Acustica Audio SAND British Console EQ/Buss Compressor

[Zookes]

The "I dare you to.." line was written with tongue in cheek. It's not meant to take literally. The point was: You are very skilled and have found a magic plugin if you find any other candidate that can do this kind of compression so cleanly, without losing the original signals integrity.

Oh ok. No problems. Apologies being so sour and literal!

To my ears tho, hearing stereo image change like this and panned high frequencies preserved, this compression seems like maybe dual mono of mid/side. Set maybe slow attack, v fast release to start for drums and trial from this point.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

The "I dare you to.." line was written with tongue in cheek. It's not meant to take literally. The point was: You are very skilled and have found a magic plugin if you find any other candidate that can do this kind of compression so cleanly, without losing the original signals integrity.

Oh ok. No problems. Apologies being so sour and literal!

To my ears tho, hearing stereo image change like this and panned high frequencies preserved, this compression seems like maybe dual mono of mid/side. Set maybe slow attack, v fast release to start for drums and trial from this point.

We'll release on next week standalone versions of the basic components of sand. The standalone bus compressor is more or less like Tan in terms of efficiency (Tan is a free compressor we released few weeks ago, we didn't receive many complains about cpu load there).

IMG_0022.JPG

[kvaca]

Sand - Impossible amounts of gain reduction
Note how ridiculously clean the above example is. I dare you to get similar levels of GR with any other SSL type plugin compressor and still have this clean audio, especially the way the hihat and cymbals are still intact. It was more than 16dB of compression.

what??
for years this kind of "impossible"compression /or even more/ could have been done with any average plugin, no need for SSL emu...but hats off to Nebula creators it seems now their compressors are really doing something which can be loosely described as compression /on the contrary to some of their early compressor models which didnt compress at all/

[Zookes]

We'll release on next week standalone versions of the basic components of sand. The standalone bus compressor is more or less like Tan in terms of efficiency (Tan is a free compressor we released few weeks ago, we didn't receive many complains about cpu load there).

OK. Very interested for this! I will trial at first availability.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Sand - Impossible amounts of gain reduction
Note how ridiculously clean the above example is. I dare you to get similar levels of GR with any other SSL type plugin compressor and still have this clean audio, especially the way the hihat and cymbals are still intact. It was more than 16dB of compression.

what??
for years this kind of "impossible"compression /or even more/ could have been done with any average plugin, no need for SSL emu...but hats off to Nebula creators it seems now their compressors are really doing something which can be loosely described as compression /on the contrary to some of their early compressor models which didnt compress at all/

Check by yourself. Placing a compressor on a bus and getting the mix preserved, glued and not smeared is not exactly a simple task.
We were enhancing a different aspect while mr x with the usual joe compressor was doing just... compression.
For a lot of years we were criticized because the tone was there but not the dynamic action. Things are going to be interesting now...

[Synthetic Wav]

ssl comps are imo not the comp you will really hear nebula outperfoming algo plugin, even ssl hardware can be hard to spot vs algo plugins dependings settings.
(but i haven t tried it and dont know about other ssl plugins except the duende one and it alias like hell as soon as you compress a few dbs,..but i did compare the bmanic file with 30 ms and the one squashed a lot to a few non ssl emu plugs just by curiosity and i didn t hear quality difference, not sounding worst, i would say with the flexibilty of some plugs you can have a better preserved or enhanced balance than with a ssl at high gain reduction wihtout problem , but compression behavior was not totally the same it come down to taste..)

[kvaca]

Sand - Impossible amounts of gain reduction
Note how ridiculously clean the above example is. I dare you to get similar levels of GR with any other SSL type plugin compressor and still have this clean audio, especially the way the hihat and cymbals are still intact. It was more than 16dB of compression.

what??
for years this kind of "impossible"compression /or even more/ could have been done with any average plugin, no need for SSL emu...but hats off to Nebula creators it seems now their compressors are really doing something which can be loosely described as compression /on the contrary to some of their early compressor models which didnt compress at all/

Check by yourself. Placing a compressor on a bus and getting the mix preserved, glued and not smeared is not exactly a simple task.

yes, but how??...using mp3 as dry file before compression is not the most clever idea from Bmanic /if he ever wanted some contest/
but still...if there will be wav dry file available, Im almost sure I can do same style compression with any average plugin at disposal and 99% of people will not spot the difference or be able to tell what is what /off course- Im not talking about mastering engineers but normal people buying records and listening music in free time/


btw- whats that Shmod knob?? I never seen this on hw...are you really doing hw emu?

