Any suggestions regarding to Acustica Audio?

[duboy1996]

Hi, I am new here. I am a UAD user, recently I was considering purchasing some Acustica Audio Plugins. However, I saw many bad reviews on AA(bad support, buggy), do those problems still exist? Is it worth to get AA's products?

Also, can someone explain the mechanism behind AA plugins more thoroughly? I heard they are ''sample-based" plugins. I am wondering how can a compressor be sampled? Shouldn't it be much less versatile and less flexible compared to hardware? How do you 'sample' a hardware?

[jbuonacc]

don't plan on ever selling them, as any discount that you get when buying them on sale will be your transfer fee when selling them (could easily be over $100). almost wish i never bothered with 'Gold', can barely use it anyway even on this recent pc. there is something about the sound of them, but i don't know if it's worth it. they can be rather buggy as well.

[duboy1996]

don't plan on ever selling them, as any discount that you get when buying them on sale will be your transfer fee when selling them (could easily be over $100). almost wish i never bothered with 'Gold', can barely use it anyway even on this recent pc. there is something about the sound of them, but i don't know if it's worth it. they can be rather buggy as well.

Hey man, thank you for reply, I am demoing AA, and found that AA is so colored. Their EQs sounds nicer than UAD on single instrument, but not on master track. Their compressor is like a joke(maybe I don’t know the right way of using it)

You mentioned that you barely use AA, I guess it does sounds nice sometime but not as useful and functional as UAD. I may think further before I put my money on AA.

[Vortifex]

I've demoed their stuff, and much of it does sound nice, but the interface lag and insane CPU make a lot of them unusable for me. What's the point of a channel strip that you can't put on every channel? IMO Acustica is the VST equivalent of a fashion show, full of expensive and impractical items that almost nobody uses on a daily basis.

[Omkar]

Hey, thought I give it a thought,
I was on the same path due to UAD and AA.

Both need some time to make individual decisions (price, cpu, protection and so on),
so I would give myself all the time needed to come to a result.

I went with UAD at a time cpu was a crucial point, then with AA when it wasn`t.
On both I made a +/- list before purchase to have an overall idea what I want and weigh it.

Due to AA:
we are close to Black Friday sales which gives the price a weigh to think about an entry into AA
plus a generous (I think) trial time to step through purchase options.

If I`m not mistaken you refer your experience to Acquas, one format of the AA palette.
If comps are your thing I would think about Nebula and developer TimP for example.
It sounds complicated but it isn`t really in the end, needs some time though.

A concrete suggestion:
follow BF this year, have some trials, grab as much overall infos as possible, let it sink
and if AA is something for you get prepared for sales next year.

Aloha

[duboy1996]

I've demoed their stuff, and much of it does sound nice, but the interface lag and insane CPU make a lot of them unusable for me. What's the point of a channel strip that you can't put on every channel? IMO Acustica is the VST equivalent of a fashion show, full of expensive and impractical items that almost nobody uses on a daily basis.

Exactly! I prefer Softube console 1. AA is optional to me. Thank you for your advice!

[duboy1996]

Hey, thought I give it a thought,
I was on the same path due to UAD and AA.

Both need some time to make individual decisions (price, cpu, protection and so on),
so I would give myself all the time needed to come to a result.

I went with UAD at a time cpu was a crucial point, then with AA when it wasn`t.
On both I made a +/- list before purchase to have an overall idea what I want and weigh it.

Due to AA:
we are close to Black Friday sales which gives the price a weigh to think about an entry into AA
plus a generous (I think) trial time to step through purchase options.

If I`m not mistaken you refer your experience to Acquas, one format of the AA palette.
If comps are your thing I would think about Nebula and developer TimP for example.
It sounds complicated but it isn`t really in the end, needs some time though.

A concrete suggestion:
follow BF this year, have some trials, grab as much overall infos as possible, let it sink
and if AA is something for you get prepared for sales next year.

Aloha

Thank you for your advice! That is what I am planning to do. For me, UAD is a must-have, but not AA. I might do enough demoing and wait for their sale. I think I will never buy AA with their regular price. Too pricy for the quality.

[plexuss]

I could write a TL;DR. Suffice to say that for me, Nebula 4 sucks because it doesn't work well with Logic - the primary problem is that after a certain number of instances it slows my entire 12-core system down to unusablility. I did get into Acquas recently due to the sales. The Acquas work way better - they still consume a lot/the same amount of CPU but they don't cripple my system. It's also nice to have all bands, pres, etc available in one plugin (compared to requring numersound N4 instances). They generally work but there can be quirks. You just have to live with these issues as AA works at their own pace and generally rejects user feedback (this can be hit and miss however because sometimes they are responsive and try and provide quick fixes). Support will sometimes spontaneously close my tickets and leave me stranded - but at least there are support people in the forums that can help.

In terms of sound, they have revolutionized my work - they are the best plugins I've used to get digital to sound close to analogue. I started with analogue in the good 'ol days so I know what the vibe should sound like. I like to have a plethora of tone and vibe options available to me and so I have quite a number of Acquas now. But it's not just the analogue sound with AA - they just sound great generally and have allowed me to improve the quality of my work.

I guess you could say I have love/hate relationship with AA. Like most plugin companies you'll have the fanboi group, the pragmatic group and the haters but with AA these groups are quite... vibrant.

I recommend them but only if you are willing to put up with quirks, sometimes slow-to-non-existant support but want a really nice smooth warm sound and access to the sound of high quality analogue tools.

