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Mr Arkadin wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:07 pm Could you just open your own thread about your obsession with Dirk and all your acolytes can join in the fun there? It's really tiring listening to your repetition of how you hate Dirk/the business model whilst not actually discussing the topic at hand. We all know where you stand by now, so how about giving it a rest? It's kind of obsessive behaviour to follow every PA thread, why not do your mental health a favour and forget about Dirk and move on? Harbouring grudges isn't good.
You know you’re right, i’ll just make it my signature
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martinjuenke wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 7:27 pm
Najimad wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:27 pm
have you also looked under my bed?
Yes, and it was quite disappointing :lol: :lol: :lol:
Have you lost an iLok dongle there?
Oh I see, someone wants to give me
access to the real good plugins :D

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Najimad wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:35 pm That's an answer! Thanks
I tested it a lot, but it added
something unpleasant, hard to describe.
I could describe 9000 j better,
so called low end rumble is something
we all want to avoid,
even though 9000 j is praised for
its low end, I just did not like it,
it made ow end so unpleasant,
muddy, boomy sounding.
Well, I do not use the instruments and mics you use, my room is different, so we all have different ways and challenges to make our mixes sound pleasant to our ears.
the 9000 has a low end EQ band, that you can change the frequency on AND a high pass filter - so you can boost the lows AND cut out low end rumble at the same time.

Maybe your room has a low end rumble? Though you said you couldn't hear what the black box was doing to improve sounds... So maybe it's just your ears....?

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Ploki wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:56 pm
_leras wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:39 pm Not entirely sure you're being fair on PA. I think they have quite a few really decent plugins, and you can pick most up pretty cheaply. bx_digital, elysia alpha, very decent consoles... excellent saturation blackbox/phils cascade... what's wrong with any of those?
Ploki wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 3:43 pm Also a couple of plugs coded by Ray.
both black box and phil's cascade were done by ray, also i think vertigo stuff and a few others.

as for what's wrong:
their owner and business model
What's the issue? They reduce the price of older plug ins that are selling at lower volumes to make more sales overall. You can then buy older, but still great plugins, at a low cost from time to time.

Plug ins are like albums or games - they sell more at launch then sales fall.

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_leras wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:10 pm
What's the issue? They reduce the price of older plug ins that are selling at lower volumes to make more sales overall. You can then buy older, but still great plugins, at a low cost from time to time.

Plug ins are like albums or games - they sell more at launch then sales fall.
but in short:
Out of two bugs i reported in the last 3 months, zero got addressed and not ETA was given on any. Some bugs are old (1y+) that were present at launch. In contrast, devs like Tone Projects, Fuse Audio, Voxengo, FabFilter, u-he, etc usually respond to support quicker than i can reply.
Then there's ticket mass purge that happened last year.

So whatever PA/bx sells take at face value, don't expect fixed or expect any extra features (or features for free. they charged oversampling for SHMC).
What's wrong with their owner is pretty apparent after you've complained - or reported a bug even - or criticised anything about PA.
In short - you get exactly what you pay for. You're not robbing them of anything. You're not getting a bargain, you're getting a 29$ plugin that's not worth a penny more.

And lastly, it's all in my signature
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Ploki wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 3:06 pm And lastly, it's all in my signature
Fair enough. I haven't come across any bugs that have caused a real issue with the plug ins of theirs I have.

But I do understand that it's frustrating if you have had that kind of issue - and nothing being done is very annoying.

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_leras wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 2:06 pm
Najimad wrote: Mon Jun 14, 2021 5:35 pm That's an answer! Thanks
I tested it a lot, but it added
something unpleasant, hard to describe.
I could describe 9000 j better,
so called low end rumble is something
we all want to avoid,
even though 9000 j is praised for
its low end, I just did not like it,
it made ow end so unpleasant,
muddy, boomy sounding.
Well, I do not use the instruments and mics you use, my room is different, so we all have different ways and challenges to make our mixes sound pleasant to our ears.
the 9000 has a low end EQ band, that you can change the frequency on AND a high pass filter - so you can boost the lows AND cut out low end rumble at the same time.

