Waves Scheps 73 & RS56

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I demo'd and quite adored the UAD passive collection - I bought it outright just before the new year (using coupons & UA discounts:-). Yesterday I finally demo'd the Scheps 73 and the RS56...I was curious about OP's assertion that the PSP ClassicQ is as good if not better than the Scheps 73. I don't hear it :? . I've liked the ClassicQ and many PSP effects but when I set comparable settings and tried to match gain staging as closely as possible, the Scheps had more 'life' and 'dimension'...it was preferable to my ears.

I then tried RS56 on a vocal. Holy crap! first impression: pretty special. It is a passive eq so I clumsily set up the new UA pultecs (Eqp1 and the Meq5) right next to the RS56 to roughly match what the rs56 was doing in boosts & reductions, setting the Pultec frequency curves as close as possible to the frequency options on the RS56; for instance on the RS56 you can boost/cut at 11,600 khz, on the Pultec it is 12k, right? - so after spending just a few minutes matching up the eq's best I could, I was not able achieve that 'je ne sais pas' with the otherwise delightfully polite UAD Pultecs compared to what was happening with the RS56. Both passive eq's yes, but yet different - I know, but still, I am very, very impressed with what the RS56 did.
On the above mentioned soft, breathy vocal track, I dare say it sprinkled some magic on the track that I couldn't manage to conjure with the new UAD Pultecs - at least in short order...and I have sure enjoyed the new Pultecs, so I am not calling them crap, by any stretch.
Last edited by sadkin on Mon Jan 13, 2014 3:05 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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djanthonyw wrote:
TheKraken wrote:Curious how it compares to their V series eq.
It's definitley better than V series, but still falls short compared to PSP.

Hmmm.. Interesting, what do you like better about PSP?
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I just think that PSP's EQ have mojo and sound more natural like you would expect hardware to sound. They don't sound like they are "trying", while the Waves just sounds like they are and un-natural.
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djanthonyw wrote:while the Waves just sounds like they are and un-natural.
+1

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djanthonyw wrote:I just think that PSP's EQ have mojo and sound more natural like you would expect hardware to sound. They don't sound like they are "trying", while the Waves just sounds like they are and un-natural.
Funny, to my ears I feel contrary. I think the ClassicQ has a (and I really hate to say it) 'sterility' to it, a flatness to its sound. It is still a fine EQ (preferable to V-series), it was good for a long while and when it fist hit the market was comparatively great... but I hear dimension in the new Scheps EQ, like the image is coming off the paper - not so flat. Those are characteristics I've personally associated with hardware units. So from my perspective, the Scheps has the 'mojo'.

quick question, and I don't mean to offend, but in your comparisons, are you reducing the output gain on the ClassicQ when making your eq adjustments or do you have PSP's 'Sat' engaged?
That 'Sat', whatever it is, works like a brickwall limiter and absorbs transients in ways I generally avoid but allows you to make boosts without needing to worry about clipping/gain staging. The Scheps does not have this 'psuedo' - limiter on the output so when boosting, you have to pull back on the output (or input) until null. Obviously, if you are driving the classicQ with 'sat' on, there will be a volume variance which would unfairly favor the ClassicQ simply because it will be heard as 'louder'.

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Right, I used the PSP EQs with the Sat function on and off. It's saturation, and will typically eat peaks, same thing with something like Wave Arts Tube Saturator. I think that if the preamp function isn't doing something like this with the Scheps, it isn't as accurate with its saturation.
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hmmm, from my perspective this is almost true if you select the 'drive' on the Scheps, but still different, imo. Any coloration or grittiness on the waves preamp, or more exactly 'drive' button still happens on the input, the very first stage, giving you varying tonal colloration, not peak limiting. You still have to reduce the output level after any EQ boosts. The classicQ allows you to just keep driving into their Sat/limiter at the output. I personally think that incorporating varying tonal coloration based on the modeling of specific preamp circuits can exist without their being limiting via saturation and that the Scheps 73 is an example of that, especially in its neutral setting - preamp set to zero (just like the UA API Vision, pultecs, the UA API eq's, etc). This is why if you buy a Neve preamp vs Grace preamp, they will sound different 'tonally', even when nulled, right?...no limiting or certainly no saturation to the point of limiting is occurring; simply tonal color (neve) or lack of tonal 'color' (grace design) due to the inherent qualities of the selected preamp circuits (not to oversimplify).