[kmonkey]

yes, but how??...using mp3 as dry file before compression is not the most clever idea from Bmanic /if he ever wanted some contest/
but still...if there will be wav dry file available, Im almost sure I can do same style compression with any average plugin at disposal and 99% of people will not spot the difference or be able to tell what is what /off course- Im not talking about mastering engineers but normal people buying records and listening music in free time/


btw- whats that Shmod knob?? I never seen this on hw...are you really doing hw emu?

Ummm you are asking how to test a compressor? Wait what?!? You don't have your own drum samples or something else??

And at the same time you are bashing compressor because you are not able to make difference between pumping (which is i guess what you think is compression) and making dynamic change to source while preserving instrument integrity? If you think this compressor is same as 99% of other then so be it.

I would not let you touch or process my music not even from your second incarnation of third life reincarnation...

You never seen shmod in hardware? Ahhh i see. Well guess what. Me neither. But i get it. You are one of those people which complain about benefits of having digital products and expanded options in such form. Just for the sake of being able to complain. Touche..

But hey...now i at least understand why people hate you and have you blocked...Thanks for wonderful contribution. And another foe hehehe

[kvaca]

yes, but how??...using mp3 as dry file before compression is not the most clever idea from Bmanic /if he ever wanted some contest/
but still...if there will be wav dry file available, Im almost sure I can do same style compression with any average plugin at disposal and 99% of people will not spot the difference or be able to tell what is what /off course- Im not talking about mastering engineers but normal people buying records and listening music in free time/


btw- whats that Shmod knob?? I never seen this on hw...are you really doing hw emu?

Ummm you are asking how to test a compressor? Wait what?!? You don't have your own drum samples or something else??

no, I m really not interested in demoing plugin which cannot be downloaded with one click, thats why I can only listen to available demos here...

And at the same time you are bashing compressor because you are not able to make difference between pumping (which is i guess what you think is compression) and making dynamic change to source while preserving instrument integrity? If you think this compressor is same as 99% of other then so be it.

Im not bashing anything here, this seems to work now /unlike like previous Nebula comps/ and thats fine...but I dont hear anything special or "impossible"

I would not let you touch or process my music not even from your second incarnation of third life reincarnation...

thank you, but this comment is completely useless since Im too busy now and know nothing about your music /but I have no doubt its highest quality one /

You never seen shmod in hardware? Ahhh i see. Well guess what. Me neither. But i get it. You are one of those people which complain about benefits of having digital products and expanded options in such form. Just for the sake of being able to complain. Touche..

??never complain about digital benefits - I like them!...just curious why its needed in direct emu...

But hey...now i at least understand why people hate you and have you blocked...Thanks for wonderful contribution. And another foe hehehe

good to know, I have no problem with your post but feel free to hate me if you like it that way

[bmanic]

Sand - Impossible amounts of gain reduction
Note how ridiculously clean the above example is. I dare you to get similar levels of GR with any other SSL type plugin compressor and still have this clean audio, especially the way the hihat and cymbals are still intact. It was more than 16dB of compression.

what??
for years this kind of "impossible"compression /or even more/ could have been done with any average plugin, no need for SSL emu...but hats off to Nebula creators it seems now their compressors are really doing something which can be loosely described as compression /on the contrary to some of their early compressor models which didnt compress at all/

Did you actually listen carefully to the sample? Please, feel free to take the original loop and show me a compressor that can do it so cleanly. In case you don't know, I'm a compressor freak and literally own almost every compressor plugin on the planet. I think I tried about 30 compressors (including every single SSL plugin released) to do exactly what I was able to do with Sand. None of them was even close. The crash cymbal disintegrates, the hihat gets slightly grainy.

