Any suggestions regarding to Acustica Audio?

[GRUMP]

Well thanks for clarifying. I do not necessarily share the same conclusions
but at least our divergent opinions are formed with care to avoiding obvious
biases which makes discussion more informative/less frustrating for me.

I do think that even if for your material/ears/comparison method
uad>waves consistently, that does not exactly mean that waves sounds
"cheap". Uad is a very very high standard and it keeps getting stronger...

Yes, my conclusion is based on my own experience. I can't judge it for someone else. I'll rephrase my words: Waves sounds so cheap to me and some people around me. We prefer UAD much better.

I just had the same Discussion elsewhere and stumbled in here. Those Waves Fanboys seem to have cognitive Dissonances that make them very agressive in defending their Descisions - just like "I just spent my complete Salary - they just have to be good! Nobody can fool me with Marketing and empty Phrases!".

"Cheap" is maybe not the right Word here - there are others occupying this Corner already. But they sound like Plugins heavily endorsed by suspicious People who try to make you forget about the Details. Like a Marketing Strategy - bla bla. Toni Maserati. They´ll probably start a Butts n Boobs Campaign some Day. Soooo hot - and 40% off!!

I would really like to know how much Waves payed those numerous Hit Producers to make them endorse their Bubblegums. No professional Producer will normally talk about Gear without Speculating on common Sponsorship.

I´d recommend everybody to just take the Time and demo different Products. Don´t rely on Forum Assessments, Marketing and Endorsement. Some will prefer Waves, some UAD, some AA or maybe Softube - also depending on the Budget.

Me - personally - I am very happy with AA at the Moment. The Sound I am looking for is just some Clicks away with it. They are Time Savers and let me work much more relaxed than before.

[Najimad]

After having demoed some AA plugins:
Amethyst:
Pro
Best AA eq imo, it's almost like you can't make it sound bad, whatever you do
I liked it on e-guitar and bus
Con
Preamps - too weak
HONEY
PRO Comp smoothens a signal very nicely, sometimes just what you will need
I liked it on e-bass, perc and vocals, but it's
not what I expect a comp to be, it's a nice smoothener, though. Strange that you can have a gain reduction of 8 dB on plugin, but it's way less, but listen with your ears anyway
BIG Ceil
PRO
Channelstrip cs Good for acoustic instruments, very clean, eq great for adding air and cs also great for taming too prominent HH or high end in general
I liked it on acoustic guitar, strings, pads, piano and for controlling too harsh high end on bus
CAMEL
PRO EQ with a very special color, but might not work on every track or mix
I liked it on e-guitar, sometimes on bus
BLOND
PRO Pre-mixer is great the first one with some noticeable good effect, the plugin who gave me the most authentic analog feel, sometimes you even forgot you were sitting in front of a computer screen
I was blown away by the magic it added on vocals and e-piano
ERIN
PRO
Good eq for mastering adding that little extra to a mix without color, what I do not want in mastering after having added much color in mix already
Compressor also nice on drum bus, but you would have to use it at the very beginning of a project and render or freeze the track, in a project with 50 or more tracks, this plugin will make serious cpu issues
Ebony
PRO Interesting compressors, but there is still something I miss
CON reverb has too little tweaking options
I liked it on kick, snare and drum bus and on synths

I demoed some more, but they are not worth being mentioned for me. Worst plugin for me is Crimson, just did not like it and it's a cpu hog. Pretty strange, the less download size of an AA plugin, the more cpu you get.

Plugins I like best are Blond for the most authentic analog feel and Erin for the ability to add that little extra to a mix without affecting the nature of a mix too much.
These are my experiences with AA plugins, I would prefer to be able to buy plugins of a suite separately for example Amethyst's eq only and also zl installation as an option only, because I do not need it and could save some disc space and would not have plugins I never use in my pc's and daw's plugin folder

[tomheavybeats]

Acustica has great sounding plugins but also a workflow killer and eventually led me to stop using, couldn’t be bothered with all the track freezing. I love nebula and still use quite a few libraries (arguably more of a workflow killer but worth it for the better sound ). Acustica actually led me down the hardware route so I’m thankful to them for that. Oh and their MD is a pompous twit and really soured my experience with them

[briefcasemanx]

I have no idea what's going on with the acustica stuff. There's n4 and acquas and a bunch of other stuff and it seems like there might be multiple different ecosystems of some sort that may or may not be connected to each other.

There's a bunch of different names for a bunch of different things that are just thrown out expecting me to already know what they are. I go to the website about once a year when I get mildly interested and it's completely unclear what anything is and I just leave. I probably would have bought some of their stuff if their website made any sense.

