Err, nope, not in a year, but in a single purchase - as I meanwhile found out. Otherwise I'd have a bigger voucher than $75.

 

The voucher system is based on how much you spend in a year or untill you reached the amount needed to get the higher vouchers . You get $25 untill you’ve spent $400 and then you get $50 untill you’ve spent $600 and then you get the maximum voucher of $75 . You don’t get vouchers when they have mega sales on but last month they sent me two vouchers $150 once the sale had finished . I love there loyalty program wish others would do it . Since moving over to pa I’ve ditched the waves and there ridiculous upgrade plans . Plus I’d say pa plugs top waves well the ssl do . I love all the channel strips they do

 

I have the MC77 and I don't like it. I tested it again yesterday. If I crank the the I put into the Threshold a lot, bass and kickdrums create unnatural pops and glitches. I would have expected distortion but this is diffferent. At some point one channel drops out and stereo image collapses for a few moments. And it's not like I am overloading the outputs, it happens during gain reduction.

This behavior is something I would expect from an Analog Obsession Plugin but not from Plugin Alliance. This makes me scratch my head and I wonder if it is a bug or not… Anyway, this plugin is pretty useless to me as is.

That's my experience since day one.

 

Last edited: Aug 21, 2021

Its the 2nd day i have been testing it now, glitch free here. No pops, cracks, weird behavior.
Not saying i dont believe you because i have heard it had some bugs prior to the update, did you update it?

 

I have Version 1.3 and I am using the Audio Unit in Maschine.

Here's a Audio Demo: Every 2 Bars MC77 is enabled. This is bad.

https://we.tl/t-og1Nf0UGwa

 

Last edited: Aug 18, 2021

Wow. This is very bad.
I dont have Maschine so i guess you load it via the controller and the software it uses, but how about as a standalone plugin?

 

That’s really strange I haven’t experienced that happening with it myself in logic using it . Just a guess could it be a latency issue with all them pops and glitches that’s what it reminds me of

 

I tested everything between 32 to 2016 Samples. I am using a 10th gen Intel i9. It should be capable of running one instance of the plugin. :D I tested it in Logic as well. Tested the VST, too. It makes no difference. As soon as the Attack and Release get beyond 6 and you drive the input to hard, it starts happenig.

 

Last edited: Aug 21, 2021

The beat sounds dope af, but the compression action sounds horrible. May this be a Maschine related issue? Afaik Maschine does not have plugin delay compensation (I haven't used my Maschine in quite a while). Have you tried the same thing in another DAW?

 

I started getting them after I bought my first plugin I think? Spent maybe $30 or $40 on the Focusrite channel strip and started getting them after that. The thing that sucks about them is you have to KEEP spending in order to keep it up. When the Lindell API strip came out, I couldn't wait to replace my expired Waves ones and bought it for about $130. I got my first ever $75 voucher after that (finally bought enough plugins to make it to that level) and that was the ONLY one I ever got. After that, if you don't keep up the spending, they drop you right back down to the regular old $25 one. Guess its a good thing I bought all the plugins I would want from them already.

 

I got basically every plugin i need from them now and have paid under $300. I think apart from the Amek stuff I'm fully kitted with perpetual licenses and didn't pay a penny towards any subscription. Wait and shop around for deals and you will slowly accumulate everything you need from them throughout the year!

 

yep enjoying it so far been comparing it to my Tim Petherick opto don't think its quite at that level but its another flavour definitely good at the gritty stuff

 

IMHO, plugins have been the worst investment I've made in my studio. With the exception of DMG Audio and a few Softube and NI plugins, I won't spend anymore on them. I'd rather buy coffee to fuel my songwriting and be happy for the gear I already have. Plus I hate PAs deceptive pricing.