I also love the visual design of their manuals and that they have all the curves and technical details included. Some more "engineering" types don't like the manuals with all the visuals and flowery hype. To me the manuals are little works of art.

[scalawag]

Hi, I am new here. I am a UAD user, recently I was considering purchasing some Acustica Audio Plugins. However, I saw many bad reviews on AA(bad support, buggy), do those problems still exist? Is it worth to get AA's products?

Also, can someone explain the mechanism behind AA plugins more thoroughly? I heard they are ''sample-based" plugins. I am wondering how can a compressor be sampled? Shouldn't it be much less versatile and less flexible compared to hardware? How do you 'sample' a hardware?

Why don't you try for yourself? They have trials of all their plugins, and some are free!
http://www.acustica-audio.com/pages/spe ... ax-eq-free

[JerGoertz]

I guess you could say I have love/hate relationship with AA. Like most plugin companies you'll have the fanboi group, the pragmatic group and the haters but with AA these groups are quite... vibrant.

[Debutante]

I, OTOH, cannot recommend them enough. "There is something about the sound of them" is exactly why I think they are worth every penny... and ALOT more to be honest.

If you can, I'd start with Nebula itself. What you get with it is a huge library of all kinds of effects: great filters, the compressors have really come into their own lately, and the reverbs are hands down the best I've ever heard ITB; by so far that it was the reverbs ALONE that had me buying Nebula 3 to begin with. Joy of all the other stuff came later. Air and space.

On my system it's been remarkably stable. I can't recall a crash from Nebula on my AMD/ASUS combo. CPU usage varies wildly depending on program and settings... and here's a weak point. Nebula has a learning curve. The manual stunk (come to think of it, I didn't look at my new v4 one yet)

Settings can drastically change what the plugin is doing together with how much CPU power is being used, and it needs to be handled delicately to be a master at it, which I am NNNNOT!!!(yet). The manual has/d enough to get you started, but there's a lot of things that require an adventurous disposition. In any case you can afford to be relatively indifferent to settings and still get stellar results. I mainly adjust for CPU usage and screw around with different envelopes for dynamics.

As for how it works? ...some voodoo-d up version of dynamic convolution with stacks of impulses and harmonic goodness with a touch of sriracha.That shit's everywhere!

YMMV

[duboy1996]

I started with analogue in the good 'ol days so I know what the vibe should sound like. I like to have a plethora of tone and vibe options available to me and so I have quite a number of Acquas now. But it's not just the analogue sound with AA - they just sound great generally and have allowed me to improve the quality of my work.

I guess you could say I have love/hate relationship with AA. Like most plugin companies you'll have the fanboi group, the pragmatic group and the haters but with AA these groups are quite... vibrant.

Thanks a lot for your advice! This sounds impressive! I don’t have experiences with hardware but I always wanted to sound close to it. I thought UAD was the closest one until I heard AA. May I ask which plugins do you use most frequently or sounds most analogy to you? I demoed some AA, really like some of their EQs but their Reverb sounds weird and their compressor sounds weird when I try to create some distortion with it, what do you think? I appreciate your words!

[duboy1996]

Why don't you try for yourself? They have trials of all their plugins, and some are free!
http://www.acustica-audio.com/pages/spe ... ax-eq-free

Thanks! I already tried some of their trial version. I have my opinion on it, but I also need advice from someone who used it for quite a time. A few years ago, I started use izotope by chance. It sounds fine and transparent on individual tracks. However, when I mix and master with izotope, there is something wrong about the final mix. I realized that after 1 year, and I’m done with izotope, forever.

[duboy1996]

If you can, I'd start with Nebula itself. What you get with it is a huge library of all kinds of effects: great filters, the compressors have really come into their own lately, and the reverbs are hands down the best I've ever heard ITB; by so far that it was the reverbs ALONE that had me buying Nebula 3 to begin with. Joy of all the other stuff came later. Air and space.

As for how it works? ...some voodoo-d up version of dynamic convolution with stacks of impulses and harmonic goodness with a touch of sriracha.That shit's everywhere!

YMMV

Thank you for your advice! Many people praise AA’s reverb, however, I compared their Ebony to UAD’s EMT140 and thought Ebony sounds REALLY weird. Maybe I used it in a wrong way? I started to doubt myself

Also, do you think AA is too colored? I am afraid that it sounds good on individual tracks, but get weird result in the final mix when you apply them to every track. I will definitely try it myself recently, but may I ask your opinion on it? What do you think? I appreciate your words!

[plexuss]

I started with analogue in the good 'ol days so I know what the vibe should sound like. I like to have a plethora of tone and vibe options available to me and so I have quite a number of Acquas now. But it's not just the analogue sound with AA - they just sound great generally and have allowed me to improve the quality of my work.

Thanks a lot for your advice! This sounds impressive! I don’t have experiences with hardware but I always wanted to sound close to it. I thought UAD was the closest one until I heard AA. May I ask which plugins do you use most frequently or sounds most analogy to you? I demoed some AA, really like some of their EQs but their Reverb sounds weird and their compressor sounds weird when I try to create some distortion with it, what do you think? I appreciate your words!

The best way I can think is to share a track with you. This track has at least one Acqua on each track of the mix. Mostly Gold2 but also Azure, Magenta and Green. All tracks are running through a 30ips setting with Satin in multi-track mode. Among other things I am using The Glue on the mixbuss. No AA on the mixbuss. I am using a Navy2 compressor, Scarlett and Aquamarine on the master chain, among other things.


https://soundcloud.com/musicofplexus/kkryhztalizzed