Incredible new EQ type for Nebula plugin

[SongMonkey]

Very cool. I agree with all the comments of the previous page.

I am surprised that it was easy to sample. Nice. That says a great deal right there.

Thanks again for your work, Giancarlo (and crew).


Cheers.

[007]

Imho this equaliser beats every other digital eq.

+1

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Well, the differences are definitely there (did you try the 3 kernel version?) but they are subtle. That's the whole point with high end analogue hardware. I don't know where it all went wrong or why people expect analogue "magic" to be so radical. Where it matters, is in the end results and how each little enhanced and added harmonic can help glue together the track in a more natural fashion. Is this superior to the sometimes clean digital? Hell no! Just different.

agreed, every word

[Paulie Phonick]

I'm loving the new torrent system: much easier!

Took me approximately 24h to realize that I need to be logged in at nebula-programs.com for the torrents to work, but now I think I might actually love it too

[bduffy]

I think maybe from the initial posting and description, some of us were expecting something noticeably "better" than other high-end EQs, and my experience has been like SongMonkeys: sounds like most other EQs to me, perhaps a tad aggressive, even. I realize: totally subjective, and my ears/gear may not be golden enough.

So far, it's been mostly reverbs that have turned my head with Nebula3.

yes, I agree, it is completely subjective and depends on the music you are doing.
Not everyone needs a neve or an avalon. Someone prefers a manley. Someone prefers digital/vst equalisers.

But I have 2 points:
1) sampling it is extremely easy
2) results are really close to the sampled unit, both for harmonic distortion and for amplitude/phase behaviour




Ok, I'm a liar. 3 points:

3) the "shape" of the harmonic is rather close to the original, and it is "sampled" for each position of the knobs. You have that unit...

Thanks for the info man, that's very interesting. So one of those spikes the original and one is Nebula?

[bduffy]

I'm loving the new torrent system: much easier!

Took me approximately 24h to realize that I need to be logged in at nebula-programs.com for the torrents to work, but now I think I might actually love it too

Yeah, just grab what you need and it comes in reasonably fast in the background. Not so many multi-part rar files and security features to deal with.

[bermudagold]

I hate to rain on anybody's parade, and I am a total supporter of Nebula and its development team, I think they have a fantastic new tech here that is eventually going to knock people out, but I'm not "feelin' it" with this eq patch.

I've spent an hour A/B-ing it with my UAD and Waves plugs, on a variety of source material, and I'm really not hearing a sonically significant difference. If the point is that this is a really high quality eq (and additionally, at a low price) then I'm all on board for that. It's no small feat, and congratulations are due.

But I'm not hearing any "creaminess" or superior transient preservation that I'm not already getting from other, smaller, easier-to-use plugs.

No offense intended, just calling it as I hear it.


Cheers all.

Well, the differences are definitely there (did you try the 3 kernel version?) but they are subtle. That's the whole point with high end analogue hardware. I don't know where it all went wrong or why people expect analogue "magic" to be so radical. Where it matters, is in the end results and how each little enhanced and added harmonic can help glue together the track in a more natural fashion. Is this superior to the sometimes clean digital? Hell no! Just different.

Btw. I think the UAD 1073 is actually modeling the subtle harmonic distortion of the unit, no?

Oh, and the 1073 itself can hardly be described as "creamy". Rather, it has plenty of attitude, imho.

Cheers!
bManic

thats just it IMO....people are so used to the dramatic change in sound that most of these plugs marketed as "analogue" provide...when most of these plugs simply do
1)a dramatic high frequency roll off
2)injection of noise usually in the form of hissing air
3)distortion
there is nothing "magical" going on for most of these plugs.....when pushed most of these plugs sound like someone put a football with a slow leak in front of your speaker and then put a wet blanket over both of them.....and some how this has been associated to the average consumer with "analogue".....especially for people who have never used hardware, they dont understand just how subtle the change from real hardware can be....thats why so many are bewildered by nebula.....if you dont put it on every track and have a better than average monitoring environment and ears,...you probably wont notice it...... bottom line if you can hear the difference then you should appreciate and support the technology, and if you cant hear the difference than just like with all other plugs, ..you dont need it.

Note: in regards to the "analogue" techniques above,...at least voxengo and some others are relatively honest about it and let you control the rolloff, the amount and volume of hissing air, and the level of distortion...rather than hiding behind marketing of mystical secret processes.

