Lol, who on earth uses N4 outdated commercial libs? Compare to AlexB GE consoles, that's where the gold is.

 

I dont know about older nebula libraries but if i compare the old discontinued Acustica ( pultec ) Cooltec, it boosts a loot smoother and natural compared to Acustica Purple ( all versions) and the plugin is seven/eight years old.

 

Once you start EQing, especially boosting and compressing, the differences between bad and good designed plugins become obvious.

 

Purple is an Acqua and way different than Nebula, Cooltec is an old 3rd party lib from CDS. Check out Dual Tech from TimP.

 

so the GE version of the consoles are newer than the ones floating around ?

 

Yes, with the GE versions Alex fixed the low end ripple.

 

Some of the old and discontinued AA plugins sound better than the new, obviously those engineers were on a higher level and Giancarlo should work with them again.
I also think Nebula when done right is unrivaled in sound, it lacks the blanket that some AA plugins introduce.

 

Last edited: May 20, 2021

This is true, 3rd party devs create the best AA tech. Their Acqua's are inferior. Although I love putting Cerise on DI bass tracks. Instant magic.

 

When I tested Slate VMR in Plugin Doctor I also noticed that some of the EQ's and pre's don't actually boost/cut the frequency you have choosen. I don't know if it does this because the hardware also do the same but it seems weird. Some of the modules also have weird boosts below 20Hz as default, like the Neve EQ boosts 1.5-2.5Hz with 5dB without you even touching the controls :S

 

Cerise is good for synths too. Very hardware like in sound.

 

Tested AlexB versions from sister site. All generate the low end alias. Maybe its worth a req for the new versions, someone might be able to supply them

 

X2

 

Does anyone use the Acqua stuff in Ableton 11 on Windows? I tried to install Cerise and others as VST3 versions, but this Aquarius app would create a strange directory structure with uncommon subfolders. I also got blank GUIs last time I tried. The VST2 versions would eventually be recognized, but only in a new Ableton project. When I tried to add an Acqua plugin to an existing project, Ableton would tell me that it cannot find the plugin, even though it's shown in the Ableton file browser.

Overall Nebula / Aquarius seems like a messy challenge, probably the reason why I once abandonned the whole Acoustic Audio platform years ago, even though I liked the sound of the libraries that came with the free version of Nebula 3.

 

Acqua's are multi Nebula libraries with a custom skin, so both are Nebula technology. All Acqua's can be pulled up in Nebula.

 

Hey Will, nice to have you here ;)

I guess for the end user, the thing that matters is Acqua's are AA sampled VST's which are quality and performance wise inferior to 3rd party nebula libs.

 

Aqua's are AA Sampled hardware. 3rd party Nebula libraries are sampled by that third party. So the sampling process/hardware being sampled/hardware being used in the sampling signal chain would definitely vary between the two.

 

that's what all analog simulation plugins are about, or not?

 

Well, there's good garbage and bad garbage right?

 

So true LOL. And also:
When in doubt I take my garbage over your garbage every time