KVR Audio

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 2:57 am

[DELETED]

andy-cytomic · Post by **andy-cytomic** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 9:32 am

ttoz wrote:...If anyone is interested by the way, duende sucks monkey balls, except for the reverb which was surprisingly good, the vocal strip and drumstrip. The rest is blah and hideously overpriced (all of the duende plugins are overpriced). sorry for OT.

No problems with talking about other options to The Glue with me! If people have a choice to make between The Glue and other plugins, then please feel free to discuss it, after all isn't that the point of internet forums? Some other manufacturers get all annoyed about honest discussion, not me.

I won't pass any comment on other products, it is my job to reproduce what is going on in "analog land", so that is my one and only yardstick. I can post some audio examples if you want, of dry and processed audio through analog kit at settings that highlight any possible differences between the real deal and emulations, and then let customers match settings and decide for themselves.

I am also happy posting some spectrum plots for people to look at. These were done with the following settings: attack 0.1 mS, release 0.6 S, Ratio 4, Gain reduction (measured via host meter) -8 dB, Makeup 8 dB at 44.1 kHz (edit: for the record The Glue has its oversampling switched off) with a 993 Hz sin as input, and the only harmonics that should be preset are those roughly at 2kHz, 3kHz, .., n-kHz, where n is a positive integer, everything else is inharomic and nasty sounding aliasing, as you can see in the analog version as well there is a real noise-floor in analog kit of around -130 dB, below which results are meaningless. These plots don't tell you how the compressor behaves dynamically like the audio examples would, but they do show how the analog unit responds to a sin wave input, which is ideally how the digital version should behave as well. Please note that the exact peaks of each harmonic doesn't matter that much, as two different analog hardware units will have two different sets of peaks due to component variation, only the general shape and falloff should be the same.

Analog SSL XLogic G Series Bus Compressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Analog_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

The Glue Bus Compressor:
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Glue_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

Duende Bus Comppressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Duende_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:43 pm

Good work Andy. Many people preferring the Glue also over SSL Duende Native Bus compressor

Hopefully you will not stop

2011 is a good year for more Cytomic plug-ins

jazztard · Post by **jazztard** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 12:59 pm

andy_cytomic wrote: Analog SSL XLogic G Series Bus Compressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Analog_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

The Glue Bus Compressor:
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Glue_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

Duende Bus Comppressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Duende_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

Thanks for this comparison!

I'd appreciate any other fact-heavy comments on the accuracy of Duende Bus Compressor and Channel strip emulations, in this thread or another (please post link).

IIRs · Post by **IIRs** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 1:52 pm

andy_cytomic wrote: Analog SSL XLogic G Series Bus Compressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Analog_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

The Glue Bus Compressor:
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Glue_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

Duende Bus Comppressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Duende_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

Just curious; what oversampling settings did you use for the Glue in this comparison?

andy-cytomic · Post by **andy-cytomic** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:17 pm

IIRs wrote: Just curious; what oversampling settings did you use for the Glue in this comparison?

The Glue was not oversampled, it was switched off. With oversampling on The Glue will be even cleaner, but as you can see it isn't needed for these gentle settings since The Glue already has such low aliasing.

kmonkey · Post by **kmonkey** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:45 pm

ttoz wrote:If anyone is interested by the way, duende sucks monkey balls, except for the reverb which was surprisingly good

Didn't i told you already...

SSL X-Verb is created by the same company which created Relab LX480 i told you numerous time to try it out

Once when LX480 full version is out you better try it. I am sure you are gonna like it a lot.

I also tried SSL Bus comp and i prefer Glue better then Bus comp because it is cheaper, more advanced(flexible) and offer better shaping options.

I liked ssl drumstrip though.

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Sun Feb 27, 2011 3:53 pm

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Artgiver · Post by **Artgiver** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 12:43 am

But the glue is just AS great and adds parallel and sidechain and is cheaper, so the duende one is redundant.

