New: Brainworx bx_console SSL 9000 J

[carambo]

Strange to see so many PA haters here posting nonsense comments, the quarantine effect probably ! Nothing else to do, no music to play or record ? When I don't like a brand or a product, I just move on
Anyway, this is a great addition to the PA plugin range, there is a real difference between the E and the G, so can't wait to test the J on louder mix.

[carambo]

Wow, just downloaded and put this in a mix, first impression you can immediately hear the difference with the E/G. The compressor is a killer and way more agressive than the E/G, seems like whatever you throw at it will sound good, a real badass. Low end is HUGE ! This thing is insane imho

[Endor-8o8]

Wow, just downloaded and put this in a mix, first impression you can immediately hear the difference with the E/G. The compressor is a killer and way more agressive than the E/G, seems like whatever you throw at it will sound good, a real badass. Low end is HUGE ! This thing is insane imho

I thought that the 9K and 4K had the same dynamic section in the hardware world...

[Ploki]

If the cap fits wear it.... The whole Arturia, Waves, Slate and now PA bashing that’s been perpetrated in threads like these are tiresome and extremely out of order. Critique all you want but the bile that comes with it is completely unnecessary.
It feels more like cathartic outrage than anything else and the personal swipes at Dirk... just stop it.

Oh i thought you meant from PA towards customers.
That bile didn’t happen out of nowhere you know.

[Robmobius]

just stop it.

Why don't you 'just stop' reading the thread and have a nice cup of tea?

[kelvyn]

just stop it.

Why don't you 'just stop' reading the thread and have a nice cup of tea?

Probably my ‘Car Crash’ mentality

[ViciousBliss]

I clicked random 30 times, THD is a simple soft clipper - i don't remember console i worked on acting like a soft clipper.
It was a 9000 J lol.

With all due respect it's not! Show me soft clipper which can shift phase and panorama like that? I beg you to do it ( I would like to have such saturator).

I get it that THD is saturation "only" but whole TMT is not only saturation. Sorry if i am mistaken and does not understand you properly. I am under impression you are saying that whole TMT is just a soft clipper. Again i apologize if i misunderstood you.

Simply put any Bassdrum sample, put SSL 9000 behind it. Select some preset (audio is not important for test). Place vectorscope behind it and look what it does to audio. Hitting RANDOM each time get you different audio result within the reach of channel count obviously.

You can even hear it in busy mixes it can shift stereo a lot. Sometimes it even destroy it, mixes can fall apart. It's a feature and it's optional. Everything for everyone.

I think Ploki just has all the terms mixed up. TMT is indeed randomizasion of a bunch of internals.. basically tiny variations in frequency response (phase changes happen because of this), compressor timings, knob positions etc.

However, TMT is _extremely_ lazily done and at least in my experience results in nothing like how a real large format console would vary between channels. Heck, sometimes it doesn't even make sense. It really feels like no human took an actual listen to these randomizations (just like no real proper critical listening was ever done to their THD stuff.. it has serious aliasing issues).

Brainworx is mostly all about marketing, always has been ever since their first "OMG We do MID/SIDE processing!" days.

I’m curious how bad the aliasing is at 88/96, have you tried it at those rates? For me, the Lindell 80 sounds significantly better with 4x oversampling when running at 88 or 96. But no way I could run those on tons of channels with that setting on my overclocked 3.6 ghz 1700. Even if I had a 3900x or 9900k, I’m guessing I would overload the single core capabilities pretty quickly. Focusrite uses a decent amount more cpu than the SSL E and BXN too.

What strips would you recommend using instead of this PA stuff? So far I haven’t found others easier to work with. I’ve always hated the Metric Halo CS that so many people love. UAD new SSL actually sounded smaller and Waves SSL definitely thinner. These are all 88/96 comparisons.

How is the cpu usage of this J compared to the old consoles for everyone?

[dionenoid]

Demoed this. Dissapointed.

- The high and high-mid frequencies sound shrill and thin, and are hard to subtile dial in. I preffered the highs in their 4000 channel but to be honest there are way better eq's out there.
- Low frequencies are pretty boomy and really don't add anything to your standard stock plug-in. Punch is lost pretty quickly when boosting a bit of lows or low-mids.
- As others said, the THD is the same as in their other channel strips and plug-ins. Lazy.
- The compressor is pretty limited in use, doesn't work well on all material. Often large overshoots. It's also pretty limited in features and metering. Never sounds like analog.
- As usual, slight volume bump on default. Fake "it sounds better" feeling. Lame.
- TMT is just a gimmick, i always turn it off on their plug-ins that offer it. No analogue gear has such big differences between channels, not even my old cheap "Made in China" Mackie mixer.
- Never got the feeling that it sounds like something SSL. For fun i compared with my hardware SSL Preamps and those immediately add a subtile punch and coloring, like for example Acustica Sand does. But not this Brainworx one.

