Who here uses Waves plug ins?

[bduffy]

Very true stuff. Well at the moment I use CurveEQ and HarmoniEQ for mastering EQs. Have you tried using HarmoniEQ in Linear Phase Mode ? Its definitely not as flexible as the Waves one but I believe it sounds as good if not better. Also the Elephant compares to the L2 but I still love the fact that the L2 sounds just as good but only uses 64 samples of latency, smart design right there

Cheers
Fots

Liked The Canyon, eh? Snicker..

Elephant is like L2, eh? I swear it must be the interface design, but I just can't get behind Voxengo plugins, I just don't get the rise out them that everyone else does. I'm going to try these out again, though. I think I'm more in-the-know than when I first tried them.

[monkeymanx]

Waves seems like a mixed bag here. I suppose everything is based off of opinions. That WUP seems kind of lame, but then again, if a company releases upgrades every year, or even 2 years and charges say 1000 dollars for the full and 500 for the upgrade, then it doesn't seem so bad. But then again, if they don't release any updates it isn't a good deal.

I don't seem to have a problem with my SX3 dongle, but I think that is a different system than the one Waves uses.

There are definately a bunch of good plugins out there. I've tried a bunch. It's hard to classify yourself as a hobbiest when you put so much money into these DAWs now, it would be cool to actually sell albums and such and make some return on your eqiupment and hard work.

Here is a somewhat recent mix, guitar tracks are somewhat sloppy. But this is all done using the plugins that come with SX3 and Voxengo plugins.

http://www.chaosphate.com/music/song11.mp3

[bduffy]

OMG, do you like my two "eh"'s in that last post?Who's Canadian?

Been playing with Soniformer. I love how it sounds, but I just don't get how to use this beyond the scope of presets. I know it's supposed to tighten your spectral mix...I don't know, maybe this is for people who get mastering better than I.

I like Elephant quite a bit, pretty simple that one.

[DuX]

Voxengo Elephant, CurveEQ and Marquis are really something, people. CurveEQ as a mastering EQ and Elephant as a mastering limiter/dithering and what else do you need for mastering? If you need a compressor, Marquis will do perfectly. Kjaerhus stuff OTOH is more for tracking IMO.

[fgimian]

haha, its funny you say that since I actually prefer the GCO-1 as a mastering compressor instead of marquis (or crunchessor). To each his own I guess Try GCO1 in Smooth 2 mode and you'll see how beautifully it melts a mix. My absolute favourite that usually sits on the master buss is the GPP1 set to a relatively high knee value doing some soft compression, tightens things up so well. Marquis is a gem though, I use it everywhere !

For dance music however, the Marquis is the compressor of choice ... the word "punch" describes it all. Now honestly, that's something I couldn't do with the RComp from Waves, try putting a Marquis on a 909 bass drum and see what it does to it, it's truly wonderful !

Cheers
Fots

[airon]

I need to use the Waves plugs because of the TDM platform. The company I work at had a bundle that includes the Renaissance EQ, Reverb and Comopressor installed and I'm happy with'em for our post production work.

A shame there's no TDM or even RTAS(or HTDM) version of Voxengo plugins.

[3*s]

Honestly, I can't blam Voxengo and Kjaerus for not shelling out the dough for a Protools SDK.

I'd rather some great plugin suits be for an open standard exclusively instead of an expensive, shut tight, and overmarketed (aka "pro" ) format.

[fgimian]

Well, there was actually a thread in the Voxengo forum where Aleksey told us that he was trying to get rights to the Digidesign SDK but they wouldn't respond / help him. Link is as follows...

http://www.voxengo.com/forum/ar/539/

So the guy is definitely trying, but Digidesign are tight buggers ... I think we'll be seeing a lot more people move to Nuendo in the near future ... well at least I hope they do ... so this should hopefully not matter in the long term. With the UAD1s and the top notch native plugins available, I'm sure most new people building a studio would probably not go the ProTools direction.

Cheers
Fots

[bduffy]

Well, there was actually a thread in the Voxengo forum where Aleksey told us that he was trying to get rights to the Digidesign SDK but they wouldn't respond / help him. Link is as follows...

http://www.voxengo.com/forum/ar/539/

So the guy is definitely trying, but Digidesign are tight buggers ... I think we'll be seeing a lot more people move to Nuendo in the near future ... well at least I hope they do ... so this should hopefully not matter in the long term. With the UAD1s and the top notch native plugins available, I'm sure most new people building a studio would probably not go the ProTools direction.

Cheers
Fots

Really. That's disgraceful to not allow access from these talented an acclaimed developers. Makes you wonder if it is all hype about Pro Tools, etc.

