Exponential Audio Excalibur

[sqigls]

80% of my plugins are unused 80% of the time...its no big deal, they dont eat any bread and I like having them

I find that to be a problem, imho. Plugin bloat always leads to issues along the way with opening older projects. Also it leads to huge waste of time, when you play with and try to combine all those plugins. Less is definitely more in this case.

i think that's just a reality of our situation.

I've been suffering that since VST plugins were invented. but we find upgrades for our signal flow, and there's not much we can do, except render everything..
I love having heaps of different plugins at my disposal. I've done the 'delete everything except one of each plugin' thing, and it doesn't work for me. So effects simply don't work in some situations. For $10, for some quality algorithms like these!? like 24 megabytes is gonna eat into your hard drive space.

[Dirtgrain]

And I don't think I ever saw anyone recommend Excalibur when the question arose "what's the best" chorus, phaser, flanger? How come nobody ever recommends Excalibur, even those that do claim they like it and use it?

Well, Excalibur was expensive, and it has been around for a while. And it is not dedicated to any one effect.

[bmanic]

True, but everything jens has stated so far makes completely 100% sense. It is not and has not ever been on any "top best modulation effects" list as far as I know. It is 100% unashamedly 'digital' in it's nature and doesn't even pretend to try to mimic analogue devices (which most people seem to prefer for modulation).

I feel like the target market and emulation is 80's and 90's digital hardware rack units. Excalibur both sounds and behaves like it. Heck, even the interface is a convoluted mess just like those were back in the day.

Having said that, I actually LIKE all of this (except the convoluted interface). It sits very nicely in a busy mix and can be kept to a minimum and not be at all obvious, even when pushed quite loud in the mix. This is a non-obvious processor within the mix, a sort of backbone for keeping things lean and non-fat. The exact opposite to analogue modulation devices that take up more space and are rich, fat and obvious within the mix.

Each of these have their place. I feel like it's the same for the reverbs. They excel at being non-obvious, even R2/R4. They are more like traditional mixing tools than obvious gorgeous "hear me! I'm a reverb!".

IMHO it's good to have some plugins that cover all of this spectrum and the more I've used Excalibur these past few days the more I'm beginning to appreciate it as a thing to subtly "thin out" stuff in the mix and place them in a sort of ambiguous stereo position. It's especially effective on things that are too fat for the mix but suffer from EQ. Excalibur can very often work as a diet for fat sounds.

[Russell Grand]

This is my main point though really and it's not specific to Excalibur. We are so spoilt for choice lately that any new plugin has to impress right from the very start. Otherwise why would I waste time learning something that may sound good when I can just fire up any one of a dozen alternatives that I know for a fact do.

This is definitely a fair point, Mushy, and I appreciate your thoughtful reply.

[Tj Shredder]

I think its better to invest in Toilet paper...; - )
How could they sell this for the original price? I have to understand the logic of that market and then start programming...
After those who have more money than they need, I could suck out all bargain hunters...

[lacandon]

Bought one the presets do not demonstrate what this is capable of have to dig deeper into it.Looks like it can offload at times spec ops as I use it on everything.Subvert Convex Spec Ops ,Byome enough for now time to make some shit

[chk071]

True, but everything jens has stated so far makes completely 100% sense. It is not and has not ever been on any "top best modulation effects" list as far as I know.

TBH, I've never come along a multi fx device which was great in everything it does. They are more the sum of its parts. Most aren't even better than most synth's onboard fx, which are pretty average, IMO. I know exactly one synth where the fx section is a tad better (Spire). The rest is pretty, pretty average. To put it mildly. Same with the multi fx suites. They have one or two standout fx onboard, typically. But, in most cases, even those can't compete with the best standalone fx plugins. At least that's my experience, from the ones I tried.

[chk071]

This is a very good point, BTW:

This is my main point though really and it's not specific to Excalibur. We are so spoilt for choice lately that any new plugin has to impress right from the very start. Otherwise why would I waste time learning something that may sound good when I can just fire up any one of a dozen alternatives that I know for a fact do.

I felt like that many times, when trying out a new plugin. "Why waste my time with this, when I have so much good stuff I can rather use, which makes it easier for me to get into?". Definitely a issue (for me) with Excalibur.

[andymcbain]

Having said that, I actually LIKE all of this (except the convoluted interface). It sits very nicely in a busy mix and can be kept to a minimum and not be at all obvious, even when pushed quite loud in the mix. This is a non-obvious processor within the mix, a sort of backbone for keeping things lean and non-fat. The exact opposite to analogue modulation devices that take up more space and are rich, fat and obvious within the mix.

Each of these have their place. I feel like it's the same for the reverbs. They excel at being non-obvious, even R2/R4. They are more like traditional mixing tools than obvious gorgeous "hear me! I'm a reverb!".

IMHO it's good to have some plugins that cover all of this spectrum and the more I've used Excalibur these past few days the more I'm beginning to appreciate it as a thing to subtly "thin out" stuff in the mix and place them in a sort of ambiguous stereo position. It's especially effective on things that are too fat for the mix but suffer from EQ. Excalibur can very often work as a diet for fat sounds.

Agree with all this. Like PhoenixVerb, I don't find the sound of Excalibur all that impressive in isolation - but in the mix it blends things really effectively. I can't see it being a go-to for a synth or lead guitar feature, but I'd be very surprised if I don't use it somewhere in every mix now. So it's an absolute bargain from my point of view...

[Aloysius]

As someone mentioned earlier, there's a free Groove3 video series called Exponential Audio Excalibur Explained®. I think you need an account to view it for free (like I am). It's essential viewing imho.

[ReverendLove]

The real point for me is that- what somebody called bizarre - modulation and routing of the four voices with their feedback and delays going into each other.so the vpice effects are more for shaping. A Tremolo for example used on different channels has to be exact if used phase shifted. It is. The other ones are splid but probably not great. One exception: Glide is a nasty beast which can mess up everything nicely.
OTOH: Preset hopping shows nothing if you don't examine their structures.
Xcalibur is for weirdos not for snobs.

[pbr985]

I'm shocked reading these reviews. When this thing came out everyone on gearslutz was reaving about it that it sounds more analog than anything ITB. You can check the topic some people were saying they dropped their Eventide H3000 as this is the only plugin that can replace it ITB sound quality wise... Strange hey.

[chk071]

Don't care about reviews. Test it, and judge for yourself.

[ZINO]

This is really a no brainer.

The problem is iZotope. It may very easily:

a) Get no bugfixes/ comp updates at all, and/or
b) Not get developed any further (i.e. new feautures - even offered as an upgrade).

The "update" they did for the bug ridden Iris 2 was atrocious after all these years. Just a Catalina compatibility update only to be able to keep selling it...

[chk071]

Is that a big issue? Remember that you pay a lousy $9 for this.