"Mojo" EQ of choice for mix/master buss?

[Sutniko]

Thanks for the suggestions so far! Some I hadn't even thought about.

Haven't demoed the Kush or museq for instance

I have TEOTE for balancing, so I probably wouldn't need ThirtyOne, though.

Have both
ThirtyOne sounds different and smoother, Teote sounds more clinical and harsh when pushed but can do magic if used wisely

An eq that impressed me "mojo" wise was the Arturia 1973 Pre Amp`s sound when you engage the Eq only slightly. It has an 3d character

[GRUMP]

Can you elaborate? You had a sound or a track, which the EQ boost made sound like Depeche Mode? If a track, what genre?

Why do you ask? My topic is sound design and I love it to study the effects of my AAs. Gold can sound pretty "raw" and "oldschool" - just like "People are People" for Example. The Boosts are quiet extreme.

[El°HYM]

I told you that Thirty One has some smoothing Mojo going on.

[_leras]

So many types of mojo!! To me more mojo can come from saturation, compression, tape, but still there are some eqs that can just make things sound better.

Gentle mix curves: uad massive passive, or pultec both give a nice sheen
M/S magic, BX digital 3 can very useful, schepps Omni channel also very nice in that regard
Top end sparkle, uad 1073 or Helios
Mid range solidness, for a parralel mix bus uad harrison

The PA lindell 80 also has a lot of mojo, maybe even too much though some of this is from the preamp...

[Everged]

I'm mostly using the Softube Chandler stuff. Especially the high shelf on the curve bender.
It's the first thing I've found that can compete with MAAG airband

[jens]

I told you that Thirty One has some smoothing Mojo going on.

Which is why you were wrong and have been corrected as such.

[bmanic]

I liked AA Gold for some time, but I can´t recommend it for modern sounding mixes anymore. Scarlet, Erin, Magenta, maybe even Titanium - or Softube´s TILT Eq. What ever.

Well, I have been using some of the more 'vintage' AA EQ offerings just for that: modern Pop and EDM. No issues.

But, I've read this sentiment in a few places, that something like AA Gold isn't good for contemporary mixes. I sincerely don't understand this view. It's as if, people are seeing that it is a vintage EQ, but they are making modern, up-to-the-minute, cutting edge music, and they conclude that 'vintage' does not go with 'modern'.

How many times the AA Gold or Pink has rescued me when I needed to EQ a 'modern' EDM kick, for example. Or a Future Bass sound of some kind. I'd use one of my algo EQs first, and then AA Gold/Pink, to compare. The difference would always be big enough to go with the AA EQs.

This is why:

Many Acustica Audio plugins still suffer from the age old "echo bug" problem, even if advertised as completely fixed (it's not. only the plugins released in the past few years work for the most part but have other issues like interpolation errors, aka the case of the missing top end), especially the ones that haven't been updated in ages. This means that you get a literal sub+lows "echo", a delay tap, that happens at variable levels depending on settings in plugin. Sometimes it's at quite low levels like -80dBFS or more but sometimes it's at higher levels and clearly audible.

Thus, putting any AA plugin with these issues on a modern simple EDM kick drum can instantly mess up the flow and rhythm of your song. Even when this echo issue is at low levels, if the delay is at a detrimental "tempo" to your song, meaning it's neither shuffling nor pushing nicely nor exactly on beat, you'll create a not so subtle "smearing" mess when layering several AA plugins into the mix.

Then there are the problems with the impulse/phase response that plague some AA plugins. Unlike the actual real hardware, transients seem to get slightly "smeared" and softened. This may be some sort of "cousin" to the echo problem as it's similar in nature yet happens at much tighter timings.

Still, the old rule of "if it sounds good, it is good!" applies. Sometimes a smeary mess of a plugin is just what the doctor ordered. These buggy AA plugins can be extremely effective and abused on something like acoustic guitar where you want to create density and smear the transients.

EDIT: Also fair warning. These are the kinds of subtle nuanced "audio signatures of AA plugins" that once you go looking for them and you hear them, you can not un-hear them!

[Ploki]

+1 what bmanic says.
I played with a few Acoustica freebies and demos and some of the echoes, and on the others (like the free Baxter) chirping completely turned me away.
Way too much baby sitting for my taste

[bmanic]

The "chirping" can be avoided simply by gain staging. Make absolutely sure not to hit any AA plugins with higher than 0dBFS input levels. That avoids most of the chirp (which is happening when you go outside of the sampled bounds of the hardware).

The only exception to that rule seems to be the latest releases that can tolerate a bit more. The just released free Ceris plugin can tolerate really high input levels and actually demands it to make the compressor work as intended. This I suspect however is a bug and hopefully will get corrected.

[Ploki]

Baxter i think starts chirping at -6 or -3, i forgot

[himalaya]

I liked AA Gold for some time, but I can´t recommend it for modern sounding mixes anymore. Scarlet, Erin, Magenta, maybe even Titanium - or Softube´s TILT Eq. What ever.

Well, I have been using some of the more 'vintage' AA EQ offerings just for that: modern Pop and EDM. No issues.

But, I've read this sentiment in a few places, that something like AA Gold isn't good for contemporary mixes. I sincerely don't understand this view. It's as if, people are seeing that it is a vintage EQ, but they are making modern, up-to-the-minute, cutting edge music, and they conclude that 'vintage' does not go with 'modern'.

