Softube or UAD?

[Lerian]

Nobody can save you from yourself ™

[rj0]

Nobody can save you from yourself ™

"Might as well face it ..."

[_leras]

You're literally in this thread telling us that stock plug ins are as good as UAD.

Yes, I am. Because science.

I suggest anyone who buys into this snake oil to measure their UAD plugins against other brands, or a decent daw's stock plugins, and see for themselves. A good engineer knows exactly what I'm talking about. What "sounds good" about a particular plugin can be easily achieved just by boosting or cutting certain frequencies, or applying certain effects. That's it. That's the "secret sauce" everyone is hyped about.

Look you're kinda missing the point, even if all the various EQs out there are 'only' the same digital EQ code.

Different EQs can be better suited to different sounds because of their inherent build in frequency curves and band interactions.

For top end I can get a different feel from a 1073, than from Helios, than from a Neve channel strip, than from a parametric EQ. They are all dialled in with differing amounts of effort as well, but I have several slightly different flavours or approaches than I can choose from to get where I want fairly quickly.

Does it really matter if it's Cubase built in EQ or UAD 1073 top end? Maybe not all the time, but for some things that 1073 curve can be easy to dial in and also really bring a bit of magic because the engineers that built it put a lot of though and energy into making it, as have UAD when emulating it.

Also some UAD EQs have some other bits of secret sauce, some saturation, or transformer/amplifier that a bit of drive into will change and enhance the sound.

Btw, also, if you ever use UAD, an good experiment is to use a Neve or SSL strip on every channel and mix it. I guarantee this will get you close 'like a record' sound, than Cubase parametric EQs. Try it one day so you can round out your perspective.

[Ah_Dziz]

I'm a big fan of softube's mixing plugins. Uad makes good sounding stuff but I've had nothing but bad experiences with their products (on top of their prices) so I don't bother. All that being said, I find most of the analog style processors to be kind of one trick ponies. They are good tricks and they come in handy, but I have been bothering less and less with any analog style processors.

[roman.i]

Listeners don't care.

[Lerian]

Btw, also, if you ever use UAD, an good experiment is to use a Neve or SSL strip on every channel and mix it. I guarantee this will get you close 'like a record' sound, than Cubase parametric EQs. Try it one day so you can round out your perspective.

Like what record? The Peter Gabriel's So, Tiamat's Wildhoney, Tame Impala's Currents, Aphex Twin's Syro, Yussef Dayes's Black Classical Music? Which record sound are you referring to?

Nobody can save you from yourself ™

"Might as well face it ..."

I always take science into consideration, not bogus claims. There's too much pseudo-science in this field, too many opinion based decisions that nobody is willing to test. Why though? Its so easy to find out why a certain tool sounds the way it does. At the same time, all the plugin sites are full of "grammy winning producers" endorsing plugins, as if that's even relevant. But it works, because people would rather believe in voodoo instead of numbers.

But sure, I'm on a GAS forum, so I don't expect people to just change their minds and give up their superstitions. After all, these may be the only things that keeps them going and motivated. I'm just
a sucker for facts, instead of opinion. And more people should consider a science-based approach to their tools and processes, instead of asking others - this brand or that brand? Should I use this comp because look - that grammy winner used it? It will surely make my tracks sound grammy-like That's just lack of knowledge that spills into superstition territory. If you want to have good sounding mixes, learn your tools and learn science based approaches instead of buying into bogus claims. Use that money to buy a mixing learning material instead - either books, hours in the studio, or whatever.

[roman.i]

With stock plugins you are locked with a limited amount of plugins may or may not fit the mix.
"just use stock plugins" suggestion I see sometimes, is a dumb suggestion.
Recently Logic added the official Quantec ($20000 reverb), a stock plugin, I listened to it in a mix and it didn't fit.
And I used the $39 reverb that had a much better fit.
So, by using only stock plugin you are limiting yourself to a random set of plugins, with various quality and sound flavors.
This is non-sense, why anyone do that, unless he is a cheapskate?

[Lerian]

Sure, you can always fight the monsters in your head instead of paying attention to what I actually said. The denial stage is present in any meaningfully changing process.

