i'm not keeping track of anyone's external drives and you did not mention it being an ssd. But if you think anything involving your mac is happening at 800gb per second you probably need to re-evaluate your medication. (or i need to go shopping). It's not going to exceed 40, but more likely only 20.

Introduction and table for M2 SSD speed differences
model CPU transfer speed
MacBook Pro M1 Max 5000 MB/s
MacBook Pro M1 Max 6000 MB/s
MacBook Pro M2 Pro or Max 3000 MB/s
MacBook Pro M2 Pro or Max 6000 MB/s

There have been many AAX only Mac versions of the AA plugins. You have to look them up separately.

 

medication? you knew I meant MBs p/s
When you get the correct chipset the max speeds show, I use only SSD, as acustica recommended as well ;)
Even if it was 400MBs, its very much worth it for security reasons

 

so in this sea of Acustica Audio plug-ins, which ones are worth bothering with? maybe I need to make a new thread?

 

Everyone will have their own favorite, and their usefullness can depend a lot of the kind of sound you make. But if you want a taste of all the plugin without the hassle of installing them all (and the space it take), you can just install their "best of" plugin (maybe they got a real name for that, but basically it's a plugin that contain all their emulation but focus on one task, instead of a plugin emulating a full channel with just one or two model for each element).

So basically you just need Ash/Ash Ultra if you want the clipper (very good one)
Tiger for compressor
Pumpkin Pro for saturation/distortion, Jam is also the same (with same emulation) but I find Pumpkin Pro interface more complete and intuitive (something that Acustica finally acheve with their latest "ultra" version)
Salt for their EQ
Black Guru for their preamp
Taupe for their tape emulation (but they're not that great)

With all that you can basically test every plugin they have, and if you find some model you really like, you can install it's plugin version (but it doesn't give you more options - just a GUI matching the emulation - and are usually heavier on CPU as they are older)

There's few other plugin that aren't in the "analog emulation" group but worth a try, like Space Control (it's a multiband stereo control tool, not the most instictive to use, but usefull), or the Diamond serie (specially for mastering)

 

So, considering this is a kinda positive, not-all-out-Acustica-hating thread, I'd like to ask a couple questions I've been having:

• Why does everyone seem to love El Rey, and for what specific uses do you like it? I've tried it in busses, in individual instruments, in some parallel sends, and I haven't found any concrete situation where it was specially great

• I tend to like the slower, vari-mu and even VCA, Acustica compressors, but - has anyone been able to get ANY good sound out of the faster ones (Nickel, Camel...). I'd never have any problems with any FET emulation from other brands, but those one are just weird and unstable, and destroy everything they touch

 

Nothing can replicate El Rey, its one of those plugins that stand on its own like Soothe2, Softube Tube-Tech compressor, etc etc
El Rey, Viridian and the diamond eq are very useful... can handle anything., tons of head room., Midnight (Fairchild) is also very very good..maybe better then softube-uad

 

I'd like to see someone demonstrate AA plugins on a very large project. Say for example a fully recorded Orchestra (and band) and not with simple section mics. 64 tracks as an example. Honestly I'd be amazed other than on a bus / send, if they did not have realtime latency problems on the entire project that large. Yes I know they have realtime versions and oversampling. I've tried them out.
There are plenty of other quality manufacturers out thee making similar models emulations of a high quality. El Rey 2 is one of the more noticeably good plugins.

However, I would be interested to know which AA plugins are supposed to emulate Manley's or a compellor if they even exist? None I tried sound even close in preamp quality or transparency. Snow is half-decent for a portico emulation, but the Steinberg kicks its ass and the 'Need' is at the least, equal to snow.

 

Magenta is apparently sampled from different Manley hardware

I can't say if they're acurate cause I don't have their hardware equivalent, but they sounds ok for me (maybe some emulation from other brand are better, but I can't speak on that too as I never compare)

If you didn't saw it (I get it from another post here about AA), there is a list of the different hardware emulation from Acustica, it's not official so maybe not 100% acurate, but it give an idea : https://justpaste.it/AcusticaAudioAcquaMasterList

 

Not all AA plugins are worth it, El Rey and a few others like Purple-Tiger-Diamond have their uses, they are good faithful hardware emulations but not 100% perfect.. I cant explain very well but the best way I can describe it is like Softube's Bus Processor doesn't have the depth of Sand, but it has the SSL sheen Sand doesn't and its a more responsive compressor., things like this where diamond EQ is ok but you rather use a different compressor.

all in all AA, UAD, soundtoys, softube and Kush (to name a few) are all flavour based and you can simply put any of them on a channel and they totally even up your mix with color and m out of all HEAD ROOM!, AA does help in that area.

The biggest issue with AA is multi-fold
1-Large files (which is eliminated in the sister site)
2-Ugliest GUI issues with trademark and copyright laws only point to logos now, which means everyone can make a SSL strip look like a SSL, but not use the trademark name SSL., these has to happen with AA cause they are notorious for UGLY.
3-The Price..although they recently became good at pricing.
4-The horrible privacy invasion, users stating that AA watched their screens!

 

They are more accurate and faithful to their emulations then softube and UAD., not all but some, if anything theya re95% FUGLY GUIS... but... Purple is a very very good plugin, if you want Tube-Tech comp by softube/UAD purple is better., then you have PSP Old timer to get that type of vocal comp thing going., and others depending on need., but compared to the hardware AA covers that...ElRey is a good emulation as well as pink- API.

 

yes this seems consistent with my findings too. Additionally, the vst3's function better at 96k and overall, the vst2 versions seem lighter and more consistent.

