Sabol Hill Lacuna - new saturation plugin

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What's the license transfer policy?
Every day takes figuring out all over again how to f#ckin’ live.

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Heh, gonna pass on this I think. Wasn't really using it during the demo.

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This is doing something iffy to my ears with transients. In an A/B i prefer it bypassed in 90% of cases, with the 10% mostly being on sends with verbs etc. I think it's just doing some kind of phase modulation to each of the bands that is modulated with noise or smoothed sample and hold? It sounds fake as all hell anyways. Try it on something that has a lot of transient elements in it and you will hear it flatten into the rest of the envelope instantly

I don't really care for the saturation either. It's not offering me anything i don't already have, and just engaging the thing causes a 1.5-2dB boost in gain as well
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Some interesting observations here. At least this thing seems critically overhyped in the usual places.

So how does it compare to the surely excellent Opalize?

https://apulsoft.ch/opalize
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From what I’ve seen, this is more an effect to use on busses or a whole mix (mix bus). I would probably start with comparing this more with a saturating compressor with independent R/L channels, but it does more (not necessarily a good or bad thing).

You can use U-he’s Presswerk (among many others) with independent R/L channels and it’ll really open things up. Where Lacuna is different, is the multiband application of saturation, types of saturation (compared to a compressor), and the widening tools that they interestingly say are mono-compatible (avoids phase cancelling of the separate channels if played back in mono).

With that said, many of things added to Lacuna vs specific tools are not always going to be a good or better thing (similar to choosing a channel strip), because it can be less control.

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When demo'd it felt like many of the plugins in recent years; first you think they sound good and do something unique, but quickly realise that much of it is either due to volume increase, processes that you could've done with existing tools or that they are even dangerous to use, like some spectral stuff in recent times.
Once I had it tamed to a level where it doesn't unintentially hurt anything (can get destructive on transients quite quickly), there wasn't any benefit left I considered noteworthy. The wobble (digital current?), to my brain at least, just adds a nervous energy I don't fancy - if I can hear it at all.

Results do not hold up to the flowery marketing for me.

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