What's Your Opinion On Nebula VST?

[richinmusic]

I PM-ed Enrique, so let's hope for some action!!

[bduffy]

I PM-ed Enrique, so let's hope for some action!!

Thanks man. I got a couple responses, then it went quiet. I guess they're crunching the numbers in their lair...

[enriquesilveti]

Please bduffy contact me thru email to enrique.silveti AT acusticaudio.net or thru web form in http://www.acustica-audio.com/index.php ... &Itemid=95. I can not generate keys here but I can forward your email internally.

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Saludos,
Enrique Silveti
Acustica Audio technical support
www.acustica-audio.com
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[bduffy]

Please bduffy contact me thru email to enrique.silveti AT acusticaudio.net or thru web form in http://www.acustica-audio.com/index.php ... &Itemid=95. I can not generate keys here but I can forward your email internally.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saludos,
Enrique Silveti
Acustica Audio technical support
www.acustica-audio.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Enrique, I received an email with the keys. You guys really, really, really need to reconsider this authorization scheme.

So it appears to be authorized now, but no libraries show up. Here we go again...

[jancivil]

I sold it a while back. When it works - it's great! But - sometimes you pick a preset - nothing, no change, you check the library paths, close and restart host again, then it shows up unregistered, you download new version, send an email for new regcode, wait 1-48 hours, enter registration and it's not working (or sometimes it does), load library again - nothing working, no change in sound and you have no idea what's going on. He was very helpful throughout this but at the end I just gave up due to frustration.

I'm grateful to see someone other than me had this occur! He's the nicest guy in the world but I don't have nearly the time for this kind of problem.

[bmanic]

Any of the pro-Nebula users care to post A/B clips?

I asked already twice and all I got was a quote from Matrix (I can only show you the door. You have to walk through it.)

"Perls to swine.." saying comes to mind when it comes to audio examples that deal with subtlety on most forums.

People who just don't seem to get subtlety. If they can't bother checking the free version and making up their own conclusion then it's just not worth it because all discussions of subtle stuff (and I'm not talking about completely bogus placebo stuff.. but things you can actually measure with Christian Budde's VST analyzer) usually ends up in a complete clusterf!#"!#" of a thread.

I've given up on posting clearly subtle things after I posted the M15 tape machine example a few years ago and noticed most people didn't even hear the difference of the tape versus the clean AD/DA pass through..

Having said that, I'll try to remember to post some examples once I get back to work on thursday. The Nebula massive passive can be very easily A/B compared to the competition and it's definitely superior in it's basic sound. It might even be possible to show how it compresses or "strains" the signal when you hit it hard.

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

So it appears to be authorized now, but no libraries show up. Here we go again...

It's extremely convoluted. I agree. And I've criticized this part of the process (and the interface, and the communication and the whole running of the company) many times before.

There's a certain perseverance and a lot of reading of the forums that is needed to get it working, at least on windows. It's probably even worse on Mac.

.. but just for the EQs alone, it is worth it (you'll need to purchase some 3rd party libraries though) in my opinion. Just make sure you get libraries which represent the sample rate you work at. If you do 44.1kHz projects use libraries that use this sample rate because the conversion from one to another takes a loooooooooooooong time.. and with multiple nebula instances it can become a true nightmare.

Cheers!
bManic

[bduffy]

So it appears to be authorized now, but no libraries show up. Here we go again...

It's extremely convoluted. I agree. And I've criticized this part of the process (and the interface, and the communication and the whole running of the company) many times before.

There's a certain perseverance and a lot of reading of the forums that is needed to get it working, at least on windows. It's probably even worse on Mac.

.. but just for the EQs alone, it is worth it (you'll need to purchase some 3rd party libraries though) in my opinion. Just make sure you get libraries which represent the sample rate you work at. If you do 44.1kHz projects use libraries that use this sample rate because the conversion from one to another takes a loooooooooooooong time.. and with multiple nebula instances it can become a true nightmare.

Cheers!
bManic

Thanks, b! It's all so deja vu, eh?

So I finally got it working (I had to go into the MAST page and change a parameter). I now see you can load presets via a drop-down menu, and they're organized more clearly, which is way nicer than before. I'll grab some of the demos from the third-party developers. So far, there are some things that sound nice in stock libraries, and some not-so-nice.

