Celestial FREE Plugin

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Najimad wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 4:17 pm Well, today like in the early years of radio way more than 50% listen to mono, me included on my mono smartphone. When I track to my daw, I use headphones, so I also listen on headphones. Well, low end is an important part and mostly when a mix does not sound well, the cause is in low end. I see, for ambient music the plugin might work, but I mix my songs either in mono or use a mono maker at around 230 Hz. But if you turn the harmonics knob to the left, it is a kinda mono maker, too, not knowing which frequencies are affected. My first impression trying the plugin on a single track with turning knob to the right was positive, but as usual, you should first and foremost listen how something sounds in the whole mix and then there was too much low end, so turning the knob to the right is a no go for me and my music genres. Plugin is a great for taming high end, though. This kind of plugins can have results, you will not notice until you listen in mono. I had some stereo imaging demo plugin by Matthew Lane, first I thought, it is great, but when I listened in mono, my stereo acoustic guitar all of a sudden was gone, you did not hear it any more.... so I am happy, I did not buy it, it's useless for me. One of my fav records was recorded mono, too - kind of blue
a lot of people use headphones today. And iPhones are stereo since iPhone 7.
i don't care about mono compatibility anyway, because mono is lesser experience anyway. I mix for best possible system not lowest common denominator and it generally translates well.
Else you could hipass at 80hz and lowpass at 15k by the exact same logic, but you don't do that.

Forcefully monoizing at 230Hz seems like poor practice to me. either arrange mono, or leave it be.
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Regarding the size of an iphone you won't get a stereo experience, so it doesn't matter whether it's mono or stereo anyway, you would not experience a big difference. I have two smartphones, one mono, one stereo and do not perceive a big difference on the small speakers. Did I write I use an iphone? And do not consider the habits of the civilization of the western world only, the majority listens to mono. Maybe also watch kids listening to music on their small smartphone speakers, where it does not matter whether a song is mono or stereo. To spend money on big speakers or high quality sound systems for private use was a 1980ies and 1990ies thing, I suppose. Monoizing at 230 Hz or sometimes 180 hz or sometimes 150 Hz or... works fine for me, why should I stop doing it, low end sounds the way I like, most low end instruments like kick or bass are mono in most cases anyway. There are no rules, so just do it the way you prefer. Especially piano on a stereo mix I keep mono and pan it in order to get no blending issues with other instruments, a piano can occupy a big frequeny range. There are hardware units and plugins with a mono maker function, so why do you think they invented it, maybe to keep your low end mono!? I am not the only one using it for sure... As I wrote, I often make mono mixes anyway. I do not get the point why mono is lesser experience, if a song is groovy, it will make you move, whether it's mono or stereo or do you prefer moving a guitar solo from the very left to the very right?

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Ploki wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 1:46 pm
Najimad wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 6:49 am There is one feature that makes no sense for me. Harmonics knob can make low end wider. Why would you make low end wider ? To add low end rumble ? Normally you would do just the opposite and make i.e. everything below 100- 200 Hz mono, wouldn´t you?
then comes billie eilish with "therefore i am" and makes bass cancel itself in mono and it gets 125million views on yt and absolutely -nobody- except some <something derogatory> producers give a shit if its mono-compatible or not
Just checked. Nice bass. :D Not my kind of music but I appreciate production quality. The very minimal arrangement so there is a lot of space for stereo bass like that.
I like when people are breaking rules in audio and they're proving that they still can be successful.

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I ran a random production midi file through it recently, sounded amazing actually.

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pixel85 wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 9:24 pm

