KVR Audio

Liero · Post by **Liero** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:28 am

In what way does Nebula have to mature exactly? I thought it was pretty mature already.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 9:54 am

CPU usage for example. At least on my end.

Zaphod (giancarlo) · Post by **Zaphod (giancarlo)** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:16 am

It's good if you compare with other vintage emulators, and if you take in account the price range, the number of emulations and even the quality of some of them. A couple of those emulations (for example the passive eq library) could be sold alone at the price of the whole plugin.
But I agree with bmanic: achieved results are just a demo of what is possible. We could do a lot more in the dynamic department for example. We need just more time.
We started sampling equipment with cheap converters, without a real sampling application and with many design and implementation issues. Today latest commercial emulations are maybe 5 times better than what we released in the free library 2 years ago and maybe they are still 5 times worse than what we could achieve with minor implementations.

Chopper · Post by **Chopper** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:24 am

Giancarlo, I tried your stuff and I have to say it's gorgeous. I like some of the filters a lot! but some reverbs can put my dual core laptop on it's knees in standalone mode loaded in VSThost....

Zaphod (giancarlo) · Post by **Zaphod (giancarlo)** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:35 am

True. Reverbs are the real pain in nebula: there is still space for huge improvements in terms of CPU usage (I'm speaking about reverbs only). On one side CUDA helps a lot (CUDA is useful especially for long tailed kernels). On the other side we are alone in the market..

shogger · Post by **shogger** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:54 am

Zaphod (giancarlo) wrote:On the other side we are alone in the market..

Means what?

Shogger

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:25 am

The CUDA implementation for example. I don't know any other firm so far, who uses that technique.

Sad thing on my end (once again), is that I still have a NVidia 5700 chipset, and CUDA can only be used with NVidia chips starting with 8xxx if I remember the specs correctly.

I'd use Nebula more if it would be more CPU friendly - for all kinds of purposes. Or if it'd be availabe with an affordable DSP outboard device or something (like the Liquid Mix, but less expensive). However for native it's already an interesting concept that seems to work for a lot of people. Especially on the emulation site - try to get a preamp pack like Nebula offers on their Preset Community for that price from another firm.

MelodyMan · Post by **MelodyMan** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:31 am

Compyfox wrote:However for native it's already an interesting concept that seems to work for a lot of people. Especially on the emulation site - try to get a preamp pack like Nebula offers on their Preset Community for that price from another firm.

Word. I have the luck of a quadcore, so i can use Nebula pretty extensively. But the pre-amps and reverbs are great and since i have a Geforce 8500 i can use Cuda too!

shogger · Post by **shogger** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:16 pm

Compyfox wrote:The CUDA implementation for example. I don't know any other firm so far, who uses that technique.

Sad thing on my end (once again), is that I still have a NVidia 5700 chipset, and CUDA can only be used with NVidia chips starting with 8xxx if I remember the specs correctly.

I'd use Nebula more if it would be more CPU friendly - for all kinds of purposes. Or if it'd be availabe with an affordable DSP outboard device or something (like the Liquid Mix, but less expensive).

Didn't you give yourself the DSP outboard device solution? Nvidia sells them...

Or did you mean outside of the box?

Shogger

Zaphod (giancarlo) · Post by **Zaphod (giancarlo)** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:32 pm

shogger wrote:
Zaphod (giancarlo) wrote:On the other side we are alone in the market..
Means what?

Shogger

What I meant: dynamic convolution or dynamic volterra k (an extension of convolution) for reverbs is not available (this is true both in the hardware and in the software domain). So even if it's cpu intensive, you can't choose a different product, apart algorithmic implementations. Which lead to different results (sometimes better, sometimes not). Someone told me that many reverbs are digital only. So a piece of iron and a computer. True. But sometimes crappy '80s converters are an important piece of the puzzle, and this is just an example. I know, it was a limit in their design, but those units were used in countless records, and now their sound is well known and part of our culture. The availability of something similar in the box (for example a portable notebook) has its own advantages.

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:09 pm

shogger wrote:Didn't you give yourself the DSP outboard device solution? Nvidia sells them...
Or did you mean outside of the box?

Shogger

I never heard of a "outboard system" from NVidia actually, so I was indeed talking about GPU cards "in the box". Outside of the box I meant something like a DSP system like Powercore Firewire, the Liquid Mix, etc.

I don't have a DSP outboard system unfortunately (not even my MBox could be abused for that) - no funds.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 4:18 pm

Liero wrote:In what way does Nebula have to mature exactly? I thought it was pretty mature already.

It's plenty mature to be used creatively and it gives an enormous palette of colors. However, the compressor emulations are, like the sintefex patent based products, still not behaving correctly. This is already known and is being addressed by the developers, which will mean Nebula is going to kick ass, big time!

Another area I feel Nebula could mature, and it will, is the GUI department. You'll see.

Cheers!
bManic

Per Lichtman · Post by **Per Lichtman** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:00 pm

I really like Nebula a lot, and the sound quality is great. I think that the areas that can still be improved are the following.

1) Overall compatibility and stability. I've encountered a disproportionate number of crashes and CPU spikes across several PCs and hosts compared to other plug-ins. It's definitely worth dealing with, in order to get the results, but at the same time is very noticeable.

2) Simplicity of the initial user experience. The team has already told us that they are working on a new website, and that in combination with DVD releases (or a simplified download system) will go a long way towards helping users. Also, some form of automated (or more clearly defined) initial authorization would have really helped me back when I got it.

3) Redefining the preset categories to put the older presets into "legacy" categories so that new users would more easily be able to find that "higher quality" presets.

4) Dynamics processing. Improved sound quality (especially for fast acting compressors), GUI modifications and (most importantly) adding a greater number of high quality compressors.

Now these are all legitimate areas of improvement that are based upon a lot of time using Nebula in my own productions. I really like it a lot and these are areas that it can improve in, not reasons to hold off on buying it. Nebula is worth a lot more than they have been charging and I think we will see the price start to go up with subsequent versions.

LA2A, Fairchild, 1176LN, Neve 1093, ... plug in, plug away