Dave Grohl mentioned how they used a 4k console on guitars in some early recordings without any distortion amps or cabs, just by cranking up the input gain on the channel on console by itself. If you crank it on AA's Sand2 to you get a great fat driving crunch like that. I didn't feel that as much on BX imo

 

Last edited: Jan 17, 2019

Pros and cons as with most plugins, especially with the plugin channel strips. Some have better filters, compression, some eq, others gate etc...

 

In this instance you get what you pay for, mass produced, low quality "food" built upon the misery of abused farm animals bred to be slaughtered without any quality of life until that horrid life is snuffed out by some poor misguided soul for a shitty paycheck. As close as this gets in the world of audio software is Tone2, but in a different sort of way. Low expectations/quality reap mostly insignificant results as in, "the love you take is equal to the love you make, " if that makes sense. Everyone has different tastes but one can aim for something better than what is so easily within easy reach and so fly higher than what was possible so long as you feed yourself with fresh and nutritious ingredients.
Scheisse in, Scheisse out.

 

Although I've probably resembled such a misguided soul at least a couple times in life, can we just assume this is my answer as well to everything going forward?

 

FYI, not affiliated in any way to these AA lads. But it's nice to hear real feedback from real users about emu or algo opposed to endorsed hyped-up promo talk from shareholders, advertising etc, without the censorship of taking out the 'ugly' comments
(and yes please do kill off and crush limbs of those annoying so-called 'influencers')

But for all i care it's not the developer i'm curious about. It's the product. If it's shit or solid gold. If it sticks or stinks...
Though on a sidenote, i myself do fancy a nice looking GUI over poor cheapish designed ones. (besides doing the job right)

 

For sure, if we sit in the cheap seats way up here in the last row in the arena we may not be able to see what the band is playing, but we surely can see everyone that came to the show. Shane always sat with his back to the wall for good reason, so might we do too to keep the Devil at bay. Always go forward but never go straight.

I would venture to say that you never killed a thing in yo young life that wasn't trying to kill u foist and have nuttin to feel too terrible about, 'cept a not so great mix now and again. Yes/no?

The Lady has spoken.

Purely for reference sake is this vid. Alan lad was like 5'6 feet tall and the dog had enough sense to get outta Dodge.

 

It's a tool. It's a hammer. There's not much difference between hammers. Some might be more shiny, with gold-plated handle and built with vintage parts for the classic hammer experience. But it's still a hammer. You have to know where to hit to do something cool.

Have you tried giving Waves and T-RackS a shot?

 

I beg your pardon?

 

I fumbled on a comment in regards to a review of AA's El Rey compressor and it stated how poorly it performed on electronic music, but worked miracles on a recording of a live drum kit. It went on to say it shone on vocals. And bass and guitars. All of these have a wide dynamic range that needs quality compression. EDM uses compression for different reasons. The same logic could be applied to the use of eq on electronic music when compared to balancing a recording of acoustic guitar or vocal sibilance against, say hi hats.
It seems the argument against Acustica can be split between those working with audio stems from a live source and those who use drum machines and synths which don't require that kind of taming. More elaborate and costly plugins are going to fail to do the job you need. EDM requires sound sculpting and punch and Waves and T Racks have great tools for polishing your mix.
For that purpose I can see that a 400 euro compressor is pointless and a waste of money and doesn't do anything to enhance your mix.
But for those working with sometimes lacklustre source material, access to something that is very close to outboard gear costing tens of thousands is a miracle of 'in the box' mixing and mastering.
I suspect all comments for and against in this thread fall somewhere under this distinction.

 

Waves Q-Clone
But as a matter of fact, it doesn't matter if it's a reverb. Load any impulse response into any convolution plugin, if it's a reverb set the reverb to zero, load any impulse response of your liking and you have your nebula-stuff. Yes, even free software like reverberate LE or SIR.
And there are impulse responses of everything, many of them are free. From consoles, to compressors, to eqs, to mics, to pa systems (I use function one impulses for reference monitoring).
eg. https://theimpulseguys.com/
You know, part of information literacy is the ability to discriminate between solid information and bs, especially if referring to manifacturer's data for information.

 

Amazing... You figured out the secrets.. Samples are used in the formula but they are sliced up with variables that can be changed and altered. I use a bunch of convolution stuff as well and its very different but still useful in completely different ways from AA. If you combine algo stuff with sample based vectorial Kernals guess what? you get kungpaocombos that can add even more flavors.. Honestly who cares though...

 

Wow. Revolutionary!

 

This is very true. In electronic music you don't usually have to deal wild volume swings like when working with acoustic guitar or vocals. The reason for compression there is to change/hype the sound by bringing the low-level details up. This requires a different mindset and sometimes also different tools, plus experience so you know what you're aiming for. You'd usually skip your emulations here and go to stock/clean/transparent plugins to preserve the extreme lows and highs and maintain clarity.

Very true

I have mixed feelings about that part. These days everyone starts with poor source material and expects to get it right in the mix, which is the biggest reason they fail. Where has editing gone? You'd expect people to name and color their tracks, bounce all VSTs to audio so you can clearly see if there's any long tails sticking out, deleting the unnecesary tails, fading them out, so the mix cleans up... often the best mixing tool is the mute button. Just look at any of the popular EDM tutorial channels and you'll see no panning, SSL on the master, parallel compression, OTT on every track... It's just not good practice at all, you don't slap multiband compression on every track (actually, you should have a very clear reason to go multiband and try singleband first since multiband is incredibly easy to screw up). SSL's bus compressor is not good at all for electronic music, since it has a very kind of "sucking in" sound on every kick drum and there is no sidechain highpass filter. You're better off with a Neve 33609 emulation, or just go with a transparent digital compressor. They all go to the fancy stuff before covering the basics. Why put tape emulation, stereo widening and multiband when you haven't tried panning your tracks left and right and doing basic EQ?

Mixing is not that much of a miracle, I mean... it's all about exposing all the nuances in the song so they are noticeable. If you're starting with crap, you'll just get very noticeable crap. No amount of mastering EQ, reverb or parallel compression will help there.

 

Don't think even for a second it is simple
99% of audio devices are way way way different from a linear case. Just think a bit to the release setting of a dynamic compressor and you understand immediately you are a victim of dunning-kruger effect

 

Just a note, edm producers are our main buyers.
Most of edm tracks produced last year were processed by "diamond" tools: color eq, el rey, lift. I can speak about edm (or dance) tracks I'm aware of.
In several cases our tools were used at mixing stage AND during mastering stage by other people

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2019

So Tooloud, the expert on everything, just got owned trying to kiss ass to the owner or AA,...any comments, lol.

 

I don't produce EDM, so according to you I have the wrong tools. I didn't realise your demographic was the dance market. It seems that as others have suggested I could have saved myself a lot of money by using cracked Waves instead.

 

Yep, it seems I have been taken in by the hype. I wasn't trying to kiss his ass. I really thought I was buying the best tools for the kind of music I mix and master and now the boss tells me most of his customers do EDM, which would suggest to me I've been fooled into believing these are products that can replace real hardware. Why did I bother defending AA when he tells me personally I am using his product for the wrong purpose?? What an AA Asshole.

 

I was just kidding man, but damn that is some funny stuf!!

 

You're a great audience. I'll be doing a matinee at two and don't forget our all you can eat buffet from four til six.