waves Cobalt Saphira

[hivkorn]

http://www.waves.com/plugins/cobalt-sap ... lt-saphira

HARMONICS – A NEW LEVEL OF MUSICALITY AND CONTROL

HARMONICS
Cobalt Saphira is an advanced harmonics shaping tool that lets you add rich harmonics to your tracks in order to give them analog musicality, depth and "glue."

A NEW LEVEL OF CONTROL
Cobalt Saphira gives you an unprecedented level of digital control over different aspects of the harmonics you are adding: Edge and Warmth – for separately controlling and balancing even and odd harmonics4-band EQ – for separately shaping the frequency spectrum of each type of harmonicsHarmonics modes – seven different modes, with graphical representation so you can see the changes in harmonic structureTape – five tape speeds for adding wow-and-flutter modulation in order to give your tracks extra musicality and depth

A NEW WAY TO GLUE YOUR TRACKS
We often use the term "glue" when touting the benefits of compression. But the "glue" we hear from a good compressor is many times the result of added harmonics. Cobalt Saphira lets you directly control your harmonics without compression, helping to glue your tracks and turn them into a more musical, cohesive mix.

ADDED DEPTH
Achieving balance and clarity in a mix is expected. Achieving real depth in a mix is where they single out the pros. Cobalt Saphira allows you to inject this sought-after quality into your mixes.

Excelling on groups and sub-mixes and in mastering situations, Cobalt Saphira gives you rich harmonic enhancement that can be creatively tailored exactly how you like it — a full palette of analog sound for you to pour all over your tracks.

Cobalt Saphira is the first in the new Cobalt line of Waves plugins.
COBALT – Analog that Only Digital Can Achieve

What do you think ?

[Gamma-UT]

I foresee a future where people create scratchy, ear-shredding tracks by overcooking the settings on stuff like this. Stick the output of this into a 'character' compressor, and you are going to be taking up residence in Alias City.

If it's less taxing on the CPU than Voxengo Shinechilla, that would be a plus - but looking at the UI (without having tried the Waves tool yet) Shinechilla can provide a lot more control over how the harmonics are applied and so can be made to behave more like a compressor generating them. It may be that the Waves plugin is fairly smart about how it does the processing - have to try it and see.

EDIT: Thinking about it, Melda's MMultibandSaturator may be a better comparison. Or Fielding Reviver, but that doesn't have the same level of control that this seems to have. Then there are the Chebyshev shapers from Soundhack and Airwindows (Mac AU only for that one).

[noiseboyuk]

Any actual audio examples of this out there? Two videos of jabber is all I found.

[woodsdenis]

It seems astonishing to release a product with no examples of what on earth it sounds like .

[robotmonkey]

It seems astonishing to release a product with no examples of what on earth it sounds like .

What are you talking about? There's tons of examples on Waves site.

[noiseboyuk]

It seems astonishing to release a product with no examples of what on earth it sounds like .

What are you talking about? There's tons of examples on Waves site.

I can't see any either. Link?

[Neon Breath]

It seems astonishing to release a product with no examples of what on earth it sounds like .

What are you talking about? There's tons of examples on Waves site.

Oh yeah? Where? Not on the product page at least.

Having to search and browse 15 submenus to find audio examples is a fail. Website page already closed. Next!

[robotmonkey]

Well,

There's tons of examples on Waves site.

actually NOT! But just imagining you frantically browsing through the Waves site...

[hivkorn]

I try to load it in mono & stereo version but it crash everytime (Studio 1 V2 and Studio 1 V3)...I repair permission but it continue to crash....someone here have load it without crash under osx + S1 ?

[No_Use]

What do you think ?

There's an old FX by Christian Budde, Christortion, where harmonics 1-9 (and fundamental) can be adjusted individually. Surely not as fancy as this one, but it's free and will do for me in this regard I think.

http://www.pcjv.de/vst-plugins/

edit:
Sorry, just noticed that you're obviously on Mac, Christortion is Win only.

[hivkorn]

does reaper work with waves plugins?

[Nightpolymath]

Is this a free plugin with current Mercury users?

[everyPlugin.com]

Yes, as long as you're in the WUP period (Waves Update Plan).

[Gamma-UT]

I've tried it against the Melda Saturator, starting off with the Waves '3D' preset, one of the master-bus presets Waves has created, although with the tape mode switched off. It's fairly subtle, but out of the box, the Waves preset does a decent job.

Saphira behaves a bit differently on transients to the more general-purpose saturator - so I guess they have some envelope follower or detector in there to not mess with hard transients too much but to push the saturation onto the decay. As a result, Klanghelm's SDRR with slow dynamics could possibly substitute, perhaps used in parallel on sends to provide more control over even and odd harmonics.

It's a 48 second clip. The first third (two rounds of a four-bar segment) is clean, the second segment is Saphira, the final third is Melda MMultibandSaturator. Sorry about the abrupt start and finish, I didn't bother cleaning it up.

MP3 example

[antithesist]

Don't you really just want listen to that guy talk about how it sounds, anyway?

I'm also guessing that he and his kids (if he has any) are really into dragons.

My money is on IK's Dino in a cage match, though