Acustica and Xelius present Cobalt, first analog modeled Dynamic EQ

[sales@acusticaudio.net]

Acustica and Xelius present Cobalt, first analog modeled Dynamic EQ

Cobalt is an absolute novelty and totally different product respect preceding Acqua Effect plug-ins products.

Through Stefano Dall'Ora (SoundDrops), who is an invaluable collaborator of Acustica Audio; Acustica team came in contact with Luca Martegani, also known as Xelius. Luca is a designer and manufacturer of an amazing suite of hand-built audio hardware, characterized by great sound, quality, and great value.

Cobalt Video Here

All product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with Acusticaudio S.r.l.
Product names are used solely for the purpose of identifying the specific products that were studied during Acustica's sound model development and for describing certain types of tones produced with Acustica-audio’s digital modeling technology. Use of these names does not imply any cooperation or endorsement. Pultec is a registered trademark property of Pulse Techniques, LLC.

Cobalt EQ
Derived from the classic Pultec design with some added custom features, such as the separation of bass frequencies, so that you can Cut a frequency independently from Boost a frequency; then we have a High band Boost section with an extremely personal sound, because it’s built only with inductances, instead of more customary capacitors. Our emulation has preserved all these sound features and we are very proud of the result.



Cobalt Compressor
It’s an extremely versatile tube compressor. Thanks to Acustica technology, we have been able to faithfully reproduce the original device. CORE X contributed to create a masterpiece able to reproduce the hardware behaviour, and at the same time, it provides a number of plug-ins considerably more tolerable CPU consumption.



Cobalt Channel Strip and Dynamic Eq
The real novelty of this suite is our Cobalt Dyn EQ (dynamic equalizer), the first of its kind. Just like with audio productions, our idea was created as a sort of remix of COBALT EQ and COBALT COMP. The result of this is an incredible Dynamic EQ, the first of it’s kind based on sampling characterized from some new and important features.



Cobalt Preamp
Cobalt Pre includes 5 different tube preamps to add great warmth. They precisely emulate the phase, frequency response and harmonic distortion of their corresponding circuits.
The best use of these colours can only be decided by user on a case per case basis and the engineer’s final judgement should always depend on his/her own ears and imagination.



Cobalt was developed based on CORE X, the revolutionary upgraded multi-threading technology by Acustica Audio. CORE X is an optimisation of CORE9 in terms of performance, but also introduces new important features allowing optimise Acqua Effect plug-ins performance.

Actually CORE X supported features:
• Internal plug-in saturation no longer exceeds +3 dBFS.
• New algorithm for hard-clipping.
• Multi-input system implemented.
• Blending algorithm empower more plug-in instances and better CPU performance.

You will find all details in Cobalt user manual, direct link for download it: https://app.box.com/shared/static/q36gw ... 9wzxl6.pdf

Cobalt Commercial web-page:
http://www.acustica-audio.com/index.php ... Itemid=189

Cobalt Trial web-page:
http://www.acustica-audio.com/index.php ... Itemid=189

Operation Systems and Formats Supported:
• Supported operation systems: OS X and Windows.
• Supported plug-in formats: VST2, AAX, and AU.
• Supported architectures: 32 and 64-bits.

Price and availability:
• Cobalt commercial version: €179.00. Available as a digital download immediately after payment.
• Cobalt trial version: free four week test license. Available as a digital download immediately after €0.00 payment.

Pre-order and discounts:
• Pre-order discount: 20% discount (€143.20) form MSRP price on first four weeks.

Licensing:
• Online challenge-response authorization system allowing two computers activation at same time.
• Trial version work four weeks, trial license allow also two computers activation at same time.

[Faland]

Great plug indeed!
The best comp ITB ever!
In few months AA just reached the top in comp emulation.
And this is just a part of the suite.
I'm demoing the dyneq, not so easy for me to understand all the functions. I'm learning how to use it and it's very funny, but maybe an explanation video should be appreciated.
Anyway, the comp itself covers the price. But there is much, much more under the hood.
I talked about the Eq? And the pres?
Mamma mia! They are among the best, even in AA land. "E ho detto tutto" come diceva Peppino de Filippo.

[bmanic]

Easiest way to figure out the Dynamic EQ module is like this:

1) Start by turning on EQ1 and the Dynamic EQ function (lower right corner).

2) Set the "Range" Knob to ZERO. This allows you to hear the EQ1 changes immediately. Set the EQ to something rather drastic so that you can easily hear the difference once we engage the dynamic part.

3) Now set attack to fastest and release to pretty fast too.. 0.15 or 0.2s

4) Set "Range" knob to -5dB

5) Slowly drag down the threshold of the compressor part until you start getting quite a lot of compression.


What results: The more Gain Reduction you see on the meter, the more you will be "morphing" from your original source signal to the Equalized signal of EQ1. The "Range" knob controls this transition and how aggressive it is (basically sets it's "position" on the GR metering.. so -5dB of Range knob sets it so that the full equalized signal should be happening at -5dB of gain reduction).

That's it. You've figured out how to use the basics of the Dynamic EQ.

Now what's REALLY magical is that little EQ1 output volume knob in the upper right corner. That too is a part of the dynamic chain. Lots of brilliant stuff can be done with that single knob alone.