Maybe your room has a low end rumble? Though you said you couldn't hear what the black box was doing to improve sounds... So maybe it's just your ears....?
If you record for instance an acoustic guitar with mic, there is always some rumble or boominess, it's in the nature of recording acoustic guitars, you will hear it confirmed on many YouTube videos by prof engineers and 9000 j for sure won't make it better, not for me. This channelstrip just does not work for me, there are other plugins that do work for me. Black Box also not for me, have some other saturators that do work for me. Shadow Hills, well, I have a volume fader in my daw and do not need a fancy gui on my computer screen :D
If it works for someone, great

There are muddy, boomy and whatever frequencies that always belong to a mix, just tame them or give em a nice place in the mix. It's not about eliminating. Also masking is a big topic, masking per se is not a bad thing, some put so much effort on demasking that the result is a super boring, ultra clean lifeless mix. But whoever likes it, well, why not!

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Najimad wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:58 pmIf you record for instance an acoustic guitar with mic, there is always some rumble or boominess, it's in the nature of recording acoustic guitars,
Of course, and that's what hi pass filters are for (other than appropriate mic positioning of course).
Najimad wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:58 pm9000 j for sure won't make it better, not for me.
It has a great hi pass filter.

Anyway, if you can't make the EQ work for you, you probably don't like SSL eq's in general (they are fairly aggressive and small gain adjustments on the knob are actually quite large gain adjustments generally), and/or you might prefer a more graphic/visual approach, where you can see the frequencies and then dial in the appropriate curve where you want.

Anyway, if the SSL 9000 J is good enough for Mike Brauer, who spent much of his career mixing huge records on a real 9000 J, and now uses the bx version on every channel in the box - and still mixes hit records with it - I'm sure it's plenty good enough for the rest of us. :wink:

I really like it anyway, and have really enjoyed getting back to a channel strip workflow (with hardware control) as it's great for me to instantly have EQ and dynamics under my fingers directly on any channel, like the old days of analog consoles, where everything was a bit more immediate. But this workflow isn't for everybody, and some people just don't like channel strip-type plugins in general.

You just need to find what works for you, and I think you've made it clear now that few of the PA plugins work for you, so maybe other threads will be more productive for you about the tools that you *do* like..?

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Najimad wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 7:58 pm If you record for instance an acoustic guitar with mic, there is always some rumble or boominess, it's in the nature of recording acoustic guitars, you will hear it confirmed on many YouTube videos by prof engineers and 9000 j for sure won't make it better, not for me. This channelstrip just does not work for me, there are other plugins that do work for me. Black Box also not for me, have some other saturators that do work for me. Shadow Hills, well, I have a volume fader in my daw and do not need a fancy gui on my computer screen :D
If it works for someone, great

There are muddy, boomy and whatever frequencies that always belong to a mix, just tame them or give em a nice place in the mix. It's not about eliminating. Also masking is a big topic, masking per se is not a bad thing, some put so much effort on demasking that the result is a super boring, ultra clean lifeless mix. But whoever likes it, well, why not!
If you really want to clean up rumble more precisely you're better off with something with more bands where you can notch out a few of the offending resonances. *If it isn't just your room and speakers.

If you want to clean up rumble you can on the 9000 J you can use the LMF band with a high Q and cut as much as you need, or the HPF, or the low band of the EQ. But sure, maybe this flavour of channel strip doesn't work for you. Maybe you expect too much as it only has basic compression and gate, low and high filters plus a fairly standard four band EQ.

It's not going to set the world on fire, but it'd be a great tool to use and have a consistent interface to be easy to use over a mix. I have the older SSL E and think it's pretty decent - the 'sound' you get from a channel strip like this may not be 'special' in and of itself but adds up when used across more tracks.

Which saturator do you think is better than the Black Box? Would be interested to hear. I love distortion and saturation and always on the look out for more flavours.

