Elephant vs. PL...Is PL more transparent ???

[Eric Sundance]

I think you may be forgetting about David Berners & Jonathan Abel...working for Bill Putnam Jr. over at U.A. ???

I said "Most" not "All". I think Sonalksis guys also used to twist some knobs here end there ...

[Aleksey Vaneev]

And, by the way, overall RMS level of RAW compared to processed versions is 0.1 dB higher. Not that this is a lot of a difference, but if you are trying to hear things, you may hear them.

[Eric Sundance]

It all boils down to this

TL Limiter is free and is the best in its price range
W1 is free and is almost as good as TL
Voxengo Elephant is $69.95 does it give you sound that is $70 better then TL?!... I don’t think so.
Requiste limiter is $5500…
Slam! is$5000 etc, etc..

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Eric, that's over simplistic conclusion... I was merely pointing out that in these examples both limiters work in 'bypass' mode most of the time, with almost no limiting action taking place. In such situation your lovely Requiste limiter would immediately lose the battle being an analog device.

[martian]

Oh please...this is simply not true! I played the clips for 5 people in my office; & 4 out of 5 of them said Elephant added bottom end. Even the less knowledgeable folks said things like "the bass drum is louder". These evaluations were not prompted by any coaching on my part.

Elephant ADDS it's own sonic character, whether or not you or SebbyNC can hear it. I'm not saying that's bad...I'm just saying it's there. Please admit it...as to not do so seems a bit disingenuous.
[/b]

ive never heard a limiter that makes a bass drum louder , thats the first thing to go in my experience, same with elephant as other limiters ive tried.

personally id listen to aleksey.

[martian]

bleh

[martian]

mark4man, if you are using DC Filter, it may sound like bass end have changed. Moreover, a very basic spectral matching shows no bass end boosts.

just a thought, maybe he's been using the butterworth on a pre 2.5 version?

[Eric Sundance]

was merely pointing out that in these examples both limiters work in 'bypass' mode most of the time, with almost no limiting action taking place. In such situation your lovely Requiste limiter would immediately lose the battle being an analog device.

I’m not sure how it applies to a countless number of great international records that were made with “requisite”. Personally, I never even heard of “Requisite” before reading this thread I just googled it and found out that it was used in one of my favorite recordings (not Phil Collins) and it made me think…

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Eric, 'Requisite' or any other analog hardware is not related to this thread at all. My notice was about 'transparency'. Analog cannot be as transparent as digital if we are talking about digital bypass. All other qualities aside.

[mark4man]

personally id listen to aleksey.

No...I think I'll listen to my ears; & they say bottom end boost.

And of course the unprocessed file specs out at 0dB, Aleksey...it's frickin' clipping. I set both the PL & Elephant to -0.1dB output. Jeeziz criminey.

And...filters ??? Filters, schmilters. The filter function is grayed out.

See...nobody swapped the two files. The reason people are "hearing things"...is because those things are there.

mark4man

[Eric Sundance]

Analog cannot be as transparent as digital if we are talking about digital bypass. All other qualities aside.

I agree, but I wouldn’t buy “requisite” to use it in bypass mode. I tried Elephant and I didn’t find it all that transparent. If it's lightly used then it could be OK for electronic and hip-hop styles but not for Jazz, Classical or Folk music.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Eric, Elephant has MANY modes. It is pretty misleading to call it non-transparent without trying at least a half of possible combinations (mainly adjusting 'Lim Mode' and 'Lim Speed') options. It is ESPECIALLY transparent for Jazz, Folk because you don't usually need volume maximizing for such styles of music.

mark4man, OK, but if oversampling is disabled as well there is no chance for Elephant to change ANYTHING in your audio and so all you are hearing is difference due to a slightly varying Out gain in plug-ins.

And, BTW, in my opinion, peak on 'Fantasy' word (around 15.820 s) is handled better in the case of Elephant. This is where I DO hear difference.

As for the bass adjustment, I've already said that spectral matching (with all files trimmed to have the same duration) shows NO spectral difference, in both PL and Elephant files.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Theoretically, UAD PL may sound 'brighter' due to utilization of low-resolution DSP calculations (24-bit if I'm not mistaken?). But in that case I suggest you to compare against RAW file. When I'm comparing RAW to Elephant version I do not hear ANY difference in places where no limiting takes place.

[bmanic]

bmanic, I think that you are 'hearing things' in these examples. Differences are too small, and I won't be surprised if mark4man have mixed PL and Elephant names.

I'm always 'hearing' things but I do hear the difference. Just made an ABX test of 20/20 hits. I should do 100 I know but I'm too lazy. Which ever clip has the PL name in it, be it elephant or not, I like it more. It does have a more "soft" feel to it. The difference is there but like you already said, it's subtle to most people.

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

Are you saying that SSL compressor was build by a bunch of inexperienced and underpaid hobbyist?

Nope, not at all, but I bet that the quad compressor wasn't designed and refined for 20 years.

Simple, IS beautiful sometimes.

- bManic