All in all a pretty mediocre and feature limited channel strip for a way too high price. Absolutely no competition for PSP, Slate and ofcourse Acustica Audio.
Demoing PSP Infinistrip at the same time and i was amazed how much better it sounds and how much more it offers, for less money.

In terms of getting that SSL sound i would rate Acustica Sand as still being the best, but unfortunately that one is quite cpu hungry. Slate VMR would be second choice.
For SSL type compression you can't beat DMG Trackcomp btw.

[sqigls]

[kelvyn]

Thanks for that! Equilibrium restored%

[jochicago]

What strips would you recommend using instead of this PA stuff?

You mentioned concerns about CPU, so I wanted to jump in because many of us end up making decisions for the same reason. On pure sound and features, I would probably vote for the CLA Mixhub as the best sounding and most useful SSL strip. However, I have it, and basically never use it because of the massive CPU hit.

These are the 2 strips that I end up using all the time instead:
- If I want an SSL interface, the Nomad Factory Analog Studio Rack. 7 modules, low CPU, it sounds good (but on the clean side), and the modules are SSL inspired but they all have extra amenities.
- For general channel strip work, I normally use McDSP 6050/6060 for the great selection of modules, but mainly because of the super low CPU. The lowest CPU of any channel strip I've tested.

I don't own any of the PA/BX strips and that's simply because I haven't been able to justify them. They are not as CPU optimal as other strips, they don't have the rich amenities of other strips. Even when they've been on sale (many times I've considered buying for $25 or less) I've never been tempted enough to pull the trigger because I know they'll just sit there getting no use.

[ViciousBliss]

What strips would you recommend using instead of this PA stuff?

You mentioned concerns about CPU, so I wanted to jump in because many of us end up making decisions for the same reason. On pure sound and features, I would probably vote for the CLA Mixhub as the best sounding and most useful SSL strip. However, I have it, and basically never use it because of the massive CPU hit.

These are the 2 strips that I end up using all the time instead:
- If I want an SSL interface, the Nomad Factory Analog Studio Rack. 7 modules, low CPU, it sounds good (but on the clean side), and the modules are SSL inspired but they all have extra amenities.
- For general channel strip work, I normally use McDSP 6050/6060 for the great selection of modules, but mainly because of the super low CPU. The lowest CPU of any channel strip I've tested.

I don't own any of the PA/BX strips and that's simply because I haven't been able to justify them. They are not as CPU optimal as other strips, they don't have the rich amenities of other strips. Even when they've been on sale (many times I've considered buying for $25 or less) I've never been tempted enough to pull the trigger because I know they'll just sit there getting no use.

I’m curious what processor your computer has. I’ve got several desktops and have been trying to hone in on the importance of single core vs multicore capabilities. My Ryzen 1700 at stock speed is around 100 single core and 1000 multicore. Over clocking it to 3.6 ghz where the score is more like 114/1200 greatly expands my ability to not run out of processing power.

The scores are from cpu.userbenchmark.com

Nowadays for the cost of a few plugins, one can get a minimalist computer with stats better than the 1700. If you’re in Chicago, check out Microcenter’s build a pc function on their site. A 3900x stock is 134/2100 or something like that.

BX SSL plugins could be a problem for me when I was using a 6700-based machine(106/553). My Xeon with dual x5670s(83/1100)wasn’t much better than my 2320 desktop(81/300) until I turned turbo boost on. The power supply died I think, so I can’t compare it with my Ryzen. But once I put turbo boost on, it massacred the 2320. That 2320 would overloud with like a single instance of Seventh Heaven Pro and some efficient stuff.

Running a 96k session with 45 audio tracks and a bunch of auxes is no problem for the 1700 overclocked. I put the BX SSL E on just about every single track. There was one where I used UAD Avalon 737. I’m not sure how much my use of UAD is saving cpu resources since I’m mainly using it for a few fx plugins, one 737, and occasionally some 176 or 1176.

That big session rarely runs out of cpu. Maybe because a lot of the individual tracks only have an instance of BX SSL E and no other plugins. In smaller sessions where I run out of cpu, it’s mostly bedroom recordings where I have seven or ten inserts on several barebones tracks. Mainly efficient stuff like Cranesong, Overloud, PA.