Thx for that ttoz. I'm shopping for a bus comp as well as two reverbs so i just may get the Glue if it's as good as the forthcoming Slate bus comp (or possibly the Elysois Alpha comp). It's SO hard, for me anyway, to make the right decision.

andy-cytomic · Post by **andy-cytomic** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 5:47 am

Here are some audio demos for anyone wanting to see how The Glue stacks up. You will probably have heard the drum samples before on my web page, but they are really good test cases. The slightly impractical settings I have used are to highlight differences in how transients sound compared to the analog unit. You should be able to hear clearly the "snap" on attacks that is left by the analog unit, so listen for this snap when matching settings with plugins.

I used attack 0.1 mS, release 0.1 S, ratio 10, compression needle peaking at -15 dB both the analog unit and The Glue (other compressors you will need to match things by ear as meters won't match). If you want to compare the Duende note that is only has a ratio of 20, but 10 and 20 are almost identical ratios (for 10 dB of compression there is only 0.5 dB difference between the two), so the results should not differ much at all and can be compensated by changing the threshold by around 0.6 dB. I've leave it to those interested comparing different plugins to download and process the audio themselves and post results if they want, but here are the ones I've done:

Dry audio 110 bpm, kick heavy, then room heavy, then snare heavy
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Drums110_Dry.wav

Analog SSL XLogic G Series
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Drums11 ... 10_-15.wav

The Glue
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Drums11 ... 10_-15.wav

ObsoleteAcc99 · Post by **ObsoleteAcc99** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 7:49 am

[DELETED]

JeromeD · Post by **JeromeD** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:13 am

AUTO-ADMIN: Non-MP3, WAV, OGG, SoundCloud, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitter and Facebook links in this post have been protected automatically. Once the member reaches 5 posts the links will function as normal.

Hello everybody and andy. I bough The Glue long time ago ! my first dynamic processors. And I love it. I really like how the cytomic sound. It's close to the duende !

I did a test today between The Glue and SSL BusComp. I wanted to compress a 808 bassdrums. My goal was to "push" the sustain .
I used attack 0.1ms, release 1.2s, ratio 4, gain reduction around 8 db. And I copy this setting to the The Glue.

file:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bo4aj8 (http://www.sendspace.com/file/bo4aj8) (Wav 24bits, 44.1)

screen:

http://img696.imageshack.us/i/imageho.png/ (http://img696.imageshack.us/i/imageho.png/)

As you can see, Im very surprised how the native ssl duende compress the 808 low end. that's what I wanted to get.
But with the same settings, I am a little disappointed about The glue. The transcient is above everything.

Thank you Im sorry for my bad english.

edit: I noticed, with hard compression ( gain reduction 16db ) attack 30ms, release 1s, ratio 10, the cytomic sounds great ! but not the duende ( something wrong like lot of harmonics or saturation)...

kvaca · Post by **kvaca** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 10:19 am

andy_cytomic wrote:
ttoz wrote:...If anyone is interested by the way, duende sucks monkey balls, except for the reverb which was surprisingly good, the vocal strip and drumstrip. The rest is blah and hideously overpriced (all of the duende plugins are overpriced). sorry for OT.
No problems with talking about other options to The Glue with me! If people have a choice to make between The Glue and other plugins, then please feel free to discuss it, after all isn't that the point of internet forums? Some other manufacturers get all annoyed about honest discussion, not me.

I won't pass any comment on other products, it is my job to reproduce what is going on in "analog land", so that is my one and only yardstick. I can post some audio examples if you want, of dry and processed audio through analog kit at settings that highlight any possible differences between the real deal and emulations, and then let customers match settings and decide for themselves.