I'll go check it out again right now since it's been awhile. Hopefully they've updated it to make sense for new people visiting the site.

[Najimad]

Well, the biggest disadvantage
of AA plugins is too high cpu usage, too high latency, sometimes causing artefacts and crashes. Best examples are Crimson and Multiband compressor of Pink, they are cpu monsters.

[Tj Shredder]

Maybe it's always more or less the same plugin just with a different gui haha But find out yourself.

Technically speaking it is. Its a huge amount of IRs weaved together hidden behind different UIs... It is most likely very precise, but the price is too high in all three areas: money, CPU and disk space...
On top, you can do what all these can do to with free VSTs as well, who cares about that specific character they might add??? (I know thats heresy...)

[simmo75]

I would avoid them like the plague, horrible company from an ethical point of view.

The plugins sound great but have awful performance even on very high spec machines, worse on mac from what I hear.

The cpu hit and horrible workflow was enough for me to sell nearly all of them.

Like someone else said, if you’re determined to get into AA, go for Nebula 4. The performance and sound quality from third party devs is way better than AA’s own. Tim P and Cupwise have some really good emulations.

That said, it’s just not worth it in my opinion, not until they can work out the performance related problems.

[Burillo]

i second that. they are regularly giving away freebies to entice new customers, but i stopped after the first freebie don't get me wrong, the technology is interesting, and perhaps it even sounds as good as people say it does (it didn't really sound better than everything else to me, but i don't claim to have good ears), but as products these plugins are just impossible to work with.

to top it off, the developer seems to be believing he's the smartest guy in the whole universe, which is reflected both in his attitude towards customers, as well as in how the Acqua installer works (or used to work back when i was trying out AA plugins) - installs god knows where, pain to find and uninstall. no respect whatsoever for OS conventions.

[Najimad]

I have Erin and sometimes all of a sudden you get a message to authorize your plugin and the plugin does not work any more. You have go to aquarius re authorize and maybe after 2 or 3 attempts it will work again.

[plexuss]

I have Erin and sometimes all of a sudden you get a message to authorize your plugin and the plugin does not work any more. You have go to aquarius re authorize and maybe after 2 or 3 attempts it will work again.

That never happens to me. I dont think this is a general AA issue and is specific to the poster. I wish people would be more accurarte with their posts. It'll never happen of course. Mind you if the poster uses proper grammar and didn't refer to himself as "you", that would help. Education has gone downhill....

[Razzia]

Well, the biggest disadvantage
of AA plugins is too high cpu usage, too high latency, sometimes causing artefacts and crashes. I ve found a few who sold their AA plugins beause of these issues again. It's not really fun using AA plugins. Best examples are Crimson and Multiband compresdor of Pink, they are cpu monsters.
It's like having a fancy car, but you can only drive from one gas station to the next gas station in order to refuel again and again, sometimes you won't even reach the station (breadown service!), that's nerving. Maybe it's always more or less the same plugin just with a different gui haha But find out yourself.

Some of them are pretty obvious if you know the look of the gear or other plugins that emulate gear. e.g. gold is Neve, Ultramarine is (in main part) a fairchild, coral is SPL iron and maybe passEQ, pink is API, magenta is Manley, etc. Others don’t look like what they emulate or are emulations of completely obscure stuff. there’s a list somewhere. If you ever decide you wanna look into it again, google justpasteit acustica master list... or something like that.


Just to add my .02 to the larger conversation, I think many of the AA plugs sound fantastic. I compared the Ultrmarine comp when it was on sale against my UAD Fairchild and bought it on the spot. I have a very beefy system, so the cpu hit doesn’t bother me that much, but the latency does. The zero latency versions are (obviously) more cpu hungry, and if you have a hybrid workflow of mixing and adding things as you go along, a handful of AA plugs will make the project quite unwieldy in terms of latency. I don’t mind freezing things though. Often I use hardware synths so a lot of stuff is already committed to audio. Makes little difference to print an effect on top of it.

[Jet Set]

Similar for me...

Use Acustica for ever mix - Pink/Coffee/Erin/Diamonds etc...

The CPU hit is entirely manageable and large mixes work no problem.

I regularly trial other options - but they keep themselves in the chain through sound quality.

And they’re reasonably priced....the current offer on Pink is a good deal IMHO.

[simmo75]

Similar for me...

Use Acustica for ever mix - Pink/Coffee/Erin/Diamonds etc...