Were you talking about the stock Massive EQ that comes with it (Passive Eq WD 1T)? It's safe to drive the patches with the input level?

[bduffy]

Been playing with Nebula for awhile. I don't know...I hear some things that sound nice, and it's behaving much, much better than before in Cubase (even wrapped in 64-bit).

I haven't heard any compressors I like, apart from some tonal character imparted. I still hear a lot of transient artifacts, especially at high settings (I guess transparent compression-only with Nebula?), and time-based stuff was problematic (warbly, huge CPU spikes in reverbs). But I was playing with an exciter program I liked a lot, and a nice guitar preamp, some good tape stuff that was hard to match with software. So, I can see the appeal (once/if you get over the headaches).

Maybe I'm just not picky enough to be turned on by Nebula's subtle, subtle charms, but I'll try a full mix with it soon.

[sorohanro]

Maybe I'm just not picky enough to be turned on by Nebula's subtle, subtle charms, but I'll try a full mix with it soon.

A/B mix then it's a must

[bduffy]

Maybe I'm just not picky enough to be turned on by Nebula's subtle, subtle charms, but I'll try a full mix with it soon.

A/B mix then it's a must

Oh, I will, whether it proves anything or not.

[sorohanro]

In my mix, even if the change is subtle, when I clone the track and switch phase/polarity, I can hear the differences between clean and processed, so it does something.

[bduffy]

In my mix, even if the change is subtle, when I clone the track and switch phase/polarity, I can hear the differences between clean and processed, so it does something.

Right! I'm sure it does something - but the question for me is: does it do something better than the other software I have?

[Firebird]

So it appears to be authorized now, but no libraries show up. Here we go again...

It's extremely convoluted. I agree. And I've criticized this part of the process (and the interface, and the communication and the whole running of the company) many times before.

There's a certain perseverance and a lot of reading of the forums that is needed to get it working, at least on windows. It's probably even worse on Mac.

.. but just for the EQs alone, it is worth it (you'll need to purchase some 3rd party libraries though) in my opinion. Just make sure you get libraries which represent the sample rate you work at. If you do 44.1kHz projects use libraries that use this sample rate because the conversion from one to another takes a loooooooooooooong time.. and with multiple nebula instances it can become a true nightmare.

Cheers!
bManic

Don't the Equalizers only allow you to change one or two frequencies per
instance?
Also, because of the delay added per instance and the need to use
mutable instances just to have the equivalent of a 4 band parametric,
phase would become a very serious issue.
This alone raises some very serious issues about usage and practicality.

Furthermore, with all the great plugins available that simply work and
sound fantastic, why bother with the trouble?
I like to keep things as simple as possible when mixing.

[bmanic]

Maybe I'm just not picky enough to be turned on by Nebula's subtle, subtle charms, but I'll try a full mix with it soon.

It's not really subtle at all once you get to the quality libraries.. including some compressors.

I don't know all of the programs by heart but once I get to the studio on thursday I'll try to remember to post some examples and names of the libraries. AlexB libraries in general are pretty "safe bets". I also recommend anything that Eric Beam (rhythminmind.net) has for sales.

Start by downloading his free programs, especially the "Zodiac" compressor, here:

http://rhythminmind.net/STN/?page_id=3127


Now the trick with Nebula compressors is to make sure you are NOT driving the input too hard. Leave peaks at around -6dBFS.. keping the average around -12 to -18dBFS. Then set the threshold so that you get some compression. The gain reduction metering/value in Nebula does not work properly at all! You must simply use your ears, or use before and after metering to see how much gain reduction you are getting.

This gets especially complicated when you have a compressor model with a very soft knee (like the SSL bus compressor set to 2:1 ratio, or any of the vari-mu samples).

I still think Nebula's main strong points are EQ programs, preamp programs and mixing desk programs that work kind of like Slate's VCC. Start by downloading the FREE desk program from AlexB and READ the manual. Then use it exactly as it is intended/described in the manual. Make sure you've added at least a few channels, busses and sends. Then A/B this setup versus one without Nebula. If everything has gone well you should start hearing the actual magic of what it can do. You can hit this demo table quite hard.. but also try to hit it at ridiculously low levels (peaks at -12dBFS or even less..). There is no noise emulation so you can easily hit the plugin with low levels and then compensate at the output.

EDIT: Here's a really useful compressor program as well.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/product- ... grams.html

Cheers!
bManic