I’ve never tried CLAMixhub. Today I changed all my bx console channels to digital and used channel one almost exclusively. I don’t think the Lindell 80 has an option to use the same channel on stereo instances though. Later I’ll see if the results held up on speakers. Issues that were there sounded cleared up on the headphones. The big tonal variances in channels may actually be as problematic as said earlier here.

So after checking the stuff with the same channel on both tracks and channel one used almost exclusively vs the files with analog mode on the stereo tracks and different channel numbers on each track, the former sounds limp and sterile by comparison. Less wide too. Digital mode and using the same channel definitely sounds cleaner though. Maybe there’s a way to use some other plugins to compensate for what’s lost from using it in analog mode.

I was also using different channels on the MC77 when they were on different parts of a vocal harmony.

If this TMT and analog mode are some kinda gimmick, it was working quite well for me. So I’ll always pay attention to a new Bx console. Right now I sometimes use the N, E, Focusrite, and Lindell 80 on the same mix. One thing that would be helpful in the manuals is if they gave some pointers on what channels have what qualities.

Using NLS in conjunction with the BX in digital mode would be interesting, but I don’t think the cpu would handle that well. Maybe if I upgraded to a 3900x, it would become viable. I’ll probably get this J strip one of these days, but I can’t justify throwing $100+ on anything from a business perspective at the moment.

[jochicago]

I'm on Ryzen 7 1700, a computer built by Microcenter in Chicago. I haven't tried doing anything to the CPU, I use this machine for more than audio and don't want to cause any trouble. Plus this has a beefy GPU, but I think if anything it's slowing down the audio pipeline more than helping. So in terms of plugins, what I find a bit cloggy you might run without problems on your setup, so worth doing demos.

A mono instance of CLA MIxhub for me is like 20% of the CPU. In contrast McDSP 6050 doesn't even register at 1%. So I'm used to playing my cards right and I can mix with as many total plugins as I want as long as I keep an eye on which plugins I pick.

AFAIK the TMT thing is just randomizing a deviance in some of the knobs. BTW I noticed CLA Mixhub doing that too, like the middle EQ band if I put it on 600hz it actually points to 730hz (or something like that). If you mix with your ears it doesn't matter, but I think what TMT brings to the table is being able to re-roll the randomization. Honestly seems a bit gimmicky to me but I wouldn't mind having the button to play with (but I'm not going out of my way to buy something because of that feature).

I also use NLS but not as intended. To me it sounds a bit heavy-handed and I just don't want it on every channel. I keep it on the bus and use it once, that's already a lot of treatment to my ears, I feel any more and it goes from a touch of analog goodness to a coat of plastic shine.

In terms of pricing, Nomad Factory ASR can be found for $30- if you wait a bit, and McDSP goes to $50- as well.

I also really enjoy Scheps Omni as an all purpose channel strip, but for me that uses 5-7% CPU per instance, so I use it judiciously. If the Scheps Omni had a 1% CPU footprint it would probably be my starting go-to for everything. Your mileage may vary but it's worth the demo.

[ramseysounds]

This one of the most offensive threads I have ever read.

Exactly. Old fellows with a chip on their shoulders towards PA. They could come out with a fifty dollar plugin that spits hundred dollar bills out of the front of your computer and they'll find a way to turn that into a negative.

Just imagine if PA were the ones that released Sunset Sound Studio Reverb....yikes!!! Hahaha.

Having said that, I'm an old fellow that is grateful to have access to all of the PA plugins. This is a wonderful addition to the collection.

from all the usual people as well

[mcbpete]

Gosh Plugin Alliance have done so many consoles now I've no idea where to start.... I got a great TL;DR from another user on the older three BX Consoles a while back (E,G,N - viewtopic.php?p=6959604&sid=113cae9f84b ... 7#p6959604 ) but where would the others fit in - Anyone with a bloody good ear able to fill in the blanks ? At the moment I'm using E for drums, G for main lead instruments, and N for pads and ambience.... no idea if that's correct or not?

BX Console SSL 4000 E - punchy, this is my favorite on individual drum tracks. Nothing beats it on kick and toms. Could be used on edgier vocals and instruments in a dense mix
BX Console SSL 4000 G - aggressive midrange, found it to be great at bringing clarity to guitars and bass. Due to the EQ Q style, smaller boosts or cuts are noticeable. have not spent enough time with this to see how it works on vocals.
BX Console SSL 9000 J - ???
BX Console N - very smooth, can make major boosts without ever becoming harsh. Great on instruments and vocals - good all around channel
BX Focusrite SC - ???
Lindell Audio 80 - ???

As the new 9k J has both E and G type filters would this new release replace those two ? I'm so confused !