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not clue why would i use a 9000J to clean stuff up.
I'll use Soothe or a bog-standard parametric.
_leras wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:36 pm Which saturator do you think is better than the Black Box? Would be interested to hear. I love distortion and saturation and always on the look out for more flavours.
okay despite my PA hate i actually have a great respect for Ray who coded Black Box (and also Phil's Cascade), and i can't really fault either of those two plugins despite the fact that i hate PA, so i'm not talking out of bias here - i actually love Phil's Cascade and I think it's one of the most "tubey" ITB plugs there is.

That said, i think Tone Projects Kelvin is better than Black Box because it simply does more, and does most of what Black Box does (imo!). Pre-emphasis is brilliant and i think it should be stock on every modern saturator - i don't know why it isn't.

I also like and use Softube Harmonics a lot - it's just stupid simple to use and has a nice flavour.

Special saturators are Voxengo Warmifier (which is one of the very rare saturators that's not a waveshaper), when i want a really analog subtle "feel" (Voxengo Peakbuster despite being a transient designer is also a good for some additional grit)
Aaand Wavesfactory Spectre - also special. In de-emphasis mode it allows you to just pull out and emphasize the harmonics, so it's pretty easy to colour the sound in the way to add only what you feel is missing - and is better than simply using an EQ.

Voxengo Powershaper which is more than a distortion if you don't push it - i found a lot of Kush Omega flavours in Voxengo Powershaper.

I did try Black Box, and didn't find it better than the aforementioned. I didn't find it worse either! I just don't find it special compared to some of them.

As for Phil's Cascade, i found a "substitute" for it in Ray's own Fuse Audio VPRE-2C. I still sometimes wish i didn't hate PA so much so i could use it. :D but hey.
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beely wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 8:54 pm Anyway, if the SSL 9000 J is good enough for Mike Brauer, who spent much of his career mixing huge records on a real 9000 J, and now uses the bx version on every channel in the box - and still mixes hit records with it - I'm sure it's plenty good enough for the rest of us. :wink:

I really like it anyway, and have really enjoyed getting back to a channel strip workflow (with hardware control) as it's great for me to instantly have EQ and dynamics under my fingers directly on any channel, like the old days of analog consoles, where everything was a bit more immediate. But this workflow isn't for everybody, and some people just don't like channel strip-type plugins in general.
Exactly this!

Of course not forgetting that Brauer also uses an infamous calibrated multi bus mixing setup (and I'm sure also extra plug ins on individual channels!)

I think if you have every thing sounding great a consistent strip can make it easy to do final, non character EQ to get things to sit right, some consistent compression to help get a 'groove' across tracks. I've done a few tracks with PA's SSL E and it gives a nice record vibe - so I can only think the 9000 is great as well. I think the E holds up well against the UAD stuff.

I've been doing a collaboration over the past while where I couldn't use my UAD as my band mate doesn't have it. We picked up the SSL E and the £30 Waves Scheps Omni Channel Plug, which is really very good indeed. Unexpected things for a strip like:
saturation,
different filter steepness options
low end 'bump' option
different EQ curves per band
stereo, dual, m/s options per function
different compressor types, with good sidechain options
mono button
limiter!!

And guess what... If it's good enough for Andrew Scheps - well it's plenty good enough for the rest of us :hihi:

For this particular project Scheps gets the more prominent instruments and parts, and the SSL E get almost everything else.

In the box tools have been good enough for mixing for at least a decade now. There's only really minutia to argue over these days....

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Ploki wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:48 pm
_leras wrote: Tue Jun 15, 2021 9:36 pm Which saturator do you think is better than the Black Box? Would be interested to hear. I love distortion and saturation and always on the look out for more flavours.
That said, i think Tone Projects Kelvin is better than Black Box because it simply does more, and does most of what Black Box does (imo!). Pre-emphasis is brilliant and i think it should be stock on every modern saturator - i don't know why it isn't.

I also like and use Softube Harmonics a lot - it's just stupid simple to use and has a nice flavour.