The best results I could get were with compressors that allow ridiculous oversampling like The Glue when rendered (up in the MHz range) and with ReaCompressor at full x64 oversampling. Even my go-to usuals like MJUC and DC8C couldn't keep it all so clean.. the very key word here being clean.

I'm starting to think I'm crazy here.. surely some of you can hear just how friggin CLEAN it is?? We are talking super fast attack, the fastest possible release at massive gain reduction amounts.

[bmanic]

yes, but how??...using mp3 as dry file before compression is not the most clever idea from Bmanic /if he ever wanted some contest/
but still...if there will be wav dry file available, Im almost sure I can do same style compression with any average plugin at disposal and 99% of people will not spot the difference or be able to tell what is what /off course- Im not talking about mastering engineers but normal people buying records and listening music in free time

Wow, you are a real something eh? I can definitely provide you with the raw .wav file. I just made it an mp3 file for uploading to the net. Mind you, if you are complaining about mp3 artifacts you are sort of getting in odd territory.. you claim you don't hear anything "special" yet you complain about the mp3 file which is encoded with the highest possible quality setting of LAME mp3 codec.

I can guarantee you that even with that original loop as mp3, the artifacts from compression are the least of your worries at those compression levels. Just listen to the friggin cymbals and hihats.

How about those other examples? Try getting that "kick choked" sound. I got in about 15 seconds of tweaking in Sand. Put a timer, take your favorite compressor.. duplicate.

In short: you talk and talk.. now I want you to walk the walk as well. Prove it. On Monday I'll upload the raw .wav file. You can start practicing now with the mp3.

[AudioGuy720]

Anyone who wants to hear a hardware SSL buss compressor in action for comparison:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSj_WlEGjsE

[Zookes]

The crash cymbal disintegrates, the hihat gets slightly grainy.

The best results I could get were with compressors that allow ridiculous oversampling like The Glue when rendered (up in the MHz range) and with ReaCompressor at full x64 oversampling. Even my go-to usuals like MJUC and DC8C couldn't keep it all so clean.. the very key word here being clean.

I'm starting to think I'm crazy here.. surely some of you can hear just how friggin CLEAN it is?? We are talking super fast attack, the fastest possible release at massive gain reduction amounts.

I do hear this clean quality with even my bad ears, but some time was required for comparison of other compressors before thinking this "dare" (hehe) is not for stereo linked compressors like I use so often.

Previous mention of mid/side should hint my solution for having this sound

[kvaca]

yes, but how??...using mp3 as dry file before compression is not the most clever idea from Bmanic /if he ever wanted some contest/
but still...if there will be wav dry file available, Im almost sure I can do same style compression with any average plugin at disposal and 99% of people will not spot the difference or be able to tell what is what /off course- Im not talking about mastering engineers but normal people buying records and listening music in free time

Wow, you are a real something eh? I can definitely provide you with the raw .wav file.

please do it
I dont have much time now and dont like cazy amounts of compression for my music but I promise to do my best to copy your first "impossible" demo with some average algo comp

btw - if you are "compression freak" you can call me "mp3 objector"

[Synthetic Wav]

good luck with average comp to get as much gain reduction,, the thing is it seems the ssl compress less the highs (and maybe the low ) compared to some plugs i tried,so you might need a flexible sidechain eq or a comp that let you blend the non compressed highs , then i could get the crash cymbals and the hihat similar maybe even better cause they are maybe a bit dark on that loop, well you can adjust to taste .. the harder is to get similar attack release with similar peak level . what is strange is the ssl compressed waveform is no more symetrical i wonder why , some sort of soft clipping could do that?

plugins i tried, dc8c , kotelnikov ge , slate vmr red "ssl " (i thought this on would fail but no it can sound very similar )

look like nebula compressor are better now, i have some old ones but never really used them except for the color