 

So after pages & pages of technical details collection, discussions about how to install and everything about, AA plugs comparison, disputes about which and what, finally people realized their music still sucks even with some legendary equipment emulations.

Take your conclusion.

 

Last edited: Feb 5, 2024

sound is anything, doe snot have to be music, can be art noise, background, a cinematic ambient..
Music is a melody repeated over and over hypnotising he listener with a feel, no feel not interest.

 

Have you tried the old timer on vocals? is it good? how does it compare to el rey sonically speaking?

 

I just think they are too big on disk. Sound is nothing special but not exactly bad. I just do not have the space for plugins this big when I have others that seem to do exactly the same thing.

 

As with all Vari-Mu style compressor, for it's slow reaction (although it was considered fast compressor in its realm back in the olden days) it's commonly used for compressing (well, not really) sustain-heavy sound or just the sustain-element of a sound. For example, most people would say Vocals, Bass, Pads and sometimes in the Mixbus or Mastering. It's safe to say where the usual LA2A style compressor excels at, a Vari-mu style compressor could be good or sometimes better at it.

While using it on the transient heavy materials such as the drum or drum bus can sometimes returns with good result but if a Vari-Mu compressor is used for such elements the goal was never for just compression. El Rey in itself is more to a vibe-machine more than it is a compressor. It still doing the usual compressor task, controlling dynamics, leveling, taming transient and such, but people reach for it for the other reason its particularly really good at, what the hardware counterpart is famous for. Adding vibe, groove, sense of movement, sort of posh glow around the sound, enrich the sound with those colorful harmonics.

a) Bass/Vocal - while one would get away with better result using the usual 1176 for dynamic control, but adding El Rey after (with the right settings of course) could make it groove harder, push it hard will add more upper harmonic content that will make the whole sound more perceivable to the ear and pop up in the mix while taming the clicky and make it sound overall warmer. Commonly people will push hard for a dead-sounding bass to add that low-mid content that will add more weight to sound, some umph, some "chesty feeling" as they'd call it, now it's not dead sounding anymore. You'd argue why not just doing it with a saturator which technically can give the same harmonics ? Doing it with a El Rey lets the track have all that, with the benefit of El Rey's compression character, all of the above, dynamically, so the bass moving, grooving with all the goodness mentioned, while with a saturator, you get a static harmonics. Due to its adaptive relatively slow attack speed, El Rey can add some sort of vintage style punchy feelings to the sound without being to obvious.

b) Mixbus/Mastering - apart from using it as a leveler type of compressor, when the overall mix is kinda thin and light and feels boring, Vari-Mu style compressor is commonly used to add weight, low support as some ME calls it while doing everything I've mentioned above. Again it had to do with the color, harmonics content and vibe it brings to the overall mix. Use it correctly, it can revive a bad mix and push it up a little. It can't push a D mix to A, but it certainly can make an A+ mix A++. Using a El Rey and expect a result that you can get from a stock DAW compressor is overkill and sometimes El Rey can shite at it considering it's an old compressor designed. It's a compressor, but the thing it is good at is not the straight text book compressing. It does the Varimu better than other Varimu IMO.

c) Transient Heavy material - for things like Drum Bus which could do better with VCA style comp (API, G-Bus), El Rey can be useful to enhance the sustain part of the drums. You can make it ignore all the drum hits, it capable of making the toms/snare/kick "Body" phatter, bigger. The part of the sound that happens after the transient hits. For "Drum Room" track, it excels at extending the drum room, make it feels bigger, deeper and denser. Other compressors can do it easily, but not as sweet as El Rey can do it. It's complicated.

All of things I've mentioned are true for every single Vari-Mu compressor plugin out there. It's a matter of taste which one sound good to you, El Rey sounds fantastic to me for those and for now among the best in plugin world. No other VariMu plugin come close IMO but I've been using Kush's Novatron for VariMu job lately, love the sound of that one too.

One more thing, ALWAYS SMASH the El Rey. Don't just 1 to 2db GR, get to 9 to 7db compression. If it feels too much, use mix knob to back it down.

We all already get used to how the plugin version of the 1176 sounds and expect everything to sound like that. This thing was mentioned in DMG Audio TrackComp2 manual :

Code:

Every FET is different, so units get calibrated. The Q Bias is a little adjuster tweaked with a
screwdriver that’s set up to compensate for the FET. At -5% the unit will behave more politely. At
5%, the unit is more aggressive. The default is 0%, but you may find a lower setting more
comfortable if you’re used to the behaviour of software emulations.

The positive Q bias value on the Trackcomp behaves like the compression on Nickel. It's wild af. Give it a try.

To be fair Nickel fastest attack time is 0.8ms which is 10 times slower than the usual fastest attack on 1176 hardware that ranges from 0.002ms 0.010ms depends on the model/revision. So it's not really smashing the transient as the hardware would on the fastest setting. It just it probably sound pleasing to the ear with the hardware.

I found that PA's Purple Audio MC77 does it the best on plugin land. All those artifact, extremely fast attack, but still pleasing to the ear.

 

21:07

 

he didnt consider the SHMOD. At minimum SHMOD value, with lookeahead introduced, NICKEL can do close to 0ms attack time but why would anybody wants that. Hyper tech still keeps all that, but cleaner as in low in distortion.

 

i think mostly for parallel processing as feedback to sustain the main signal
by hyper you mean Nickel profile in Tiger ultra? since Nickel is not hyper by itself

 

parallel with close to 0ms compression (limiting). aite. I never done that but yeah maybe some people like it that way. no problem.

I meant SHMOD. All Hyper plugins still have it, SHMOD can make the comp do extremely fast and even 0ms compression with lower distortion than the old acqua.