Just checked. Nice bass. :D Not my kind of music but I appreciate production quality. The very minimal arrangement so there is a lot of space for stereo bass like that.
I like when people are breaking rules in audio and they're proving that they still can be successful.
i know right? I have stereo woofers, so each of my sides is full-range (down to 10hz). It's so mind-boggling and just fun to listen to - very well executed.
Najimad wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 8:10 pm Regarding the size of an iphone you won't get a stereo experience, so it doesn't matter whether it's mono or stereo anyway, you would not experience a big difference. I have two smartphones, one mono, one stereo and do not perceive a big difference on the small speakers. Did I write I use an iphone? And do not consider the habits of the civilization of the western world only, the majority listens to mono. Maybe also watch kids listening to music on their small smartphone speakers, where it does not matter whether a song is mono or stereo. To spend money on big speakers or high quality sound systems for private use was a 1980ies and 1990ies thing, I suppose. Monoizing at 230 Hz or sometimes 180 hz or sometimes 150 Hz or... works fine for me, why should I stop doing it, low end sounds the way I like, most low end instruments like kick or bass are mono in most cases anyway. There are no rules, so just do it the way you prefer. Especially piano on a stereo mix I keep mono and pan it in order to get no blending issues with other instruments, a piano can occupy a big frequeny range. There are hardware units and plugins with a mono maker function, so why do you think they invented it, maybe to keep your low end mono!? I am not the only one using it for sure... As I wrote, I often make mono mixes anyway. I do not get the point why mono is lesser experience, if a song is groovy, it will make you move, whether it's mono or stereo or do you prefer moving a guitar solo from the very left to the very right?
I mix everything proverbial Mid-side, so things are either phantom center or LR (stereo). I don't need a moving guitar solo because i wired my guitar stereo, so it's simply stereo.

Sure if a movie is good it can be black and white. if a song is good it doesn't need to be mixed in the first place.
Some songs might even benefit from mono as a stylistic choice. (i.e. Dream Wife - Fire. It's extremely mono, but works incredibly well)
I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing that defaulting everything to mono below 200Hz (or 150) is a bad choice. Do it if it's necessary and if it fits, not just to do it.
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The ZL version of the plugin has a huge cpu usage. I know it's not a secret that AA are heavy on cpu and cause latency. Instead of offering a cpu friendly version for performing with lower quality, AA's zl versions make everything even worse and not usable. Also downloading these stupid zl versions should just be an option to save disc space, anyway it's crazy that installing vst2 and vst3 version means twice the huge disc space for one plugin. AA definitely needs someone like Steve Jobs to make things better and more usable. Now the reply to my complaint would be "it's not possible with our special technology to make our plugins smaller in size, more cpu and latency friendly". Jobs would say something like this to his team "Find a way and find it within two weeks!". That's more or less how he succeded to make his visions come to true, of course you need the right people around you, people who know about software solutions, not just people who make plugins where the look of the plugin and the manuals are regarded as art, completely wrong focus. Some of their plugins are nice, but usability and concept could be improved imo

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I, on the other hand, don't use the ZL versions but don't really mind them being installed. I suppose I could just search "ZL" on my plugin folders and delete them if I wanted. I have lots of disk space. macOS. macpro. 2T boot SSD, 6T audio drive, etc. It's a different use-case than, say, someone with 500G of soldered on SSD a la newer macbooc pro. . Just goes to show that if you are a plugin company you'll be damned if you do damned if you dont.

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Najimad wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:50 am The ZL version of the plugin has a huge cpu usage. I know it's not a secret that AA are heavy on cpu and cause latency. Instead of offering a cpu friendly version for performing with lower quality, AA's zl versions make everything even worse and not usable. Also downloading these stupid zl versions should just be an option to save disc space, anyway it's crazy that installing vst2 and vst3 version means twice the huge disc space for one plugin. AA definitely needs someone like Steve Jobs to make things better and more usable. Now the reply to my complaint would be "it's not possible with our special technology to make our plugins smaller in size, more cpu and latency friendly". Jobs would say something like this to his team "Find a way and find it within two weeks!". That's more or less how he succeded to make his visions come to true, of course you need the right people around you, people who know about software solutions, not just people who make plugins where the look of the plugin and the manuals are regarded as art, completely wrong focus. Some of their plugins are nice, but usability and concept could be improved imo
Exactly! Boss of the company should slap a whip over employees heads to motivate them and then whip them if they don't do job on time.
I also don't care about AA employees wellbeing. All what matters is that I'll have cool plugins in my PC. No matter that some technologies require more processing power than modern computers can deliver.
Same for video games. $2k graphic card can't run my favorite game in highest settings? Damn game devs weren't pushed beyond their limits enough!
Jobs is nothing. In ancient Egypt they knew how to deal with "employees" to build pyramids and not a single complaint reported. They had perfect management.