[Faland]

Thank you @bmanic!
Now I'll start to understand.
It opens endless possibility.
The eq1 volume adds really a lot of colors, it's really a "painter knob".
But how works the Eq2?
Sorry for my stupid question but I'm a newbie with dyneqs.

[bmanic]

EQ2 is permanently set within the Dynamic section sidechain. With it you can shape the signal that the compressor reacts to. So if you set the LOW cut knob to "Cut" (1 click past 10) and the HIGH cut knob to "cut" (again, 1 click past 10) then you leave only the mid frequencies for the compressor to react to.

Typical usage: If the compressor is reacting too much to the bass frequencies, simply set the Low cut knob to around 100Hz and turn it all the way up to 10 or Cut. This then prevents the compressor from reacting too much to bass frequencies.

[thecontrolcentre]

Doesn't Leslie Sanford have a plugin called Cobalt already?

[Faland]

EQ2 is permanently set within the Dynamic section sidechain. With it you can shape the signal that the compressor reacts to. So if you set the LOW cut knob to "Cut" (1 click past 10) and the HIGH cut knob to "cut" (again, 1 click past 10) then you leave only the mid frequencies for the compressor to react to.

Typical usage: If the compressor is reacting too much to the bass frequencies, simply set the Low cut knob to around 100Hz and turn it all the way up to 10 or Cut. This then prevents the compressor from reacting too much to bass frequencies.

Thanks bmanic.
The learning curve is quite steep for me, but I'm trying to do my best to understand it. The single components are great, the comp is really gorgeous, the pres are difficult to choose one (I'm finding myself to switch constantly between them... I never be enough good in making choices).
A great thanks to AA for givin' us these gems. And if you think that with less than 150 € you get a great eq, an incredible compressor, 5 nice musical coloured pres, and avery unique kind of dyneq (even if it is a little difficult to approach for who like me has never worked with this kind of stuff, but this is a my fault), I wonder how someone could even say this suite is high priced. If then you consider that AA products are amonge the best sounding on the market, if not the best, this is a really bargain. And huge one too.
Thanks again for your precious help.
All the best wishes!

[bmanic]

Take your time with the Dynamic EQ. It's definitely not for the faint of heart. It's a truly flexible beast of a plugin but it has quite a steep learning curve. Heck, even a basic compressor isn't always easy to understand for most people and now you have a compressor, with it's own internal sidechain (and external) that acts as a "morph control" for and EQ with it's own volume control.

Basically you have tons of options at what point and how the dynamics will change. You can even do some whacky stuff like reducing the dynamic range of bass while at the same time increasing the dynamic range of the mids or highs.. or vice versa. You can even dynamically highpass and lowpass filter things.

It's a very powerful tone shaping effect.

[Faland]

Yes, you're right.
It seems really strange to me that almost nobody talk about this exceptional bundle here on Kvr...
I saw very long topics about plugs which worth much less on these pages.
AA is making really gorgeous products, especially in the last year or so.
Many of the issues of the first ones (i.e. CPU and compatibility) were now fixed and Core 9 and X have really rise the bar in terms of emulation of real hardware ITB. Nebula is great but his workflow could discourages many users.
The last Acqua are easy like algos to operate with, but sound a lot better.
And the prices are even lower than most of their counterparts.
So, why so little interest around them here?

[bmanic]

I have no idea.. the massive CPU and RAM hit is still something that most users can't tolerate. I think many are missing the point a bit. The AA plugin offerings are best treated as "almost" hardware, that is, you have to commit to settings and render. Just like you would with hardware.

On the other hand, I find myself using much shorter plugin chains when I use AA plugins as they can shape the sound so radically with just a few tweaks. This somewhat offsets the CPU and RAM usage.

Just posted an audio example on Gearsltz of Cobalt on a drumbus.

[JerGoertz]

Doesn't Leslie Sanford have a plugin called Cobalt already?

Yes... yes he does.

[Beatworld]

EQ2 is permanently set within the Dynamic section sidechain. With it you can shape the signal that the compressor reacts to. So if you set the LOW cut knob to "Cut" (1 click past 10) and the HIGH cut knob to "cut" (again, 1 click past 10) then you leave only the mid frequencies for the compressor to react to.

Typical usage: If the compressor is reacting too much to the bass frequencies, simply set the Low cut knob to around 100Hz and turn it all the way up to 10 or Cut. This then prevents the compressor from reacting too much to bass frequencies.

EQ1 in Dyn EQ has Cut settings in Low Cut and Hi Cut bands, as well as EQ2.

What exactly does selecting "cut" do, as opposed to a setting of 10 ?
Is it like 11, or is Cut a much more significant cut, like a filter with a basically vertical slope?
I have tried to find the answer to this in the manual but I can't

The images for both EQs in the Dyn EQ section don't even show the Cut option.

cheers

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

It's a different slope, there should be a picture in the user manual. The same slope is played by dyneq, just there was not much space left on the skin

[Beatworld]

It's a different slope, there should be a picture in the user manual. The same slope is played by dyneq, just there was not much space left on the skin

Thanks Z.
Ok now I have found the pics of the Cut selection.
Yes a different curve, more conventional.
cheers

[trusampler]

Probably will get flamed for this, but does Acustica provide presets with this? Just curious, as I'm one who learns from presets most of times on what to do in my productions. I've tried a few demos from them before and never noticed a preset folder of any sort. Is this one any different?

Also How does this plugin work in terms of low latency when monitoring with this eq in realtime?