Exponential Audio Excalibur

[mholloway]

Whoa, awesome. I own and use Nimbus + R4 all the time, amazing reverbs; always wanted Excalibur, but felt I'd spent enough on Exponential gear. But 10 bucks, woo, it's mine!

[Russell Grand]

Best deal since last month’s PhoenixVerb.

Wish I'd caught that one!

[sinkmusic]

After watching the video, yes, I think that it builds up on Michael Carne's Lexicon expertise, and it reminds me of Blue Cat Late Replies...
I don't like Excalibur's GUI, but the browser seems clever.
Can we copy/paste the settings from one block into another ?

[dickiefunk]

I’m quite interested in this product at this price. I’m trying to decide whether I need it as I own NI Molecular and all their other sound shaping plugins?

[andymcbain]

I picked this up as I don't really own any dedicated tools for modulation etc.

Some of the presets seem a bit meh in isolation - but the way Excalibur can blend elements into the mix is fantastic. Much like Phoenixverb in a sense. At this pocket money price it's probably worth buying regardless of what you already own.

Only issues for me are some annoying bursts of white noise when browsing certain presets in Studio One Seems to happen with both the AU and VST3 version...

[fceramic]

The UI and overall UX is just terrible. It's a creative effect made for non-creative people.

[revvy]

It's a creative effect made for non-creative people.

What does that mean?

[Stirner]

I've seen this deal and immediately bought it. Sound of the plugin is great, the usability is ok, but not good. It's the same in in all EA Plugins - they are hard to programm, but there are so many good presets that are very usable and I always find the preset that works, so I don't bother with programming.

For chorus/flanger/phaser sounds is Excalibur my favorite plugin now, also for creative or reverb-like delay. Especially for soft synths.

Comparing it to UA's Triad that I used a lot, Excalibur sound much better. Triad is more flexible and better for experimental glitchy things and the usability in Triad is better. But it sounds not as good as Excalibur and there are almost no good/usable presets in Triad, many of them are extreme experimental stuf.

[sinkmusic]

they are hard to programm, but there are so many good presets

This, again, might come from his Lexicon years
The MPX1, for instance, sounds great, but is quite terrible to program.

[n9research]

The UI is truly dire, and the dual-mono routing is archaic. Most of the processors sound pretty poor.

However, I found it does one thing really well: -1oct pitch shift. It sounds better than anything else I have (MComplete, Bitwig, Reaper, Eventide Octavox, Triad and a raft of free/abandonware pitchshifters). +ve pitch shift isn't so hot. But for that alone it was a reasonable way to spend a tenner.

[kelvyn]

Thanks for the thread... always had my eye on this.
Thanks again... Be safe and stay healthy people...

[Aloysius]

Looks horrible. Reminds me of some of those Unfiltered Audio plugs or the equally fugly Newfangled Audio.

Anyway. Maybe it sounds great, so I'll give it a go.

Is Michael Carne the Developer?
Did he work for Lexicon?

[sinkmusic]

Is Michael Carne the Developer?Did he work for Lexicon?

Yes, He worked on the PCM series (afaik), and the MPX1.
It seems that Exponential plugins are a bit like these Lexicons : deep, powerful, with a clean sound... and a rather terrible interface.
I would not be surprised to see an Izotope update soon, with a better GUI.

[Aloysius]

Thanks for that!

[chk071]

Not a big fan of the GUI either, TBH... gotta get more into one day. It definitely looks like you have to spend a bit of time to understand the operation.