KVR Audio

championrabbit · Post by **championrabbit** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:35 pm

mammath wrote:No, it wouldn't mean that Waves is the worst. We're just being constructive in our contribution to the experiment. As a matter of fact, as of me writing this post, the results of the test hasn't been submitted. It's a BLIND test. No one knows which is which!

In addition, the thread was posted in the "High End" section of the forum. Many there, are quite intimate with various hardware.

Ah, ok!

Thanks for clearing it up!

mammath · Post by **mammath** » Sun Feb 12, 2006 5:41 pm

These are the test subjects, in no particular order:

Waves SSL, SSL FX G384, URS 1980.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 5:08 am

Exactly what mammath explained is nearly impossible to grasp for what seems to be 95% of the population of KvR (sorry about the generalisation but my guess is probably quite accurate). This is also why my waves TDM vs RTAS got a lot of typical KvR voicing in it. Instead of being able to discuss subtle differences (and there are proven differences here as opposed to some of the mythical host mixbus summing posts) in a mature manner these threads always get crowded with ignorant people who have nothing better to do than chime in an say "it's all just bullshit!" or "only the music is relevant". Heck, that's why I had the two other options in the Poll for these people to choose instead of wasting space and causing bad feelings in the thread. It's perfectly fine to have any opinions as long as it's motivated and explained in a non-hostile manner.

Sorry 'bout the rant..

- bManic

championrabbit · Post by **championrabbit** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 7:45 am

Good rant!

8/10.

Barbarossa · Post by **Barbarossa** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 11:47 am

On my notebook the 2nd sample sounds much punchless than the two other examples and i hear some kind of awful pumping in the chords. I couldn't hear a definitive difference between 1 + 3. So it seems Waves has got it quite right.

btw: it's a shame for KVR, that three sides are filled with garbage before the first useful post deals with the topic. Little children are dominating here and IMO the moderators should make use of their privileges.

stag · Post by **stag** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 1:38 pm

Aleksey Vaneev wrote:Let's leave TDM to fight UAD... No need to compare to native. Native is way more precise and pristine. There's such thing as 'softer' sound. DSPs do not usually offer softer sounds from what I know.

Anyway, let's leave that 'war'. I'm curious to know how mix bus compressor compares to Marquis T3 (all program dependecy params have to be set to 0.28 there, for original SSL timing constants to take effect).

Why should i disagree with this post???
Sorry guys with the same converters and monitoring, native should win, as you said they sound diferent but is it worse or better still is a matter of taste.
I don´t own TDM but own 4 UAD and i don´t think the processing being made by the processor, you know calculations or elsewhere should be relevant.

I know UAD bigots will disagree, so what??? i bet there is people who don´t like mini-skirts too, hell i don´t like it, they make look silly.

el davo · Post by **el davo** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:09 pm

bmanic wrote:http://gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php3?t=59093

Check it out.. nice blind test of URS 1980, Waves SSL and a real hardware SSL spec compressor.

- bManic

I picked "3" for the music (the SSL hardware) and "1" (URS) for drums. In that test, I thought "2" (Waves SSL plug) was worst... I saw you quite liked though!

The later addition "Surprise 2" aka Voxengo Marquis sounds comparably really full and good to me!

My take home message is - today's modeling plugs stand up in a/b to hardware. And Marquis is great value.

multree · Post by **multree** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:15 pm

I'm gonna get me this 1980 thing it sounds marvelous.... quite liked the 1970, too... but the 1980 sounds fresher to me... it needs more getting used to though.

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:32 pm

el davo wrote:And Marquis is great value.

Not wanting to take on this talk as I never much liked the SSL bus compressor sound, it's like butter on bread and been used far too much everywhere. A dated sound, and that *should* be a good thing...

But as far as Marquis goes, I think it's the best thing that happened to compression since Bill putnam devised his 1176 or when LA2A was first prototyped.

I kid you not I love it.

I think I read the best take on this waves SSL talk on a DIY forum somewhere: "for the price I could make 2-3 real stereo SSLs"

Yeah, they really are that cheap to make. Might have to do a few meself.

multree · Post by **multree** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:51 pm

Kingston wrote:Yeah, they really are that cheap to make. Might have to do a few meself.

honestly I wouldn't bother if you don't even like the sound

loopdon · Post by **loopdon** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:54 pm

kingston: you rating the marquis so highly makes me def. want to check it out in detail asap.

Kingston · Post by **Kingston** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:57 pm

multree wrote:honestly I wouldn't bother if you don't even like the sound

Well. Soldering is like knitting for men and I like knitting.

Wouldn't hurt to build them because for such bread'n'butter compressors they have a rather premium retail value as well. Oh and it's good to have bread'n'butter around if the prospective guest happens to like it.

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 4:03 pm

I've checked out those 'SSL' clips on that gearsluts thread - it's possible to finetune Marquis so that it sounds on par with Test3.

Test3 still 'bites' a bit harder, but that's probably due to internal SSL design - it seems like it uses side-chain so that lows and highs are compressed less heavier.

Anyway, I've tried to better replicate that Test3 sound.
Here's the Marquis preset: http://www.voxengo.com/temp/Marquis_SSL_Matched.fxp

I've engaged 'Sharp' coloration because I liked the additional spark (sounds better than Test3 that way

gareth_fx · Post by **gareth_fx** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 4:07 pm

SSL's bus comps could be modded to provide a Hi pass up to 320hz on the Side chain for the VCA.

Perhaps this is what your hearing.

GFX

FXpansion Audio UK Ltd

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 7:41 pm

Nice preset Aleksey. I really like T3 mode of Marquis, even though I did have trouble exactly imitating that Test clip 3. It's very hard to get that "sticky" compression behaviour..

Cheers!
bManic

waves ssl demo is here.