how we all need to switch to DSD. And there won't be any upgrade path from PCM to DSD.

anonymous Tue, 10/15/2002 - 09:34

yes sir. You are right about that one. That and blue ray disk as a delivery medium will be the ticket for a while I think. At least current technology is cheap enough to justify buying equipment that you know is going to go by the wayside at some point. Native DAW sure beats the hell out of investing in Pro-Tools. You would have to be crazy to invest in that today. At least when they came onto the market the cost was somewhat justified, but in today's world you can do all of that with a native system (with a little help from dsp cards) at a tiny fraction of the cost, with better sound quality, and with a considerably cheaper upgrade path. I would hate to be a mix-plus owner who had to update to HD. What choice do you have when you have already spent that kind of bread? You just have to bite the bullet and upgrade I guess... That will be a bitter pill the next time around. I can't believe those folks aren't yelling out for 32fp processing.
How quickly the name pro-tools has become associated with mediocrity. I think it only goes downhill for them from here on out...

KurtFoster Tue, 10/15/2002 - 10:33

"Pro Tolls" is obviously aimed at the deep pocket customer. Big studios that want to buy new gear every 16 months. That's what Mac and Digidesign have to decide to peruse as a client base. I have to admit to myself that I'm just not in that league. The irony of the situation is that the tools that are becoming available to me as a result are in many ways better. Ha! The offenders have become so complacent they have allowed themselves to be usurped and now are attempting to play catch up. (001 /002) Now all that needs to happen is if MOTU would start supporting Windows / PC more..I would love to be using DP3 but I refuse to buy a Mac...Fats

anonymous Tue, 10/15/2002 - 12:20

I agree. Once the name recognition goes, though, there isn't really anything left in owning a pro-tools rig over any other DAW. The fact that it is 24bit integer and no delay compensation at that price is ludicrous. New converters helped some, but does that really justify the expense of HD? 192khz? Talk about being obsolete before it even starts. No format is going to make it there before 1 bit technology (or something else) takes over. It's just a waste of space, no matter how good it sounds. Who is going to listen to it? And now we have a new format war between SACD and DVD-A? If the consumer wasn't already confused enough over DTS or Dolby, DVD + or -, DVD-ram or rw, etc. Can't we all just get along?
DP3 is a very cool program. Too computer oriented for me though. I don't do much midi stuff and the midi I do is not that intensive. Very simple midi editing is best for this analog guy. I forced myself to learn Logic Audio Platinum. I'm glad I did as it sure made me appreciate Samplitude more. That program has been a staple for mastering for years and they really have done a nice job. Maybe not as flashy as Nuendo, but it is rock stable which is my main criteria. I hate being a beta tester for software, especially software that costs 1000.00 bucks or more.

Doublehelix Mon, 10/21/2002 - 11:46

But your image, man, what about your image?

Fats is *obviously* not worried about his image...just look at his avatar! Now, I got nothing against Mr. Churchill mind you, it is just that he is not what I would call a "chick magnet"!!! lol!

Plus, you can always just *tell* your clients that it is Pro Tools, they probably won't know the difference!!! :)

KurtFoster Mon, 10/21/2002 - 12:09

Sheeh!...
What's with you guys? First I get slammed for Henry The Eighth and now Churchill! :D
If I looked as good as that avatar, my wife would be a happy camper! :roll:
As far as being a chick magnet, I had my day, I'm just not as interested anymore, 'cause I'M MARRIED! Ohh!, Ohh!, Ohh!,......(Can you spell community property?) Besides I haven't seen too many babes around these here parts.....Pro Tolls, well I don't care, I'm not trying to recruit clients, just working on stuff I generate on my own. I don't need to appeal to a market segment. Fats

audiowkstation Mon, 10/21/2002 - 18:57

Mr. Fats, please let us hear your wares!

As a seasoned vet that swears last weeks stuff sounds like ASS compared to this weeks stuff (just kidding, actually last Months stuff :, I want to ck ya out baby.

Tell your wife that she is the best thing on the planet..(of course she is) I sure miss my Ex, (damned inlaws spoiled our fun)..

KurtFoster Mon, 10/21/2002 - 21:12

Well Friends,
These 4 CD's are available right now at Amazon.com. *Also available through Tower Records, anywhere in the US.
3 may be found under

  • Kenny Blue Ray.

In All Of My Life Kenny Blue Ray - JSP*
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000001X0W/?tag=r06fa-20

Git It Kenny Blue Ray - JSP*
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004WIWY/qid=1035307957/sr=1-9/ref=sr_1_9/102-1911533-1024948?v=glance

A Day In The Life
Of A Blues Man Jackie Payne - JSP* This one is my favorite record I ever did! Amazon .com rated 5 stars!
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001X12/qid=1035307957/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/102-1911533-1024948?v=glance
Also available at at Amazon.com.
Omega Brownie McGhee-Westside
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000001X12/?tag=r06fa-20
Snippits playbacks are available although at 56kBPS the sound quality is dismal.
Thanks for asking!.....Fats

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