How many times the AA Gold or Pink has rescued me when I needed to EQ a 'modern' EDM kick, for example. Or a Future Bass sound of some kind. I'd use one of my algo EQs first, and then AA Gold/Pink, to compare. The difference would always be big enough to go with the AA EQs.

This is why:

Many Acustica Audio plugins still suffer from the age old "echo bug" problem, even if advertised as completely fixed

Hold on. You are outlining technical issues. But I am pointing to the fact that some people claim that using the more vintage sounding EQs in the AA repertoire will somehow and automatically make their track sound vintage as well. This is what I am questioning. I've read so many times "do not use AA plugins (inserts the name of the specific Aqua here) as they will make your track sound like Led Zeppelin" (or some such). I find this comical. Even in this thread we have a user stating that by using the AA Gold EQ, it makes them sound like Depeche Mode! Such nonsense (and it has to be called out as such)! This would mean that AA have stumbled upon a truly magical formula where an EQ turns a track into a specific genre/band/artist. This is what I am questioning. I was hoping that it is clear. Technical issues are another matter, and I would have hoped that a person of your experience would recognise what I am writing about.

So, now I am off to make my world, downtempo track turn into a Depeche Mode track with several instances of AA Gold EQ..... AA should patent this magical technology now.

[himalaya]

With care, the AA EQs that provide teh vintage sound, can work on any genre. I use the vintage EQs on modern up-to-the-minute 'future pop' and none of those tracks end up sounding vintage because I used several instance of AA Gold. That's the beauty of these AA EQs, they are very powerful and really add a lot of impact to any program material. To say that we should not use one of the vintage Neve EQs on a modern EDM track, is bizarre to say the least.

Wasn't there a rule in audio: if it sounds good it is good?
I don't give two impulse responses how you get there.

[bmanic]

Hold on. You are outlining technical issues. But I am pointing to the fact that some people claim that using the more vintage sounding EQs in the AA repertoire will somehow and automatically make their track sound vintage as well. This is what I am questioning. I've read so many times "do not use AA plugins (inserts the name of the specific Aqua here) as they will make your track sound like Led Zeppelin" (or some such). I find this comical. Even in this thread we have a user stating that by using the AA Gold EQ, it makes them sound like Depeche Mode! Such nonsense (and it has to be called out as such)! This would mean that AA have stumbled upon a truly magical formula where an EQ turns a track into a specific genre/band/artist. This is what I am questioning. I was hoping that it is clear. Technical issues are another matter, and I would have hoped that a person of your experience would recognise what I am writing about.

So, now I am off to make my world, downtempo track turn into a Depeche Mode track with several instances of AA Gold EQ..... AA should patent this magical technology now.

Ah I see. I misunderstood. Yes, indeed those kinds of claims are indeed quite silly.

If it works, it works. No matter what pedigree or vintage something is. Doesn't matter if it's an effect or a synthesizer. The tool never defines the genre, that should be a given! However, tools of the past have indeed influenced the sound tremendously. It seems people confuse these two things.

I just wanted to clarify that AA plugins, while some do sound absolutely excellent, do not always represent the typical "analogue mojo" nor sound.. which seems to be a bit misunderstood by many people who don't necessarily have experience with the real hardware. They are in many cases less detailed and more importantly for modern genres, less kind to transients than most analogue hardware.

They do however deliver a bucket load of "mojo"!

Cheers!
bM

[GRUMP]

This is why:

Many Acustica Audio plugins still suffer from the age old "echo bug" problem, even if advertised as completely fixed (it's not. only the plugins released in the past few years work for the most part but have other issues like interpolation errors, aka the case of the missing top end), especially the ones that haven't been updated in ages. This means that you get a literal sub+lows "echo", a delay tap, that happens at variable levels depending on settings in plugin. Sometimes it's at quite low levels like -80dBFS or more but sometimes it's at higher levels and clearly audible.

Thus, putting any AA plugin with these issues on a modern simple EDM kick drum can instantly mess up the flow and rhythm of your song. Even when this echo issue is at low levels, if the delay is at a detrimental "tempo" to your song, meaning it's neither shuffling nor pushing nicely nor exactly on beat, you'll create a not so subtle "smearing" mess when layering several AA plugins into the mix.

Then there are the problems with the impulse/phase response that plague some AA plugins. Unlike the actual real hardware, transients seem to get slightly "smeared" and softened. This may be some sort of "cousin" to the echo problem as it's similar in nature yet happens at much tighter timings.

Still, the old rule of "if it sounds good, it is good!" applies. Sometimes a smeary mess of a plugin is just what the doctor ordered. These buggy AA plugins can be extremely effective and abused on something like acoustic guitar where you want to create density and smear the transients.

EDIT: Also fair warning. These are the kinds of subtle nuanced "audio signatures of AA plugins" that once you go looking for them and you hear them, you can not un-hear them!

Ahm ... I must admit that I stopped deep analysis some years ago. It´s all a questions of alternatives and I see none. And my pads are smeary anyway. I have just lately disvovered again that todays stuff is way too "clean" for my spoiled ears.

Remind the E-Mu Sound? (Kontakt DL in description!).

So wtf is the problem with Acustica?

But thank you very miuch for all the infos, that´s good to know

All the best!°

[aMUSEd]

Would it not be better and more controlable to use an eq that is more accurate but combine that with a saturation effect to provide some colouring?