New Plugin from Acustica Audio ,

Introductory price 59€ (109€) - Save 45% until September 20, 2022

More info,
Rust - Motor EQ is a VST/VST3/AAX/AU Acqua plug-in that faithfully replicates the sound of an ultra-rare, all-analogue, passive, seven-band fixed EQ considered today as the ‘Holy Grail’ of classic EQs, as well as introducing some additional features compared to the original unit. Used in countless number one hits, this EQ has become legendary and today is one of the rarest pieces of audio gear ever built.

https://www.acustica-audio.com/store/products/rust

 

Will this be the magic I seek?

 

They have some great plugins though. Pink, Cola, White etc...

 

Once you get over the hype and use your ears you find that not one compressor they offer can compete with many algo comps and especially Tim Petherick N4 comps, many of their EQ's have cramping etc etc. But also like every other plugin manufacturer sometimes they prove to be really good. As for this "analogue sound" "used on countless hit records" "holy grail" all just tiresome and retrospective and on many occasions just fail to hit the mark.

 

A good coded plugin will always be hailed and loved by many, no matter which company and technology. A well coded plugin can compete with any technology, even impulses and i love a lot of acustica plugins.

 

My gripe is with how marketing would like us to believe that the further back in time we go, the higher the fidelity of audio in general was back then. That as technologies have changed, they have consistently changed for the worse and it is only by going back to Edisons wax cylinders that you will find audio nirvana.

 

Just tested it, i wouldn't call it "faithful replica", specially since the way each band works on the original is supposed to be very "isolated" and putting this plugin in plugin doctor shows it's not doing that.

Howeverrrrrrr i did get some cool results out fo it, so i wouldn't say it's a bad plugin either.

Edit: Nevermind, that was for non-adjacent bands, which seem to be working as they should. Very nice.

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2022

I think they modified this to make each band dependent on each other.

 

Wow, another Motown EQ release in 2022. I wonder how Rust compares with the KIT Plugins one + the UAD one?

Agreed with this. I've spent about $1000 on Acustica plugins. I like them, but there is definitely an overhype factor. They have some really GREAT plugins, particularly EQ's, but once the "shiny new toy" feeling wears off you notice there's 3 main issues:
1) the compressors don't sound that great. They can sound good with subtle use (-1 or 2db reduction) but they all have a similar kind of character to them where the behaviour doesn't sound quite right. Hard to put my finger on why exactly but it's certainly not as good as their EQ's (that's where Acustica shines). That said, some of their compressors are genuinely amazing (El Rey stands out).
2) All their plugins have kind of a subtle "hifi" fizziness that i think they put in there on purpose to compensate for the fact that their "convolution" style of tech kind of softens/degrades the transient signal a bit. You've gotta remember, technically what their tech is doing is sending your signal through several layers of sampled AD/DA conversion as their samples are triggered on your sound. It's not a clean process. I know vintage analog wasn't clean per se, but it didn't degrade the signal, it was more of a noise floor issue.
3) The CPU usage. I'm running a i7-8700 CPU and i can't have more than say 4 Acustica plugins running in one project before my CPU starts to shit itself, which has been a frustrating experience for me. Some of their plugins are more demanding than others, but usually the better the plugin sounds the more CPU it needs.

The CPU usage has been the biggest issue for me. I have a bunch of great Acustica plugins that i never even go to because i know the CPU usage will give my project too many problems. In fact, i actually sold 2 of their plugins literally and hour ago. I also sold another one last week. There are so many great algo plugins now that are as good if not better than Acustica stuff, but aren't as heavy on the CPU.

I still love a lot of their stuff, and when they're on sale they're definitely worth buying, and their tech is improving every year, but you have to ask yourself if you have a powerful enough computer to power their tech. For me it's a bit of a headache.

 

CPU usage isn't so much a factor in Reaper 6. I know you probably use another DAW and don't or want to use Reaper but I can run whatever AA plugins I want and that's on a AMD Ryzen 5 3600 6-Core Processor 3.60 GHz 16GB Ram. I had serious CPU issues with AA in Pro Tools and Studio One but with Reaper no problems.

 

And how would you know that? Lol. Reaper was my #1 DAW throughout 2020 and 2021, before i switched. Yes it's probably the best performer of all the DAWs as far as plugin instances but it's not gonna give you a better CPU. Reaper will still overload when the CPU has too much to process, just the same as the other DAWs. At the end of the day the CPU is the main element of how well you can handle Acustica plugins

 

Beg to differ on CPU hit. Here I'm using gold EQ, Pink Eq, N4ZL and others as an example with audio playback you can see all the hit my CPU is taking. Not arguing with you just wondering how come your not having the same experience. My audio interface is at 128 sample bitrate for tracking too.

Hope image link is viewable here: https://postimg.cc/ykvptkr1

 

It would appear Rust needs some serious attention to work properly... I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS FINALLY POSSIBLE IN THE DAW (Plugin Doctor v2 inc Acustica Rust bugs) - YouTube

 

It should be way more like 10x with such a CPU, that's strange.

 

This was fixed in the new update.

 

Hmmm. I use the CPU's integrated graphics (Intel UHD 630) rather than a dedicated graphics card. I wonder if that's the issue? Maybe there's a bottleneck there