Hydratone convolution EQ.

[Torben]

To me and it appears every other person that uses Hydratone, it Does convey warmth and even distortion, in fact that is its strength.

Fair enough about points 2 & 3

I realise you have your own well-respected plugins to promote but have you even tried the Hydratone demo?

I am not talking about Hydratone, just about the general limitations in convolution as many people seems to think it is the answer to everything (that would make it easy to be a developer, wouldn’t it?, just one algorithm for it all ).

The warmth cannot come from the pulse response itself, so they must make that other vice.

Torben

Torben

[Pädy]

I got tired of that impulse response hype long ago, but Hydratone is just outstanding soundwise. Torben, you should really check it out. Works fine in eXT btw.

[Johnny_FX]

Hey,

Well the tritone boys arn't just using convolution. This is just the foundation . An awful lot more work goes into it.

Cheers,

Johnny

[jmh]

Perhaps it should be called 'dynamic convolution' in order to keep other developers from getting confused and commenting a particular implementation and its sound without experience in the said product (Sorry Torben... just try the friggin' demo, even though it's Pluggo which translates into crap in other areas, it sounds excellent ).

Regards,

JMH

[Frippertronix]

It will convey distortion, but only when a distorted impulse is used. It will not distort dynamically.

I like Hydratone for vocals. I think it sounds a bit dull on acoustic instruments and samples of acoustic instruments. It amazes me sometimes and fails to amaze me at others.

I love Valvetone for things like strings and piano, though.

Keep in mind, they haven't sampled it at 96 KHz yet. If you buy it now you will get the upgrade later for free, but who knows when they'll get around to doing it.

[Frippertronix]

To me and it appears every other person that uses Hydratone, it Does convey warmth and even distortion, in fact that is its strength.

Fair enough about points 2 & 3

I realise you have your own well-respected plugins to promote but have you even tried the Hydratone demo?

The warmth cannot come from the pulse response itself, so they must make that other vice.

Torben

Torben

This I don't understand. What kind of "warmth" do you mean?

If convolution can change a waveform, why can't it make it "warm"? Why can't convolution do anything to a waveform, as long as it is a static change, not a dynamic one?

[jbmix]

Say what you will. HydraTone and ValveTone both sound amazing to me. I don't care HOW they do it, or what the limitations of their method might be in theory. I just know that in real-world use, they've certainly grabbed my attention. Those two have become my favorite go-to EQ's, replacing UAD's Pultec's, Firium, and Equium.

And if you don't want to even try them to see what YOU think, then don't try to tell us that we shouldn't like what we're hearing, please.

Use your ears..

Cheers.
jb

[martian]

i am incredibly hard to please when it comes to eqs, but hydratone is miles beyond the rest.

tried practically every demo going for months, but never purchased any, as they still didnt sound any better than my old waves ren, they jus sound the same but with varying strengths at differnt freqs, even all have the same harsh highs, and same non existant sound, cant understand the hype some seem to get on kvr (so much marketing bullshit on here).

with hydratone, boosting the high end was all i needed to be convinced, shits on everything else. instant buy.

only prob though, is of all the eqs i've tried its the least stable and still dont work properly on my sys. need the optimised!

[Salvator]

Hi all,

Just a few response that come to mind, reading the thread.

Hydratone is not dynamic convolution device, thus don't recreate distortion of the eq modeled. (It has it own warming process though, using other technique than convolution)

ValveTone 62 currently allow up sample rate up to 48 khz until we do the update, while HydraTone is already 96 khz ready.

If a distorted impulse it used, it won't recreate distortion. Rather this will translate in a a weird non unspected frequency response.

And now here's my honnest opinion about HydraTone :
pros :
- sound is very good. Smooth and musical. It also has quite a bit of that punch typically missing from conventional eq plugins
- No audible digital artefact. (i.e. it sound ... like an eq...)
- Actually, it's of the sole eq i tend to boost instead of cuting. Well, Actually it's the sole eq I use anyway (but AngelTone and V62 of course )
- Having 4 distinct eq flavors in at once, and the ability to mix and match for each band is *fantastic* feature

cons :
- CPU is pretty HI on PC (btw : the new engine is done, and we'll send update asap)
- Stability is wierd sometimes, especially on PC (i.e. one has to try the demo to unsure it work properly on his system before purchase)
- GUI isn't fast and responsive at it should be, and miss some shortcuts (graph handles, entry box, etc...) to improve the workflow.

Voilà, hope this helps !

Many thanks the interest overall.
That's warm to hear you are pleased with the sound .

On our side, we keep improving performance/stability, workflow, and I'm pretty sure the upcoming update will be much appreciated

Salvator

EDIT :
Torben, the points you mention are indeed general for linear convolution.
For EQ though, one don't need to recreate "modulation fx", as there isn't any. (well, beside some device "warm up" and sound change slowly over the time...)
Also, we don't use FFT, but rather Time Domain convolving which, to our ears work very very well for EQ modelling.

[Torben]

If convolution can change a waveform, why can't it make it "warm"? Why can't convolution do anything to a waveform, as long as it is a static change, not a dynamic one?

See Salvator's explanation on this.

And if you don't want to even try them to see what YOU think, then don't try to tell us that we shouldn't like what we're hearing, please.

Use your ears..

Cheers.
jb

Easy now, I haven't said one bad word about Hydratone. This is like discussing what taste best sugar or NutraSweet. If someone said that NutraSweet tasted best he would be entitle to this opinion, but if he said that NutraSweet is the best sugar he ever tasted he would be on a wrong track as NutraSweet aren’t sugar. Can you follow me here?

And I have tried Hydratone

Torben

[Torben]

Torben, the points you mention are indeed general for linear convolution.
For EQ though, one don't need to recreate "modulation fx", as there isn't any. (well, beside some device "warm up" and sound change slowly over the time...).

I was speaking in general terms. No, hopefully there is no modulation as that would mean the EQ was broken

Also, we don't use FFT, but rather Time Domain convolving which, to our ears work very very well for EQ modelling.

That’s a clever choice. I think most linear phase EQ's (non analog) are based on FFT convolution which makes MP3 quality out of the signal.

Torben

[bduffy]

Also, we don't use FFT, but rather Time Domain convolving which, to our ears work very very well for EQ modelling.

That’s a clever choice. I think most linear phase EQ's (non analog) are based on FFT convolution which makes MP3 quality out of the signal.

Torben

Wha??? now that's interesting!


Thanks for chiming in, Salvator. IT's not every day you get to hear a developer list the "cons" of his own plug-in!

it's of the sole eq i tend to boost instead of cuting. Well, Actually it's the sole eq I use anyway (but AngelTone and V62 of course )

Hey - is Angeltone ready, then?

[Salvator]

Frippertronix,

While HydraTone don't recreate THD, it has an overall "warm" sound nontheless. Most of the "sound of an EQ" come from frequency/phase response. THD is quite a subble thing that, sometime is good, sometimes isn't.

Salvator

[Salvator]

Hey - is Angeltone ready, then?

It's working for a while internally (several months), but is unreleased to public yet. It'll be released once hydratone's code is rock solid (because they share several components). And we hope the next hydratone build to be this gold one.

Thanks for asking,

Salvator

[IIRs]

FFT convolution which makes MP3 quality out of the signal.

I would be very interested if you could expand on that.. I was under the impression that fft was just faster to calculate for long impulses, I didn't realise there was any difference in the result..?