Who makes your favorite Analog Emulations?

[Boy Wonder]

I do like a lot of Plugin Alliance's EQ's and compressors; unfortunately, they're too rich for my blood.

[Halonmusic]

Full Bucket and TAL

[zerocrossing]

Softube
U-He
Arturia
Brainworx
Pulsar

[dmbaer]

I didn't mention it in this thread but Magnetic II is still one of my all time favorite plugins. It has that thick warm tape effect I love.

Absolutely agree. I know a lot of folks seem to look down on Magnetic, but I don't care if there are more realistic emulations out there, I just love the sound. My go-to chain for warming up a too-digital synth sound is NF Pulseteq EQ, IKM Vinage Tube Compressor 670 (with just a light kiss of actual compression), and Magnetic II.

I also love the NF Analog Signature trio of plug-ins for the same purpose. You have to be very careful not to overdrive them or there's what sounds to me like internal clipping. I hope the NF restoration effort addresses that so these become a bit easier to use. Same goes for their Echoes delay, which is another overlooked gem that one nevertheless has to be very careful not to over drive.

[jamcat]

I do like a lot of Plugin Alliance's EQ's and compressors; unfortunately, they're too rich for my blood.

You never need to pay more than $31 for any Plugin Alliance plugin. Everything goes on sale for $29.99 sooner or later, and now they have a "subscription" plan for that much per month that lets you buy any plugin for $1 once a month. Just sign up for that for a couple months and cancel when you're full up on what you want.

[_leras]

I do like a lot of Plugin Alliance's EQ's and compressors; unfortunately, they're too rich for my blood.

try and get on their mailing list - they mostly go very cheap.

[_leras]

That said, I think in terms of fidelity, there are a few that I find are just better e.g. UAD.

UAD has a long way to go regarding accessibility to earn favoured status. How can you favour plugins that only run on overly-expensive, antiquated DSP chips that slow down the plugins' potential and limit the number you can use? Or the tiny handful of native Spark ports available, none of which support Windows or M1 on Mac currently, and are subscription only? This is a company that hates their own users. That's not something I can get behind in its current form.

You've mentioned lots of points that are nothing to do with the audio fidelity of the plug ins - which is the thing I was referring to here.

For me UAD:

• Rock solid

• Takes the load off my CPU for a lot of otherwise heavy plug ins

• means I can more freely run soft synths and/or native plug ins

• Amazing sounding plug ins

I've used UAD plug ins for many years and have never had any complaints about how they sound, or had any issues running them.

Just great sounding reliable tools. Sorry if that doesn't fit your narrative.

[_leras]

Is it ok to post names instead of brands?

Reimund Dratwa is responsible for some of my favourite emulations (PiA, Blackrooster Audio, NEOLD, Fuse Audio)

I'm sure he's a talented dev, but probably putting plug ins names for the ones you think are notable emulations is more useful.

[Trancit]

You've mentioned lots of points that are nothing to do with the audio fidelity of the plug ins - which is the thing I was referring to here.

For me UAD:

• Rock solid

• Takes the load off my CPU for a lot of otherwise heavy plug ins

• means I can more freely run soft synths and/or native plug ins

• Amazing sounding plug ins

I've used UAD plug ins for many years and have never had any complaints about how they sound, or had any issues running them.

Just great sounding reliable tools. Sorry if that doesn't fit your narrative.

Nevertheless it´s really a good question...

Is there really any "audio fidelity" behind or are "normal" plugins most of the case as good sounding as the UAD ones and people just want to hear something special about them because they paid a shitload of money for them and want to believe it was a good investment??

And I don´t talk about sounding different... all plugins are sounding different in some ways and what sounds better or not is an absolute personal preference... the question is if they are really noticeable "better" sounding if something like this exists...

I personally don´t really buy the narrative that the UAD plugins would be noticeable ahead and would never invest in such a closed and limited system...
There are so many great plugins available why should the UAD ones be special...

I think 95% of the hype is coming from clever marketing and advice which was made at a point of time where native plugins simply didn´t had the same quality/detail because of limited CPU power...

[jens]

I personally don´t really buy the narrative that the UAD plugins would be noticeable ahead and would never invest in such a closed and limited system...
There are so many great plugins available why should the UAD ones be special...

Yes, it's just a myth that has been completely debunked by now, not the least thanks to Plugin Alliance.

Those PA plugins that were UAD exclusive were highly regarded amongst the UAD users; they were in no way considered inferior to the other UAD plugins.

Now the same plugins (i.e. they are identical procsssing-wise) exist natively and do not use more CPU than other native plugins. On any medium-priced modern machine you could run a multitude of how many instances could run on even the most expensive UAD system - the whole UAD thing is just absurd. You need super-expensive hardware to run a very limited amount of super-expensive plugins of high, but in no way superior quality.

[KingofBeers]

analog obsession every day

+1000 This!

[Jeffguitars]

All this thread has done is show me how many bad sets of esrs there are by those not using Acustica Nebula 4. Tgey are far and awsy the best sounding plugs in the box, nothing really even close other than Acustica Aquas.

[kidslow]

The thread asked people for their favorites, not what they thought were the best sounding. Whether Acustica plugins sound the best is debatable and has been covered ad naseum elsewhere. What is not debatable is that Acustica has significant shortcomings, heavy CPU usage being one, but also the amount of cruft installed in the plugins folder by Acustica is shocking. At least their installer allows me to put them off to the side in their own folder. I asked their support if there was a way to just install the pre-amp or individual components of a given plugin and was given a terse no and scolded like a child. For some of their plugins (Amethyst), they can't even decide if the manufacturer is Acqua or Acustica, within the same plugin. Maybe if they cleared up all these little problems (and the big CPU problem) they'd make it on to more favorite lists.

[jamcat]

Convolution is at the heart of Volterra kernels. It involves computationally heavy differential equations. It uses the CPU that it uses.

[kidslow]

You'll notice that CPU was one of the critiques I've made of Acustica, and I'm not even arguing whether or not the CPU usage is necessary or a useful tradeoff. My argument is quite simply that plugins which draw heavily on CPU are not going to be as heavily favorited, because for some segment of the user base the processing tax will be seen as an impediment to usability and workflow.