I am also happy posting some spectrum plots for people to look at. These were done with the following settings: attack 0.1 mS, release 0.6 S, Ratio 4, Gain reduction (measured via host meter) -8 dB, Makeup 8 dB at 44.1 kHz (edit: for the record The Glue has its oversampling switched off) with a 993 Hz sin as input, and the only harmonics that should be preset are those roughly at 2kHz, 3kHz, .., n-kHz, where n is a positive integer, everything else is inharomic and nasty sounding aliasing, as you can see in the analog version as well there is a real noise-floor in analog kit of around -130 dB, below which results are meaningless. These plots don't tell you how the compressor behaves dynamically like the audio examples would, but they do show how the analog unit responds to a sin wave input, which is ideally how the digital version should behave as well. Please note that the exact peaks of each harmonic doesn't matter that much, as two different analog hardware units will have two different sets of peaks due to component variation, only the general shape and falloff should be the same.

Analog SSL XLogic G Series Bus Compressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Analog_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

The Glue Bus Compressor:
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Glue_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

Duende Bus Comppressor
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Duende_0.1_0.6_4_-8.jpg

At first it looks like you dont need ovesampling at all

I have compared to waves ssl comp and it exhibits almost same aliasing as Duende too.
But another situation is when you increase attack to 10 or 30ms with otherwise same setting,than it exhibits much higher amount of aliasing-could you please show us the spectrum plots in that case to be objective and tell us why,becouse all other compressors I know behave rather opposite way.

andy-cytomic · Post by **andy-cytomic** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:08 pm

JeromeD wrote:Hello everybody and andy. I bough The Glue long time ago ! my first dynamic processors. And I love it. I really like how the cytomic sound. It's close to the duende !

I did a test today between The Glue and SSL BusComp. I wanted to compress a 808 bassdrums. My goal was to "push" the sustain .
I used attack 0.1ms, release 1.2s, ratio 4, gain reduction around 8 db. And I copy this setting to the The Glue.

file:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/bo4aj8 (Wav 24bits, 44.1)

screen:

http://img696.imageshack.us/i/imageho.png/

As you can see, Im very surprised how the native ssl duende compress the 808 low end. that's what I wanted to get.
But with the same settings, I am a little disappointed about The glue. The transcient is above everything.

This is a very good example showing that The Glue is accurate to the analog version, since it will also leave these spikes. It is these spikes that sound great and give a huge crack at the start of each kick. This is really good in a mix and is usually cleaned up by the final limiter. Have a look at the files I posted, and then use the duende to repeat what I did and you will see the same thing: the analog and version and The Glue both leave these spikes in place.

Now it is trivial for me to over compress transients like this as well, in fact that is what I used to have when you switched the Range knob to "Full". But since this doesn't sound as good, and people associate "full" with "better" they would always set the Range to Full, so now I changed Full to now match the newest high voltage circuit component limit. Perhaps I should add a "Digital" mode on the Range knob to again over-compress the transients?

JeromeD wrote: Thank you Im sorry for my bad english.

Your English is excellent, thanks for you post!

andy-cytomic · Post by **andy-cytomic** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 3:13 pm

kvaca wrote:At first it looks like you dont need ovesampling at all
I have compared to waves ssl comp and it exhibits almost same aliasing as Duende too.
But another situation is when you increase attack to 10 or 30ms with otherwise same setting,than it exhibits much higher amount of aliasing-could you please show us the spectrum plots in that case to be objective and tell us why,becouse all other compressors I know behave rather opposite way.

Hi kvaca - it sounds like there is something wrong with your settings. Do you have the Peak Clip enabled or are you clipping the output of you DAW somehow? This is the only way I can think of that slowing down the attack could produce more aliasing, since the level of compression will decrease, so the output level will increase and possible clipping could occur.

Here are my plots of 0.1 mS and 10 mS attack, as you can see the only different is less harmonics on the 10 mS which is as expected:

http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Sin993_ ... 6_4_-8.jpg
http://cytomic.com/files/forums/Sin993_ ... 6_4_-8.jpg

Cytomic 'The Glue' Compressor