Any Thoughts On TC MD4 Native?

[AC222]

Hello Folks,

Thought someone might be me to it since it's been available for a bit now but curious to hear the community thoughts about the new release of the MD4 Native.

I have to admit that I've found many of the available software multiband compressors and brickwall limiters have not given me the punch that hardware counterparts deliver but this one actually looks pretty promising.

There's been a chorus of voices pounding the table for this for years from TC and finally delivering. Any thoughts here?

[sl1200mk2]

I had been one those who was clamoring for getting an updated version, but now I'm on the fence with it so far. I think a lot of it goes back to memories of having my Powercore setup (PoCo + Creamware Pulsar II was a formidable setup back in the day). I installed the demo of MD4... overall, it's very good if not great. But my problem so far is that there's many other 'great' options that I already have. Things have come a long (long) way even in just the past couple years. Had TC come out with this 4-5 years ago it'd have been game over and would have become the defacto ITB standard to which everything else would be judged against. Now? There's an awful lot of competition and excellent options with many of them arguably (or at least personally preferable) better options for their given task.

Right now, I think the strength of MD4 is you get a lot in one plugin and that's a strong appeal if you're looking for an (almost) complete solution. Great EQ, great multiband comp (with DXP mode) and decent limiter in one go. You still need a brickwall limiter. If I didn't have a bunch of excellent options for these already it'd have been a no brainer and I'd have probably bought it without even a trial. Right now though... I'm a lot less excited now that I've actually tried it. That doesn't mean it's a bad product, but rather they just might be a little late to the game at this point at least for me.

I think the asking price is reasonably fair for what you're getting if you keep in the context of what it is (several high quality tools in one). It's not going to appeal to the causal user. If/when it goes on sale I'll likely pick it up as another option/flavor, but for right now I can live without it.

[AC222]

Great post! The thing that tempts me the most is that multiband limiter. Checking it out, it seems to "grab" better than other software alternatives IMHO. Thinking of picking this up just for that alone.

[Muziksculp]

I have Ozone 9 Advanced, and other mastering plugins, would I need MD4 ?

imho. TC Electronics should have released these Native Plugins a few years ago, they are late to the party.

I will download the demo of MD4, and try to answer this question. But if others who use Ozone 9 can post some feedback on this, I would appreciate it.



Thanks.

[sl1200mk2]

I have Ozone 9 Advanced, and other mastering plugins, would I need MD4 ?

It really depends on how you use Ozone and what your preferences are. For example, Ozone has several tools that MD4 doesn't have like the brickwall limiter, Imager and Exciter among others. Also, the EQ in Ozone has a dynamic option whereas MD4 does not. That said, I personally prefer the overall sound of the EQ and multiband compressor in MD4.

So, there's definitely similarities between them, but I personally only use Ozone largely for the limiter and hardly use the other functions, so if I had to pick between the two it'd be MD4. Overall, Ozone is the better value though if you like the results you get and make good use of its other tools.

[Muziksculp]

I have Ozone 9 Advanced, and other mastering plugins, would I need MD4 ?

It really depends on how you use Ozone and what your preferences are. For example, Ozone has several tools that MD4 doesn't have like the brickwall limiter, Imager and Exciter among others. Also, the EQ in Ozone has a dynamic option whereas MD4 does not. That said, I personally prefer the overall sound of the EQ and multiband compressor in MD4.

So, there's definitely similarities between them, but I personally only use Ozone largely for the limiter and hardly use the other functions, so if I had to pick between the two it'd be MD4. Overall, Ozone is the better value though if you like the results you get and make good use of its other tools.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Muziksculp]

I installed the demos of their VSS4 HD, and MD4, but It seems like they have something buggy with their VSS4 HD plugin which might be causing the high CPU consumption, I'm also unable to access the VST3 versions, although they seem to be installed. So, something is buggy with their plugins. Someone mentioned that they will be updating their plugin to fix the issues. Both are at version 1.0 at this time. Hopefully the next versions will fix the issues.

UPDATE:

OK. I was able to fix the VST3 version not showing up in S1Pro 5.2 by removing the VST3 versions form the TC Electronic Folder that it installed them in, and move them one level up in the folder structure. Started S1Pro 5.2, and it scanned both plugins at startup, and they both showed up as VST3 plugins.