[bduffy]

Ouch. You know, this high-horse shit gets pretty tiresome.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Thanks for the info man, that's very interesting. So one of those spikes the original and one is Nebula?

it's a standard harmonic distortion plot (related to point 2). I'm very sorry, but standard analyzers are able only to plot this kind of graphs, in general the response to a 1Khz sine. For example they don't tell you anything about the harmonic behaviour using a different frequency, or the time plot of each harmonic (in order to understand the behaviour on transients). In the best case they are able to get the impulse response, which is the response of the system, assuming it to be perfectly linear. And most digital equalisers are just linear. But there would a lot more under the hood.

[bduffy]

Thanks for the info man, that's very interesting. So one of those spikes the original and one is Nebula?

it's a standard harmonic distortion plot (related to point 2). I'm very sorry, but standard analyzers are able only to plot this kind of graphs, in general the response to a 1Khz sine. For example they don't tell you anything about the harmonic behaviour using a different frequency, or the time plot of each harmonic (in order to understand the behaviour on transients). In the best case they are able to get the impulse response, which is the response of the system, assuming it to be perfectly linear. And most digital equalisers are just linear. But there would a lot more under the hood.

Right, that's cool. Just wasn't sure what I was looking at exactly.

[SongMonkey]

While I agree that many do indeed expect miraculous magic "Instant Sgt. Pepper's" bullets from anything marketed as analog, I must confess to some small twinge of irritation at seeing my own comments being quoted and presented in such a context.

Please pardon this rather churlish response, but with all due respect, I've been knocking around this absurd racket for a number of years, and I have a fairly respectable number of hardware compressors, eqs, and yes, even tape machines, so I'd have to say I have a fairly good idea of what can be expected from analog gear.

The actual point of my post was not, "Gosh this not a miraculous magic bullet and golly that's disappointing," but rather, "Though I have respect for the technology and the efforts of those behind it, I still have not heard a convincing argument -- other than price, as I pointed out -- for not using other, simpler software solutions."

I am familiar with the cumulative effects of gear across multiple tracks -- understanding such things is a small part of how I, um, you know, make a living -- and part of the tests I referred to earlier involved multiple tracks printed with Nebula and identical tracks printed with UAD plugs, all set rather painstakingly, actually. There was, very much in my opinion and at least in the case of the acoustic guitar tracks with which I was working, no appreciable difference.

I understand the apologists for Nebula. I'm a bit of one myself, in fact.

But all I'm trying to say is that the argument that Nebula can produce a result identical to hardware is an argument that, in my opinion, has yet to be demonstrated convincingly. As an owner of the full version -- which I bought even though I was a beta tester, because I believe in Giancarlo and his work -- I look forward to that day.

Cheers all.

[bermudagold]

Ouch. You know, this high-horse shit gets pretty tiresome.

if this is aimed at me,...you obviously inferring something wrong in tone...there is no "high horse shit" going on over here.....and nothing in that was aimed at you....i've just used and demoed so many "analogue" plugins that this is the reality IMO....you can pretty much achieve the same/similiar sound from most of them regardless of claims or price,..cause at the end of the day their implementation is dominated by those three basic things....if you like that sound,...then go at it with any of those plugs.....i just think the mysticism associated with analogueness has become materially misleading and deceptive

nor was this aimed at nebula by the way....i rate nebula....but i havent tried the new eq. Based on my experiences with the old nebula 3 free,...i find the eq and compressors impractical to use.... i find the reverbs, mics, phasers have a pleasant quality to them,....but not dramatically different than IR of similar gears,...even though they theoretically should be.....when i put it on every track, reducing the input and pushing the output to achieve neutral gain, i find the final mix has a noticeable difference that is pleasant, but that involves a lot of time consuming rendering on my single core pc.....but if you wait till your song is done before doing that,...its not that big a deal....i might even buy it....i like the spirit and forthrightness of the developers....purely my two cents....

[bermudagold]

@songmonkey: i wasnt quoting you or using your words as a basis for my argument lol.....i just hit reply with quote to agree with what i believe was the overall sentiment of bmanic's post....your quote was just nested from his post....i actually agree with ur post and with your experiences.....i think we are all saying a lot of the same thing here

[SongMonkey]

Yes, I neglected to mention that I agree with many of your observations about software marketed as "analogue." Pretty fairly true.

Cheers.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

@bermudagold: I understand. A lot of people with a single core said exactly what you are saying. Nowadays a quad core is rather cheap, cheaper than 1/4 of the original gear sampled and referred by this thread!
Using a quadcore this program is around fews % (really fews)