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Well, it's a difference whether one has to use his brawn or his brain, I suppose. Mobile phones once were pretty big, now they are small, everything is possible, you just need a goal you want to achieve.
If your main focus is on making fancy guis and manuals, well, then usability might fall by the wayside. The main reason for some not to go for AA plugins is cpu usage and latency without any doubt. The main target for plugin sellers are homestudios and not professional producers with lots of hardware. The latter still use hardware more than plugins regardless of a few exceptions

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plexuss wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 7:06 am I, on the other hand, don't use the ZL versions but don't really mind them being installed. I suppose I could just search "ZL" on my plugin folders and delete them if I wanted. I have lots of disk space. macOS. macpro. 2T boot SSD, 6T audio drive, etc. It's a different use-case than, say, someone with 500G of soldered on SSD a la newer macbooc pro. . Just goes to show that if you are a plugin company you'll be damned if you do damned if you dont.
tbh installing bloat is pointless whether you have 5TB or 0.5TB of space.
Najimad wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 9:59 am Well, it's a difference whether one has to use his brawn or his brain, I suppose. Mobile phones once were pretty big, now they are small, everything is possible, you just need a goal you want to achieve.
If your main focus is on making fancy guis and manuals, well, then usability might fall by the wayside. The main reason for some not to go for AA plugins is cpu usage and latency without any doubt. The main target for plugin sellers are homestudios and not professional producers with lots of hardware. The latter still use hardware more than plugins regardless of a few exceptions
mobiles phones used to be a lot smaller than they are now :D

I have no clue what Acoustica's point or target it since i'm not interested.
I installed it once to try them out - they looked blocky and dated on my retina display, took tons of gigabytes and they felt sloppy. Not a fan of sloppy and bloaty software
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Najimad wrote: Tue Feb 16, 2021 9:59 am Well, it's a difference whether one has to use his brawn or his brain, I suppose. Mobile phones once were pretty big, now they are small, everything is possible, you just need a goal you want to achieve.
If your main focus is on making fancy guis and manuals, well, then usability might fall by the wayside. The main reason for some not to go for AA plugins is cpu usage and latency without any doubt. The main target for plugin sellers are homestudios and not professional producers with lots of hardware. The latter still use hardware more than plugins regardless of a few exceptions
Exactly. Phones were first big then small. But tge weren't immediately small. Time and technology evolution was necessary. Same is for computers. In last years computer technology evolution is slowing down. A lot. It's opposite to phones. Were getting new CPUs with zillion cores and 4GHz single core performance... If computer evolution speed would be the same like from 1970-2000 then now maybe we would have computers capable to handle AA plugins.
Actually I could run huge sessions with minimum 1 AA channel strip per channel. Unfortunately I can't. Not because of CPU/RAM limit but because these ugins are buggy in Cubase and DAW crash every time when I add more than particular number of the same plugin (when there's still a lot of RAM and CPU available).
I remember times where I could buy new PC almost every year and I could saw performance boost. A year ago I jumped 3 generations up with Intel CPU just to see 0 performance boost.
Its like now, new mobile phones doesn't bring anything exciting anymore. Not everything can constantly evolve in fast pace. Everything has its limits.

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I prefer using a single plugin that gives me good results faster (Celestial), instead of trying to figure out how to replace it with 1 or 2 algorithmic plugins. I did that in the past and didn't like the amount of time spent. Also I could never get the same character compared to original. Track freezing is a must with Acustica plugins. That's the tradeoff, if one wants to take advantage of their products.
Recently I thought I didn't hear much difference, when I compared two level matched versions. That was until I rendered them as audio and gave my ears a short rest. Then I could definitely tell that Celestial Mix improved my sound. What's even better I didn't engage EQ or COMP sections.
Celestial Mix is an effortless character channel strip. I'm grateful to Acustica Audio for this valuable offering. Their commitment to improving products can be clearly seen in the Aquarius Updates section. Not one or two, but multiple revisions for the same plugin. Even their well-known TAN received a lot of attention, despite being released many years ago.

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plexuss wrote: Mon Feb 15, 2021 5:58 pm I don't write music for people who listen to mono.
We should print this on the next KVR t-shirt. :D
Thu Oct 01, 2020 1:15 pm Passing Bye wrote:
"look at SparkySpark's post 4 posts up, let that sink in for a moment"
Go MuLab!

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