The CPU hit is entirely manageable and large mixes work no problem.

I regularly trial other options - but they keep themselves in the chain through sound quality.

And they’re reasonably priced....the current offer on Pink is a good deal IMHO.

The cpu hit is totally unreasonable on Mac!

[Jet Set]

I use a Mac - iMac 2020.

I guess it depends on your system and where and how you need to use them?

Working on a mix as we speak... a drum and bass banger, not my usual style but what comes by, comes by.

It’s -

Pink on the drum buss

A few random Pink and Coffee pre amp modules across maybe 5/7 tracks.

Gainstations - one on bass buss one on drum buss, one on synth bass separate track.

Diamond transient on the drum buss

Diamond Dyn F on a bass track.

Diamond Lift on the mix buss

Diamond Transient on the mix buss

Coffee Eq on the mix buss

Coffee Comp on the mix buss/Alternated with Unisum...so maybe used / maybe not.

Some Tape fx on the mixbus...

This is with many other plugins running / the usual suspects - ProQ3 x many /ProMB/TDR stuff/Soothe/Gulfoss/Various compressors everywhere/many saturation plugins everywhere/Bassroom/DrMs/Metering Plugins

And of course my fx sends - 3 x Reverb /maybe 2 x delays / couple of modulation sends...

And a few more I am missing out..modulation fx/shaperboxes/trackspacers/RC20s/transient shapers...etc etc....

All running glitch free on Logic at 1024 and 42gb ram.

I’m not going to run a 100 track mix with Acustica on every track...of course not...but does it fit into my ITB mixing template? Absolutely.

If I need an eq on 20 tracks - I’ll go stock or similar...Acustica is always a buss/stereo buss plugin for me usually - that’s where it shines.

What can I say? They sound great and work perfectly for me...literally never had an issue with them...

The way some folks talk about them, you’d think they’re going to destroy your mixes and then burn your computer down...they’re just plug-ins...y’know, channel strips, an eq, and a compressor...and they’re usually very reasonably priced...nobody’s holding a gun to anyone’s head.

(And being a crusty old school bugger generally - I like an occasional old analog GUI...)

[Najimad]

I have Erin and sometimes all of a sudden you get a message to authorize your plugin and the plugin does not work any more. You have go to aquarius re authorize and maybe after 2 or 3 attempts it will work again.

That never happens to me. I dont think this is a general AA issue and is specific to the poster. I wish people would be more accurarte with their posts. It'll never happen of course. Mind you if the poster uses proper grammar and didn't refer to himself as "you", that would help. Education has gone downhill....

Well, Mr. Superclever, that's the way one or YOU can use a language, and "you" doesn't automatically includes YOU, it's generally speaking, and again, if YOU also had this issue, you would maybe have to do the steps I ve described in my post, I speak 7 languages on a high level and do not need some education here, thanks. Furthermore I am not the first to mention this specific issue, internet is full of complaints as to AA issues, bugs, high cpu, crashes, no resizable gui, bad compressors, no proper saturation, high down load size and latency and a strange behavior of their aquarius plugin management service. I have plugins of different developers and AA is far from being competitive imo
The only satisfactory thing AA manages to offer here and then is some nice eq, the rest regarding and comparing the whole thing is beyond acceptance, that's my opinion!
And a price more than 10 usd for their single plugins comparing them to their competitors is a joke.
And when I read how some use AA plugins with rendering or freezing I have to laugh, I mean we live in era of technology, but that's the opposite of progress, efficiency and innovation, it's simply a no-go!
I know and it's pretty obvious why some guys do not review AA plugins at all like eg MixbusTV or Warren Huart.
Everyone who likes using AA, should of course use it, I prefer a fast and hassle free workflow, though

@ jet set
"it depends on your system",
Well, all I can say, only AA plugins cause cpu, latency issues and some other strange behavior,, AA only ! But no one forces me to use AA, it's a free world and everyone can find out himself if a plugin works for him or not by installing a demo version
But BE careful with AA demo version, it's not the original version, obviously plugin sizes of demoes are way less! That's also something that's not correct and fair! It's a huge difference if a full version needs more than 10 GB, whereas demo has 6 gb "only". Also I remember that the real download size was way more than the size AA announces on Aquarius installer.

@simmo75
How many instances of
Pink multi band comp can you use in one project?
I am not the first to answer, "not even one" , it's a cpu monster. And pls a multiband comp for sure is not for mastering only, can also work great on single track, if usable. Also download size of pink is crazy...
I know, some do think, a plugin with a huge size is a better plugin, well, no comment...