[aMUSEd]

I think Softube make good gear but in my experience they are not good at fixing bugs or updating stuff - worst example is Modular which has only had modules added as by products of new synths but no new boutique modules for a long time. Also it no longer works in Komplete Kontrol along with most of their plugins but they have not fixed that despite the bug being reported many months ago

[9headshydra]

I always take science into consideration, not bogus claims. There's too much pseudo-science in this field, too many opinion based decisions that nobody is willing to test. Why though? Its so easy to find out why a certain tool sounds the way it does. At the same time, all the plugin sites are full of "grammy winning producers" endorsing plugins, as if that's even relevant. But it works, because people would rather believe in voodoo instead of numbers.

But sure, I'm on a GAS forum, so I don't expect people to just change their minds and give up their superstitions. After all, these may be the only things that keeps them going and motivated. I'm just a sucker for facts, instead of opinion. And more people should consider a science-based approach to their tools and processes, instead of asking others - this brand or that brand? Should I use this comp because look - that grammy winner used it? It will surely make my tracks sound grammy-like That's just lack of knowledge that spills into superstition territory. If you want to have good sounding mixes, learn your tools and learn science based approaches instead of buying into bogus claims. Use that money to buy a mixing learning material instead - either books, hours in the studio, or whatever.

zetetism is also a pseudo science approach you know, and science, sadly, became also a nowadays religion too, especially when they are driven by plugins conspiracionnist youtubers that need viewers to exist.

I actually don't care about what other peoples think (even when they are grammy winning producers) about the tools I enjoy to use for mixing.

Best part of any art process is not supertition or science but the way you use your emotions and personnal failures to create your own personnal expression.

I just like the sonic texture I so quickly get with UAD with their amazing set of comps, reverbs, delays, tape sims and modulation fx but also with their pultec and massive passive EQ.

and if it was "so easy to find out why a certain tool sounds the way it does" like you said why every plugins companies don't use those "so easy to find" tricks to fake their customers ?

[roman.i]

The guy from youtube merely measured the cutoff frequency, and different emulations gave different results (no shit).
Even if you take two different "standard" digital vst equalizers, expecting them to null with the same settings, they will not because same Q factors represent different width in them. Same story with two different digital compressors, attack, release not the same.
So the first rule of working with sound is - don't look at the numbers, tune it by ear.
And now somehow you concluded all emulations are equal since 2015, based on which science you concluded that? Can you show us a parer or something to prove that?
It looks like you don't know anything about science, while claiming you taking it in consideration.

[_leras]

The denial stage is present in any meaningfully changing process.

Yep. Sure is.

I hope you get to try UAD properly and hear for yourself so you can move on to anger and then to acceptance.

[Agg]

The guy from youtube merely measured the cutoff frequency, and different emulations gave different results (no shit).
Even if you take two different "standard" digital vst equalizers, expecting them to null with the same settings, they will not because same Q factors represent different width in them. Same story with two different digital compressors, attack, release not the same.

I mean what the video kinda does point out, is that a company can make "better" plugins, simply by protecting the user from themselves and their habits.

[Lerian]

The denial stage is present in any meaningfully changing process.

Yep. Sure is.

I hope you get to try UAD properly and hear for yourself so you can move on to anger and then to acceptance.

Maybe I will, as soon as they will switch to a licensing system respectful to the users, that allows license transfers. UAD is among the very few a**holes left in this industry who don't allow you to sell the goods you purchased. Which is totally unacceptable, there's no excuse for that. Also the ilok system is wasting too much CPU power unnecessarily.

This is what happens when you have values, you look for solutions and adapt. And adapted I am, as I really don't feel the need for any "wonder" plugins - I achieve everything I want using user friendly plugins + knowledge.

The guy from youtube merely measured the ..

Sorry, I assumed everyone will understand that the point of that video was to show how can EQ be measured, and how relative and wrong the "sounds good" concept really is. Sound is just a matter of physics, which if you know what you're doing, you can achieve in many ways.

Sure, you can have nuances, as I said already, but if you tell me you can tell the difference between UAD saturated vocals vs say.. Saturn saturated vocals while in a mastered song, I call it BS. Same goes for compressors, EQs, etc. Someone even built a Pultec EQ using Fabfilter's Pro-Q and Saturn. Because science/measurements. So yeah, you believe in whatever god you want to believe, while I will focus on what really matters.

[Lerian]

But hey, the signature v2 bundle @ $299 looks like a really good deal if you don't care about buying into the ilok/locked license thing.