Acustica - Titanium Multiband Compressor

[AC222]

we are creating a sort of book
Andrea Zanini, a mastering engineer, is helping us in this complex task.
I used extensively multiband compressors in the past and it is pretty easy.

In general you start using a common setting on all bands.
Than you go in each band, mute other ones and you start analyzing attack and release times and maybe you change a bit ratio and threshold. Depending on the band you need maybe a longer attack and release. So you don't loose for example the bottom drum breathing or the snare drum attack.

You should match input/output in each band (meters help a lot) so you don't have a change of levels.

On hardware everything is a bit more complex because you cannot mute bands. So you start from a the same sttings on all bands and than you change the one you are interested into.

Thanks, Giancarolo A sort of book is a great idea. In addition to informing, it can serve as a marketing material to make others want to go get the best in the box mb compressor, which of course will be Nebula

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

yes exactly, completely agreed.

[Compyfox]

Two main questions come to mind:

a) is the "Acqua Engine" now the definite future of AcusticaAudio?

b) will we ever see Nebula 4, and corresponding third party presets?


I take it, since the Acqua engine is not locked to 8 parameters anymore and you can even create multiband compressors now, Nebula is now kind of obsolete? Especially since this is a perfect solution for 3rd party devs to not only create presets, but also usable plugins (GUI's).

Though one thing still worries me... the CPU usage.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

acqua is the currente engine which is used in nebula3, and all current standalone products.
Nebula4 will be based on acqua.
There is an incoming new engine named aria, which is more lightweighting.
Acqua is not limited to anything. Magenta and titanium have an awful number of knobs.

Inside of acqua, a single instance is limited to 8 controls. There is a sort of complex routing inside, ie native m/s processing and so on. You can connect modules as you want.
You can have a single gui, or multiple gui, and gui are just "skins" of the whole grid of instances.

Nebula 3 is just loading a single instance at once. Nebula4 is planned to load a whole grid at once, so a single (or more) acqua plugins. The engine will support also aria when it will be ready.
There will be no other details for aria, I received many mails and request but I will limit aria to this description for a lot of months. In any case aria is obvioulsy linked to lower cpu usage. In italian acqua = water, while aria = air.

[cfanyc]

This video shows my workflow. If you have a different workflow, that's ok with me.

If you're so upset after watching my videos then please do not watch them!

On the contrary, I am being increasingly entertained by your videos and responses which
sidestep the real issues I outlined with your promotional videos (excuse me, "workflow").

Since you are gradually becoming as aggressive as you have been obfuscating, I will continue to comment as I feel appropriate on your proselytizing (or sales) agenda, for the benefit of the community.

[Doug1978]

Sounds very interesting - and good luck with the new ideas Giancarlo.
However, I'm more than happy with my Nebula 3 Pro products (such as AlexB and CDSoundmaster's consoles etc) for now - they work well.

Acqua / Nebula 4 might well make things easier and more powerful in the future, but I'm going to wait a couple of years to see what developmental issues need to be smoothed out first.
I suspect there's a fair few other Nebula users in the same boat.

[Compyfox]

Inside of acqua, a single instance is limited to 8 controls. There is a sort of complex routing inside, ie native m/s processing and so on. You can connect modules as you want.
You can have a single gui, or multiple gui, and gui are just "skins" of the whole grid of instances.

Nebula 3 is just loading a single instance at once. Nebula4 is planned to load a whole grid at once, so a single (or more) acqua plugins. The engine will support also aria when it will be ready.

That is an interesting approach to overcome the 8-controls limitation. A modular grid system. Never thought of going that route to surpass the current limitations. But it's making sense.

Use a modular environment, link several nebula engines in series. Like: preamp -> EQ (band 1) -> EQ (band 2) -> EQ (band 3) -> EQ (band 4) -> digital output gain/trim knob, and you have a full fledged 4 band character EQ.

Why didn't I think of that earlier?

There will be no other details for aria, I received many mails and request but I will limit aria to this description for a lot of months. In any case aria is obvioulsy linked to lower cpu usage. In italian acqua = water, while aria = air.

Information enough for me to know that the development wasn't halted.
Mille grazie!

[Kindred]

Here's another video with Amber + Titanium:

Is it at all possible to post a 1 minute stretch of the dry audio
and then the exact same segment run through amber+titanium and
volume compensated so that we can see what exactly it
does to the sound? If you post this I will be happy to process
the same dry audio through other chains and post results
so we can have a nice basis for comparison and showcase for what the nebula technology can do versus algo plugins for example.

