Which Pultec do you prefer?

[Igro]

Universal Audio is giving away the Pultec Passive EQ Collection for free right now with the code: HOLIDAYFREEBIE

https://www.uaudio.com/products/pultec- ... tion-promo

No wonder. If there was a top 10 most aliasing plugins, that would be the first.

Can you show proof of this aliasing you're talking about?

Sure. It reacts BADLY if there is extended low-end information in the signal (DC?) Just load a raw 909 kick. It should not be highpassed. RAW 909 has a very extended low-end. There is a bump at 7-10 Hz. D16 Drumazon 2 will do. Then put UAD Pultec and crank the 30 or 60Hz to 10-12db. And then smack it hard with a FET style compressor. Enjoy the result. You don't need a Plugin doctor to check anything. You will hear the result.

UAD support said that the hardware behaves the same way! Lol.

[Scarlet Pumpernickel]

Yeah, that's anything but aliasing...

[exmatproton]

Universal Audio is giving away the Pultec Passive EQ Collection for free right now with the code: HOLIDAYFREEBIE

https://www.uaudio.com/products/pultec- ... tion-promo

No wonder. If there was a top 10 most aliasing plugins, that would be the first.

Can you show proof of this aliasing you're talking about?

Sure. It reacts BADLY if there is extended low-end information in the signal (DC?) Just load a raw 909 kick. It should not be highpassed. RAW 909 has a very extended low-end. There is a bump at 7-10 Hz. D16 Drumazon 2 will do. Then put UAD Pultec and crank the 30 or 60Hz to 10-12db. And then smack it hard with a FET style compressor. Enjoy the result. You don't need a Plugin doctor to check anything. You will hear the result.

UAD support said that the hardware behaves the same way! Lol.

Has nothing to do with aliasing...

[Igro]

So what this grinding noise is then?

[art&sound]

Pulsatec got a bad rap at first due to being clean and only modeling curves, but after modeling the triode it's pretty cool.

[jamcat]

What’s being described doesn’t sound like aliasing, at least not from the UAD Pultec. You’re starting with a suspect sound to begin with, distorting the ultra low end, and then cranking up all that nastiness by smashing it with a compressor, which introduces its own non-linear distortion. And you’re surprised by the unpleasant results? Just don’t blame it on aliasing.

[Igro]

What’s being described doesn’t sound like aliasing, at least not from the UAD Pultec. You’re starting with a suspect sound to begin with, distorting the ultra low end, and then cranking up all that nastiness by smashing it with a compressor, which introduces its own non-linear distortion. And you’re surprised by the unpleasant results? Just don’t blame it on aliasing.

Suspect sound? 909? I tried raw 909 samples from Sound from Mars, Audiorealism. Same results. UAD is the ONLY pultec emulation that does this (I have many pultecs). Yeah, lets blame the source signal, right? It is a common processing of 909 kick for techno. Hard to accept that UAD Pultec falls apart easily? If highpass the the kick at 10-20Hz, the noise disappears. This applies to ANY source that has an extended low frequency information.

"Just like a hardware" - UAD. Lol

[Najimad]

What’s being described doesn’t sound like aliasing, at least not from the UAD Pultec. You’re starting with a suspect sound to begin with, distorting the ultra low end, and then cranking up all that nastiness by smashing it with a compressor, which introduces its own non-linear distortion. And you’re surprised by the unpleasant results? Just don’t blame it on aliasing.

that explains why I find UAD plugin unpleasant indeed, never heard of Pultec hardware making a sound unpleasant, though. I use the free Pultec emu.

[Scarlet Pumpernickel]

I fed UADx EQP-1A with the 30Hz tone at 0dB FS in Plugin-Doctor. Results can be described as a somewhat typical example of harmonic distortion with the 3rd harmonic being the strongest at -48dB FS. If I had to GUESS - that's from the tube preamp part of the emulated circuit, probably from the transformer - because the harmonic content changes and decreases significantly as you move the tone higher in frequency.
On a somewhat related note, I remember reading a few engineers from back in the day saying, they vastly preferred a solid-state variants of Pultec EQ; this behavior might be one of the reasons for such preference. BTW, Apogee emulation of the Pultec EQ is based on the solid-state unit AFAIK.

[MattCable]

Anyone have opinions on the Analog Obsession Poortec? I know they have a lot of plugins that may sometimes be lower quality, but I really liked this one. Curious if anyone knows if it’s worth upgrading to something else if they have experience with both?

Right now I’m pretty happy with it though, because even if it’s just due to the curves, I’m getting better way better results than I did with any Ableton Eqs. Just those simple bass or treble bumps sound so good

[zerocrossing]

Anyone have opinions on the Analog Obsession Poortec? I know they have a lot of plugins that may sometimes be lower quality, but I really liked this one. Curious if anyone knows if it’s worth upgrading to something else if they have experience with both?

Right now I’m pretty happy with it though, because even if it’s just due to the curves, I’m getting better way better results than I did with any Ableton Eqs. Just those simple bass or treble bumps sound so good

If you’re happy, you’re happy. The Pultec vibe is just a specific flavor and it’s not required to make good music. I personally like a very clean EQ and use other plugins to get desired distortion. It’s more work, but I can get an exact result, where the Pultec is the Pultec. The only times I really use it is for bass guitar, when I want a quick vintage vibe, or on a drum bus for some extra mojo. I use the UAD models. Maybe the Softube one is better, but I don’t care about it that much.

[pekbro]

How the f*ck am I supposed to know which is the best one!? I just buy them all.

*I like this one, cuz it has a compressor built in...

https://teletoneaudio.com/products/tone-architect

[MattCable]

Anyone have opinions on the Analog Obsession Poortec? I know they have a lot of plugins that may sometimes be lower quality, but I really liked this one. Curious if anyone knows if it’s worth upgrading to something else if they have experience with both?

Right now I’m pretty happy with it though, because even if it’s just due to the curves, I’m getting better way better results than I did with any Ableton Eqs. Just those simple bass or treble bumps sound so good

If you’re happy, you’re happy. The Pultec vibe is just a specific flavor and it’s not required to make good music. I personally like a very clean EQ and use other plugins to get desired distortion. It’s more work, but I can get an exact result, where the Pultec is the Pultec. The only times I really use it is for bass guitar, when I want a quick vintage vibe, or on a drum bus for some extra mojo. I use the UAD models. Maybe the Softube one is better, but I don’t care about it that much.

Nice. I’m trying to dial in the dirt to my synth punk stuff anyways so I’m not sure why I’d worry about “best” if it works. Probably because it actually takes a LOT of plugins to sound like a teenager recording on a 4-track who pushed the levels too far lol. But now after a few months, I basically I have my plugin chain dialed in and I’m getting the sounds I was looking for.

It’s been fun as a longtime synth lover to rediscover how drastically effect chains and mixing can alter a sound. I pretty set but if UAD has one of those crazy sales I’ll admit, I probably will pick up a few things. That free pre-amp they have rn is working great for me.

[zerocrossing]

What’s hard about questions like this for me is that I have no distinct memory of using any actual hardware Pultec, but I probably have in the early 80s and 90s. So my actual working memory is all third hand, from recordings.

So I am never really chasing some specific target. Either a plugin offers something that I find attractive, or it doesn’t. I also don’t want to stick to any fixed signal path. This adds time and sometimes frustration, but that’s how I like it. I don’t want a signature sound that comes from any gear or software. I want it to come from the choices I make.

[sonic_ally]

Accustica Audio Purple..