Special saturators are Voxengo Warmifier
(Voxengo Peakbuster despite being a transient designer is also a good for some additional grit)
Aaand Wavesfactory Spectre - also special. In de-emphasis mode it allows you to just pull out and emphasize the harmonics,

Voxengo Powershaper which is more than a distortion if you don't push it

As for Phil's Cascade, i found a "substitute" for it in Ray's own Fuse Audio VPRE-2C. I still sometimes wish i didn't hate PA so much so i could use it. :D but hey.
Thanks - nice list to check out. And it seems Kelvin is reduced until 9th July so plenty of time to check it out. That one looks super easy to dial in and that it would crank up to a full distortion like a culture vulture. Interested to hear the pre emphasis. I know I still like that Ohmicide has an input level so you can hit it at the right level, I guess it allows that sort of thing?

Black box has become my go to for just thickening and warming up a sound a little bit. Subtle, but noticeable if removed type effect. And sometime will ride up the distortion to emphasis something. I think it's great for that type of thing.

Always looking for new distortion flavours though!

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Pre-emphasis is a bit different because it's a bit more broad than straight up split-band distortion like Ohmicide does it.
it's like having an EQ going into the distortion, then an inverse EQ going out of the distortion - frequency balances remains the same, phase remains the same, drive flavour remains the same, but WHAT gets saturated by what amount changes with pre/inversepost gain :)
i don't know any other plugin that has that and it's really not rocket science and it makes a saturation 100x times more flexible. The moment when you think you hit "just right" and the only thing that wrecks it is the next bass note? No problem, simply pull down lows on the pre-emphasis - and everything remains the same.

Black Box is great yeah. Ray knows his tubes :wink:
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That sounds really useful for saturation. Will def try this.

My previous post wasn't worded well.. only meant the input trim in ohmicide where it has an led so you can tell if you have the optimal level. I saw this Kelvin had something similar. The pee post EQ though, looks really useful and fun!

Thanks for the info.

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There are lots of saturation plugins, find out by yourself what works best FOR YOU. All kind of plugins can be used for saturation, mayby also try mike-e.
I do not like eleminating frequencies completely by using a notch filter, let the instrument be the way it is, just find harmonizing result in a mix without destroying its soul. I like mixes with live character like from a rehearsal or gig, I like 1970ies sound with unperfections lots of masking, extra noise, but with a great vibe.
Newbies could have been tempted to buy pa plugins when they read this thread before I posted. I recommend to compare. A list price of 349, on sales for 35, so cheap???
Of course so cheap, most of these plugins are not worth more than 5 imo!
It took quite long for Waves to have so many plugins, PA obviously imitates it and want to reach same success in a short time!
When you wanna go fast, quality might lack ;)
What a great professional homepage with lots of bla bla, agressive marketing and promotion... they obviously want to make money and it's legit. Some Brauer engineer says he uses this and that plugin, CLA presents this and that Waves plugins.
Who is so stupid to believe they use it in a prof production with hundreds of high quality hardware around them haha
Especially newbies can be influenced easily, I was a newbie as well.
An influencer says a special plugin is crap and you will read posts like " I bought plugin a while ago and use it. I guess it was a mistake:(" or the opposite when a plugin is hyped. Unbelievable! All of a sudden a plugin is bad, just because someone says it's bad, but before it was good???
Don't some people have an opiniin of their own?!
I recommend to compare, pa knows how to hype, but there are smaller, way greater devs like TDR, Klanghelm, Vallhala, BOZ, LVC, DDMF etc, but also bigger devs like Softube, Voxengo, Fabfilter, Waves, Eventide etc Just COMPARE! We all know who developed the best SSL comp emu, for so many years no one could make it better, it is never on sales and you won't hardly get it second hand for a good reason. And maybe try to find out whether something works for you without being influenced by anybody's opinion.
I had a pa one year subscription, enough time to check their plugins. Today I would not install or use any PA plugin, there are other devs making a better job imo
And I agree with someone here, I have to repeat, because I have my opinion, my message is all that glitters ain't gold and
COMPARE AND HAVE A GOOD TIME!

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