No, sorry, I'm not an audio scientist. The video shows what I wanted to show ...

If the levels are so dramatically different, what exactly was it that you wanted to show?

I'm a little confused by your responses to what seems like a logical question/request. I for one would be extremely keen to hear the results of this, as a keen user of both Nebula and algo plugs.

I share cfanyc's concerns around differences in volume in these kinds of demos or plugs that introduce a natural few db bump to flatter the sound (I'm looking at you Steven Slate haha!)

I would love to see a properly constructed A/B for this, whether by you or an "audio scientist"

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Inside of acqua, a single instance is limited to 8 controls. There is a sort of complex routing inside, ie native m/s processing and so on. You can connect modules as you want.
You can have a single gui, or multiple gui, and gui are just "skins" of the whole grid of instances.

Nebula 3 is just loading a single instance at once. Nebula4 is planned to load a whole grid at once, so a single (or more) acqua plugins. The engine will support also aria when it will be ready.

That is an interesting approach to overcome the 8-controls limitation. A modular grid system. Never thought of going that route to surpass the current limitations. But it's making sense.

Use a modular environment, link several nebula engines in series. Like: preamp -> EQ (band 1) -> EQ (band 2) -> EQ (band 3) -> EQ (band 4) -> digital output gain/trim knob, and you have a full fledged 4 band character EQ.

Why didn't I think of that earlier?

There will be no other details for aria, I received many mails and request but I will limit aria to this description for a lot of months. In any case aria is obvioulsy linked to lower cpu usage. In italian acqua = water, while aria = air.

Information enough for me to know that the development wasn't halted.
Mille grazie!

yes, there is already a way for merging also instances, so it will be possible to make a single convolution when harmonics are not used - so it is a linear process. So even on acqua line, further optimizations are possible. There are already things handled with multithreading, ie plugin load - way cheaper then loading nebula instances

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

This video shows my workflow. If you have a different workflow, that's ok with me.

If you're so upset after watching my videos then please do not watch them!

On the contrary, I am being increasingly entertained by your videos and responses which
sidestep the real issues I outlined with your promotional videos (excuse me, "workflow").

Since you are gradually becoming as aggressive as you have been obfuscating, I will continue to comment as I feel appropriate on your proselytizing (or sales) agenda, for the benefit of the community.

You are two users with different needs for what I can see: about your specific request, we'll release a trial demo on next week

[bmanic]

Or just post an audio clip for me to mangle. I'll try to keep the audio levels similar RMS levels (though it's a bit tricky with heavy processing).

The Acustica plugins are such that you really need to use them yourself and you'll hear/see why they are quite special. Especially if you have used the hardware in question before. It's just uncanny how these sound so "real". It's the only way I can put it.. the Nebula technology sounds more "real" than other offerings. Can't explain it. Probably something to do with the minute variations in phase/frequency response/transients that happens. Don't really care why or what happens, they just sound like nothing else.

It's also worth noting that the Titanium product also contains an extremely useful single band compressor (it could be even better with a built in side chain filter. Been asking for this addition during the beta. Hope it gets implemented as it would make it infinitely better still).

I'll try to post some new audio demos tonight.. and I'll include the dry version for you all to process as you please.

EDIT: Did you guys see this post and this post?

[bmanic]

Pizz Driven original loop

Pizz Driven Titanium 1B+3B

Settings below:



Signal flow is from top to bottom. First I reduce the loop volume by -21dB. Then I compress with the single band version of Titanium to add some tight attack and control. I then shape the whole lot with the 3B multiband instance. Most notably I wanted to control the flabby bass frequencies and bring out the low mids and mids (there's a palm muted guitar there that got lost and is now found). I set the attack and release of the mid-band so that I get the punch of the pizzicato string synth thing to really pump the reverb tail. I also use the high band to squash the sizzly annoying hihats and snare highs.. then boost the whole lot to add some brightness back.

[David Else]

If people want to get PERFECTLY matched volumes for comparison purposes its easy and free with this JSFX :

http://www.tb-software.com/TBProAudio/ab_lm.html

I even made a tutorial that is on the page

[Tp3]

I even made a tutorial that is on the page

Personally, I want to THANK you for that.

Great work, David !

Cheers

[aon]

+1 for sidechain-filter.