Err, they all do.
I used to prefer the Waves' Pultec but meanwhile I prefer a good clean EQ and a saturation of my choice - or something like Saturn.

 

Sure they do. The same with hardware.

The problem with Warmy, however, is that the only thing that is pultec oriented is the GUI. The filter curves are basic and not even close to what a pultec does. I can do that with ReaEQ in 3 seconds. The harmonics are a simple generic sigmoid function. In parallel, I guess... Poorly implemented, without any shape (like chebychev or anything) and with IMD across the hole spectrum.
My first reaction when inserting it was "Man, this thing sounds so wrooong... What's going on? I definitely need to take a closer look."

I mean, ok, it's free, but it's really insulting to be presented with such crap. What's wrong with people?

 

Last edited: Jun 15, 2021

For what it's worth, hardware units of the same piece of gear can show different behavior, which would then also appear within the modelled plugin. But that's probably not what people here are talking about.

Sad to see so many drastic differences across Pultecs. I just want one good emulation that just does what it's supposed to do, without UAD hardware crap, and with a customer friendly protection. I'd have said the NoiseAsh is pretty good but it crashes quite a bit if some of the forum posts I've seen are any indication.

 

buy the apogee lol stop being broke. you can even rent to own it

 

there is also https://www.jrvaudio.com/ that has some nice plugins and cheap who knows ...

https://www.jrvaudio.com/images/urunler/sm8_b7707.png
https://www.jrvaudio.com/images/urunler/heq2_4d5db.jpg
https://www.jrvaudio.com/images/urunler/seac_eebe2.png
https://www.jrvaudio.com/images/urunler/remonster_52f87.jpg
https://www.jrvaudio.com/images/urunler/euphony_26804.png

...try the demos, SM8 sounds really nice

 

Yes, their "Pultec" is free, but it's more of a marketing approach to establish the new company. What can we expect from their commercial products, that also claim to model hardware behavior, when they don't even get a rather primitive design such as the Pultec right?

As I understand they claim to have modelled it on the Warm Audio hardware clone, but does the cheap Warm Audio hardware really manifest the behaviour we see in the analysis?

 

Sure it is...

I asked myself the same question. That's why I made the comparison with AO. Tunca had similarly crappy products back then, but with Rare v6.1 he pretty much nailed the essence of a pultec. It's not a 99.99999% emulation of the hardware, but the harmonic structure and frequency response is right and in line with other pultecs (both hardware and software). For now, I will no longer let any products from KIIVE near my computer. So, yeah, great marketing approach.... Maybe in a few years, we'll see.

I have not made any measurements, but I listened to the Warm and played around with it a bit when a friend of mine had it in the studio for testing. What can I say? The Warm makes hum in the lows and hiss in the high end. There was a lack of ballz and openness. So it could be that the Warmy's "Flat" frequency measurement corresponds to that of the Warm Audio and its LP and HP filters (?). But the Pultec-filter curves and the general overtone structure of the Warm Audio more or less matched the Langevins to my ears. It doesn't sound nearly as good as units in double or triple the price range, but for its price it does the job well.


Edit - Found something:

 

Last edited: Jun 16, 2021

The AO Rare was the worst pultec eq I've ever heard. Their low end is exaggerated and spoils the musical balance. I'm pretty sure AO doesn't have real hardware and that's not pultec's sound. I recommend the ones from uad and apogee. great emulation

 

The Black rooster Audio VEP-1P also has a big sound. This is what you expect from a Pultec hardware unit. Remember that each hardware unit has a unique character. A good developer will understand this and, do everything possible to accurately model & optimize software to represent the unit in question.

 

removed in 3.2.1 bye

 

the nomad factory pultec is very old and still sounds better than this snake oil

and please do not come to say that because it is free it has to behave like that noooo

 

As far as I know AO works with schematics, but that doesn't matter, because the end product in digital form corresponds to the essence of the hardware - frequency response, harmonics pattern, transient response. UA and Apogee have a completely different approach and also try to emulate the (basically undesirable) side effects of a particular device. They're like Gargamel. One or two Smurfs are not enough for them. They try to capture ALL Smurfs!

 

Interesting.

 

Well, maybe I just missed it in my previous dealings with Pultecs, but for you it seems to be pretty normal that Pultec EQs start pumping when you drive them into saturation...? And again I have learned something new.

Yes, isn't it?

 

yeah they are objectively better tho. regardless. UAD and apogee sounds better than Rare i mean that's kind of a fact

Oh is that what happens? not my fault I didn't take there and enjoyed what it did lol...

 

Because having 20 plugins that do the same thing is the reason about 5 people on this board have music that is actually heard by the masses. They spend more time going through their plugin folders than they do making music. Any mix engineer I've worked with has his pallet of 10-20 plugins total, and knows how to make them work.

 

I noticed too in first seconds. Accentuating lows, and it add a lot of highs. Bshit yeah?

 

Thank-you for this in-depth review awesome!

 

I'd be interested to know how the plugins you're talking about handle the "Pultec Trick", and to what extent it sounds authentic on them.
I've heard good things about the Analog Obsession Rare plugin. Also the NoiseAsh one seems to be not bad.

 

"Objectively better" and "fact"...? That is complete nonsense.
I have shown that Rare is objectively better than Warmy. Why objectively? Because in every measurement I've taken, Warmy has been shown to technically fail as a Pultec plugin. Or as a plugin in general. That's a fact! You can still like Warmy, that would be your personal preference: subjective!

Even though I don't really care what you think of Rare, I have to tell you that a betterness comparison between Rare and UAD or Apogee cannot be determined by objective facts. It's subjective. How do you want to measure which plugin sounds better? By the sonic closeness to the hardware? And how many Pultecs have you worked with so far, so that you can make a comparison at all? With which hardware Pultec-style EQ do you want to compare it? With the old school original silver plate Pultecs? TubeTech? Manley? Thermionic? Langevin? Stam? Bettermaker? IGS? Lindell? Wes? Warm? Klark? Or with one of the other - I don't know how many - Pultec-style EQs I've forgotten? The tonal range extends from smooth in the upper range to harsh. It ranges from round at the bottom to grippy and direct. Dirty, creamy or crashy distortion at high levels to almost entirely clean. So, what's the standard by which a Pultec plugin must measure itself to be "objectively and factually" good?

 

Last edited: Jun 17, 2021