For some reason S1 didn't scan them when they were inside the TC Electronic folder.

Hope this is helpful.

[SteveWZ]

Been using these for years, in fact the hardware is sitting right here.

I did a buy out of several hardware systems but its nice to see them ported out for PC.

I just did some testing with the VSS4 HD, back to back with several popular reverb plugins (including the Relab emulations) and the TC VSS3 HD.

The VSS4 HD sounds pretty darn good.

Some examples of the VSS4 HD HERE and the VSS3 HD HERE.

The MD4 still sounds excellent.

I really liked these plugins way back when they first came out.
I am impressed to see how well they stack up with the much newer plugins.

Very useful tools.

[Muziksculp]

Been using these for years, in fact the hardware is sitting right here.

I did a buy out of several hardware systems but its nice to see them ported out for PC.

I just did some testing with the VSS4 HD, back to back with several popular reverb plugins (including the Relab emulations) and the TC VSS3 HD.

The VSS4 HD sounds pretty darn good.

Some examples of the VSS4 HD HERE and the VSS3 HD HERE.

The MD4 still sounds excellent.

I really liked these plugins way back when they first came out.
I am impressed to see how well they stack up with the much newer plugins.

Very useful tools.

The demo of the VSS4 HD , one instance is using up 44% of my CPU. How is the CPU usage for you ?

Using Studio One Pro 5.2 , Windwos 10.

[AC222]

I'm seeing similar reports of high CPU usage on the GS forum

[SteveWZ]

Been using these for years, in fact the hardware is sitting right here.

I did a buy out of several hardware systems but its nice to see them ported out for PC.

I just did some testing with the VSS4 HD, back to back with several popular reverb plugins (including the Relab emulations) and the TC VSS3 HD.

The VSS4 HD sounds pretty darn good.

Some examples of the VSS4 HD HERE and the VSS3 HD HERE.

The MD4 still sounds excellent.

I really liked these plugins way back when they first came out.
I am impressed to see how well they stack up with the much newer plugins.

Very useful tools.

The demo of the VSS4 HD , one instance is using up 44% of my CPU. How is the CPU usage for you ?

Using Studio One Pro 5.2 , Windwos 10.

No, not high like that and I am working at 96kHz.

There have been some reports of high CPU.
I dont know the specs of the systems reporting these so its hard to say if its a programming issue.

VSS3 HD has low CPU usage.
VSS4 HD is a true stereo reverb so its like 2 reverbs processing at once which may account for some of the higher CPU cycles.

[Muziksculp]

Hi,

Here is a comparison video I just published on YT. Showing both the TC Electronic VSS4 HD, and Relab Development VSR S24.

I'm using the demo version of the TC Electronic VSS4 HD.

I haven't had a chance to demo the TC Elec. VSS3, but I think I will test the demo as well, just out of curiosity.

The VSS4 HD sounds really good, but the CPU it is a huge CPU guzzler, hopefully they can fix this issue via an update soon.

OH.. and I also demoed the TC Electronic MD4, and it is a fantastic plugin.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEJvtZjSPrk

[AC222]

Thanks for sharing. Great upload. Gotta say VSS4 sounds so much more lifelike than the Relab version. The Relab version sounds a bit more smeary or phasey and VSS4 seems to wrap itself around the soundsource in a more natural manner as opposed to sounding pasted on top. Just my humble opinion. Cheers.

[zerocrossing]

Here’s a photo of me and my band mates using it to master our last track.

[Muziksculp]

Thanks for sharing. Great upload. Gotta say VSS4 sounds so much more lifelike than the Relab version. The Relab version sounds a bit more smeary or phasey and VSS4 seems to wrap itself around the soundsource in a more natural manner as opposed to sounding pasted on top. Just my humble opinion. Cheers.

Yes, I agree. You have good ears

The TC Elec. VSS4 HD sounds richer, fuller, and more up front, and present as part of the source. I would even say it sounds more musical to my ears.

The Relab version is more transparent, and doesn't seem to warp it self around the soundsource. Sometimes that's what is needed. So, I think both reverbs are useful to have if you are picky about reverbs.