shadow hills mastering comp

Discussion in 'Mixing and Mastering' started by Gyro Gearloose, Mar 7, 2020.

  1. Gyro Gearloose

    Gyro Gearloose Audiosexual

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    from sk note post on az

    Greg Calbi
    :
    I had problems with the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor, which I used for years. It seemed to me that the bass drum loses punch through the tube circuit. Meanwhile, I no longer use it, instead I use the Dangerous Music Compressor. It does not provide the same warmth as the Shadow Hills delivers great mid-range heat. But it frustrated me to break the separation between bass and bass drum. I do not want to change that dynamic, I do not like it when the bass is undefined. I really liked the timbre though.

    From here.

    Peter Reardon kept him in the list of users, which so, is false info now.
    A " particular " guy, a " particular " company " : => " SHADOW HILLS INDUSTRIES - VICTORY IS OUR BUSINESS ", really ?!
    No support, not even answering emails...
    ________________________________

    [​IMG] Spoiler
    Then Emily Lazar claims she uses a special version of it ( so AFAWC, we, standard - potential - users, just go to hell ), to " color " and / or " glue " a mix. " Sometimes ". Not sure if she really does use it and how much she really paid for it...

    thx DAW
    -

    --
     
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  3. Fufutos

    Fufutos Member

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    :unsure:
     
  4. The Pirate

    The Pirate Audiosexual

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    I really don't know what is the goal of this thread.:dunno: Is it a thread to educate others on the SHMC? On the emulations? Is it a thread to trash SHMC? A little guidance from the OP is always welcome. With that said, there are a couple of things I would like to point out is that Greg Calbi has been inconsistent when it comes to SHMC. For example, in the S & R interview he stated
    However, if you have been a follower of SHMC you know that on its website testimonial sections Greg Calibi is quoted as follows:
    I find it hard to believe that it took Calibi years to find a replacement for the SHMC. One thing I do know for a fact is that, Dangerous Music has been extremely aggressive in pursuing big names engineers for endorsement deals.

    As to Emily Laza, the SHMC she owns and uses is serial number 13 of 50 made back in 2012, and officially known as the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor Class A VK Limited Edition. For this special edition, Shadow Hills has included an updated Class-A discrete compressor section,Lundahl input transformers and hand wired each compressor with Mogami Cable. This version is outwardlly distinguished by the red LEDs gracing the front panel (instead of the normal green ones) and numbered plaque adorning the rear panel of the unit, signed by Mr. Peter Reardon, himself. The sound of the Class A discrete cell is outstanding; adding even ordered harmonic warmth, headroom for days and a character that can only be described as finished.

    shadow_hills_mastering_compressor_vk_edition_front.jpg shadow_hills_mastering_compressor_vk_edition_rear.jpg



    Please, let us not confuse the SK Note emulation with the real thing.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2020

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  5. 5teezo

    5teezo Audiosexual

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    The thing is: unlike plugins, you can always resell top notch hardware for a good price if you don't like it. Soneone is going to pick it up.

    I think that is true of any plugin emulation - rather it is endorsed by the creator of the hardware and carries the brand name or not.

    The more inaccessible the existing hardware is, less people are likely to know how the plugin emulation is supposed to sound because they can not cross-reference it. So it's probably easier to market/sell this plugin as "the most authentic emulation of the ultra rare and iconic xyz ever created" than marketing something a lot more people know and have access to - like SSL channel strips, 1176es, Lexicon Reverbs, etc.

    The competition in the relevant market is also lower and developers can get away with "cheating" easier than if thousands of units existed. Because the smaller the options of cross-referencing are, the more unbiased you become towards the actual sound of the plugin which is not a bad thing. Brainworx is really smart in this regard. If you have a look at some of their recent products, they focused on some super rare hardware units. Number of existing Townhouse bus comps: 1, number of existing working Focusrite SC Boards: less than 10(?). And these plugins are praised all over the net. It would probably be a different story if more people had the opportunity to cross-reference these to the actual hardware units.

    I've seen a SHMC once in a mastering studio years ago - it did about 0.5 dB gain reduction which is not unusual. I am incapable of deciding if existing plugins are true to the hardware or not. At GR levels this low not many people probably can tell if one used a pure digital compressor or the shadow hills plugin by sknote or brainworx. But it most certainly makes users feel good - especially if they got it for 30 dollars instead of 299. Even if they cannot tell how close or far off from the real thing it may be. That's why we stick to the expertise of people who actually can cross-reference and review plugins like the SHMC for us on YouTube and such.

    But maybe we should completely stop referring to real hardware altogether. The only reason plugin manufacturers do pretend that their plugins are accurate digital simulations of actual hardware units is to add more value to the code they are trying to sell. It's a fugazi: get hardware, analyze it, create decent code, throw a hyper realistic gui on it to make people believe they could own some sort of valuable thing, get endorsement deal, throw a brand sticker on it, hand out copies to big name engineers and influencers, get some quotes for the website: boom another 300 $ premium plugin for the market. Nobody would be willing to pay 300 $ if it looked like an airwindows plugin. :)
     
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  6. zaer

    zaer Member

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    if you measure lot of Emulation (inclued big name) all are differents, some get close comportement, but all differents, some are clearly a jokes but get hype on gearsslutz.

    Lot of EQ emultaion are juste the same Juce code iir filter just with nice JPEG, and fix Q or Freq setrting to be close to analog, but you can reproduce it with you DAW EQ. You need saturation take a vst for it it will do a better work than those emulations. (acoustica use a bazooka for something you can kill with your finger)

    300$ a pluggin is a joke it's 250€ for get a nice JPEG to impress peoples
    Advantage of analog is no aliasing, but OS 2time or 4time in worst case and it solve it if we a scare of it for distortion effect.

    after the EQ in you DAW or EQ like fabfiler acondigital,...... this EQ that any engeneer in the 70's could dream but completly impossible in analog. So why still think if you get emulation it will sound better.
    Your vst will always sound the same, you can use it as long you get enought CPU,..... dont have to change the tube or T4 cell like the LA2A you have to change it every 4-5years to keep the LA2A sound (thing that lot of people dont do)

    A Queen track or Elvis Presley are great cos of the artist and musicians, and they record with what they got at this time, but isn't the compressor who did the sound or the EQ , they know to sing, they get emotion, they spend time to work their tracks, find the best sound,.......
    I don't want to sound like a beattles sound cos the stereo is bad, ...... but they did with what they got and created stuff, but know they will maybe mix it completly different if they get what we get

    You insert your comp it sound good it's ok, still use the wave Rcomp it's ugly gui but it work well on vocal, so it the only thing important. And better to learn the compression tech than buy all emulation
     
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