So I agree, to be fair as fair as possible, you need to 'null' the preamp knob on the scheps (making sure the 'drive' is not engaged), and disengage the 'Sat' on the ClassicQ when doing a comparison between the two, yes?

That is about as close as we can get to getting a comparison, then it is up to our own sets of ears. I still like the ClassicQ, in fact, last week I just mixed a song with it on a guitar part, but when I demo'd the new Scheps 73 and saw your posts both here and on Gearslutz, I did a quick comparison and found i heard what i felt was more dimension with the Scheps. But maybe, what i call 'dimension', you hear as a detriment, that's totally cool.

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Scheps is good on 96kHZ,the preamp seqction is good but without drive, it alias even in 96kHz...or maybe i was doing the measurements wrong.. :dog:
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sadkin wrote:This is why if you buy a Neve preamp vs Grace preamp, they will sound different 'tonally', even when nulled, right?
wrong :-) if they null, they sound exactly the same, tonally or otherwise. unless you meant "nulled" as in "all knobs in neutral position".
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Burillo wrote:
sadkin wrote:This is why if you buy a Neve preamp vs Grace preamp, they will sound different 'tonally', even when nulled, right?
wrong :-) if they null, they sound exactly the same, tonally or otherwise. unless you meant "nulled" as in "all knobs in neutral position".
yes, good catch, my bad. 'nulled' - neutral position.

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For me with a plug like this (and no I haven't demoed it) is how well does it give me what I'm seeking vs stuff I already have. If the HP and the eq (along with proper gain staging) brings a smile to your face, that to me should be the determining factor. Right?

I'm not one to get too into which eq colors and such because despite subtle differences, eq's are largely the same. The only difference with something like this is that the q is set and it's up to the individual whether that is desirable or not...right?

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One thing to pay attention to is oversampling. For exmple the majority of UAD plugins apply oversampling and may give the impression of sounding smoother in the high end from non oversampled plugins (due to the oversampling UAD plugs usually sound pretty similar when used in 44.1 or 96k sessions). Waves don't apply oversampling to their plugins and they sound much better at higher sample rates. Scheps at 96k sounds amazing and far better than UAD 1073. Same goes for Waves SSL, which at 96k really sounds much better IMHO. I believe PSP sQuad eqs are also oversampled. I actually respect Waves decision to not apply oversampling to their plugins, as oversampling can bring other problems.

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Just to be sure, I double tested Scheps with the preamp down all the way and ClassicQ with the sat feature off. I still think the Scheps sounds "ITB" compared to ClassicQ.

Since Waves SSL was mentioned, I actually was just testing them against Solid Mix Series, and my findings are the same with that comparison, except even more exagerated. The Waves SSL thins things out pretty badly.

Regarding oversampling, it's not always ideal to run your whole project at high sample rates, so in this case oversampling is a much better option especially when plugins offer different options for realtime and bouncing. It's also a huge pain to deal with switching samplerates with projects that have audio in it... eg... if your project audio is 44.1 but you want to process your plugins at 88.2 or 96k.
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Oh hibidy, you just HAD to try it :x :tantrum: :dog:

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djanthonyw wrote:Regarding oversampling, it's not always ideal to run your whole project at high sample rates, so in this case oversampling is a much better option especially when plugins offer different options for realtime and bouncing. It's also a huge pain to deal with switching samplerates with projects that have audio in it... eg... if your project audio is 44.1 but you want to process your plugins at 88.2 or 96k.
I absolutely agree. But I still found out my projects sound better when set at higher sample rates from the beginning (especially projects which contain live audio recordings). Oversampling recorded audio at 44.1 doesnt sound the same as processing the audio recorded at 96k.

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