[Frippertronix]

Very true stuff. Well at the moment I use CurveEQ and HarmoniEQ for mastering EQs. Have you tried using HarmoniEQ in Linear Phase Mode ? Its definitely not as flexible as the Waves one but I believe it sounds as good if not better. Also the Elephant compares to the L2 but I still love the fact that the L2 sounds just as good but only uses 64 samples of latency, smart design right there

Cheers
Fots

Liked The Canyon, eh? Snicker..

Elephant is like L2, eh? I swear it must be the interface design, but I just can't get behind Voxengo plugins, I just don't get the rise out them that everyone else does. I'm going to try these out again, though. I think I'm more in-the-know than when I first tried them.

Same here. They all have a very similar sound which I don't really like. I love what Soniformer does, but I hesitate to use it because of the general color it gives to the sound. Voxengo's products sound hard to my ears.

I would contrast them to Kjaerhus and Elemental Audio products, which have what sounds to me like a warmer and sweeter effect on the sound (regardless of which effect and how it is set).

[bduffy]

Very true stuff. Well at the moment I use CurveEQ and HarmoniEQ for mastering EQs. Have you tried using HarmoniEQ in Linear Phase Mode ? Its definitely not as flexible as the Waves one but I believe it sounds as good if not better. Also the Elephant compares to the L2 but I still love the fact that the L2 sounds just as good but only uses 64 samples of latency, smart design right there

Cheers
Fots

Liked The Canyon, eh? Snicker..

Elephant is like L2, eh? I swear it must be the interface design, but I just can't get behind Voxengo plugins, I just don't get the rise out them that everyone else does. I'm going to try these out again, though. I think I'm more in-the-know than when I first tried them.

Same here. They all have a very similar sound which I don't really like. I love what Soniformer does, but I hesitate to use it because of the general color it gives to the sound. Voxengo's products sound hard to my ears.

I would contrast them to Kjaerhus and Elemental Audio products, which have what sounds to me like a warmer and sweeter effect on the sound (regardless of which effect and how it is set).

There you go, this is like what we're discussing in the other forum too. I love the Elemental Audio stuff, it just "clicked" with me when I first used it. When I discovered Eqium, I was like, "Hello, you're perfect! Here's my $89. Thanks." Whereas the Voxengo, I was like, "fiddle...fiddle...what does that mean?...fiddle...sounds the same...bleh. Delete".

And the funny thing is that could be the opposite experience for someone else, and we could all wind up with equally tight mixes!

[jackson]

...and we could all wind up with equally tight mixes!

or not...

[Frippertronix]

There you go, this is like what we're discussing in the other forum too. I love the Elemental Audio stuff, it just "clicked" with me when I first used it. When I discovered Eqium, I was like, "Hello, you're perfect! Here's my $89. Thanks." Whereas the Voxengo, I was like, "fiddle...fiddle...what does that mean?...fiddle...sounds the same...bleh. Delete".

And the funny thing is that could be the opposite experience for someone else, and we could all wind up with equally tight mixes!

I liked Voxengo products at first, and I wouldn't question Aleksy's commitment to what he's doing, but to me there are products that just seem to breathe more life into the overall sound character. I also really like WWAYM's Dynamix, Pocket Limiter and TbT Maximizer, and some others for just putting what sounds to my ears to be a more convincing "analog" touch onto the sound. I highly recommend Finis, if you haven't tried it, though it isn't quite the "smash down" limiter that some prefer. It's more subtle.

For a harder kind of sound, I prefer some of the Buzz
stuff, really, to Voxengo.

I agree Voxengo's interfaces seem complicated, but I'd put the time into learning them if I liked the overall sound better.

[fgimian]

I'll be honest with ya guys ... I've tried Finish, L2 and Elephant and if I had the money to buy any of the three, I would definitely be choosing Elephant.

The reason is because, I can push Elephant so damn hard and it will never ever introduce audible distortion, the characteristic ends up being more of a compression character.

With the L1, L2 and Finish, I can easily distort a master, do I get volume out of it ... sure I do, but at the expense of distortion. Stuff I do with Elephant sounds equally loud yet doesn't have any distortion.

May I suggest that you folks try Elephant, all you need to touch is the Input knob, the rest of the parameters don't really need tweaking at all.

Drive your mix hard with all three limiters, and tell me which sounds best.

I love EA stuff too though, espcially the GUIs, they are in my opinion even better GUIs than Waves, probably the best out there. I'm personally not a fan of their sound but I've heard people get some incredible results with em so it really has got to be a matter of taste.

I only bought their InspectorXL series which I love !! It's still 89 on their site if anyone wants to grab it for Christmas

Cheers
Fots

[peejunk]

In all honesty, I've only liked how Renneisanse Comp can smash attack transients it lets out in a "dirty but nice" kinda way. Everything else about waves is replaceable by much cheaper or even free plugins (there is no master limiter under God that can go near TLS Maximizer).