If anybody want's to buy my entire collection of PA plugins, PM me ;o) I can work you a deal

https://audiosex.pro/threads/4sale-...iworx-plugins-w-50-voucher-and-no-fees.59963/

 

They are "loyalty" vouchers, to reward/give extra purchase incentives customers who buy stuff. If you stop buying stuff, you're no longer a "loyal" customer... The rolling average is that you need to have spent $50 *in the previous year* and you'll get the $25 voucher every month at the bottom level.

If you haven't bought $50-worth of PA plugins in the last year, then your loyalty vouchers will stop, until you spend $50+, and then they'll start again the next month, and continue until your rolling 12 month spend drops below the voucher threshold level (same for all loyalty voucher tiers).

So it's not like you have to buy stuff all the time to keep receiving the vouchers - one or two cheap plugins a year is all you need to keep getting them more or less permanently, at the bottom level.

BTW No problems with the Purple comp here in the last year or so, Mac, all the hosts, even when abused (driving the input and output to maximum, any comp ratio including all buttons in, fastest attack and release, lowest headroom for max distortion - no breakup problems, just phat chunky distorted compression as expected.)

Under no circumstances could I get it to glitch, pop, stutter or behave like in the above clip...
Edit: Actually, I just found I could - it seems to be related to the Hp SC filter and multiple ratio buttons modes. If you turn this to off, no glitches in any mode, but when you enable this and turn it up, with extreme compression (basically Hold + 20:1 + another ratio button, it behaves badly...

With Hold + 20:1 and any other ratio buttons enabled, and the SC filter up, it seems predictably glitchy. To avoid this, don't use multiple ratios with the SC filter up.

I'd not come across this, because I've not pushed it that hard in normal usage (and I do quite like to abuse compressors in general!)

 

Last edited: Aug 20, 2021

So, I've been playing with this, and this behaviour I note above is occurring when the plugin is being *massively* overloaded with some very specific non-standard settings - I wonder what the hardware would do if you send it high DAW level signals, smash the input up to full, fastest attack and release, and hit 20:1 and 4:1 buttons simultaneously etc...

When rigging this up again, it's important to note that the VU's are slow, and don't respond quickly enough to accurately show drum transients - as well all know that behaviour. I found that sidechain off, fastest attack/release, with a drum loop with kick peaking at -6dBFS (super loud in analog level stakes), the clip lights on the MC77's VU's would trigger at an input level control of -21, with the output control set at -27. With the HP SC filter on at around 300Hz, this lets through much more of the low kick energy, so now I'm triggering internal clipping with the input control lowered to -25 (and the VU input level flickers around -7, so the level *looks* fairly low on the meter, even though it's actually clipping the signal path.)

Ok, with the SC HP filter on, and our input at -25 and triggering the internal clip lights, we raise the input level. At just 3 or 4dB hotter, the kick is super clippy and distorting hard. (If you back the super fast release down from 7 to about 5, the clipping cleans up a bit, because the fast release is really distorting hard - a bit slower and the signal wave isn't being slammed down as quickly. But lets leave the release at the fastest for now and see where it goes...)

When the input gets up to about -7, things start to get really funky, and pretty cool. From about -6 to 0 on the input knob, the comp behaviour seems to calm down a little (maybe it runs out of range?)

You can tame the clipping a bit by bringing down the output control so you're clipping the outputs less, but still, the superfast release time in particular is clipping so hard you get really sucky popping. (Again, *none* of this behaviour happens with the "normal" ratio modes - 4/8/12 or 20:1 - they all behave like other software comps I've tried. It's *only* when you hit the non-standard things where you are *combining* ratio buttons with super high levels and super fast releases).

In the MC77 manual (for the hardware), the action of hitting multiple ratio buttons is undefined. It just says "Some people like to press more than one". I'd expect the various combinations to perform close to the hardware - there isn't much point including them if you're not modelling how they behave on the hardware - but we'd need someone with the hardware to check/confirm that.)

I don't have the hardware (although I know someone who does and found the plugin to be pretty much identical in general), but it seems like the poppy behaviour is when you are at extreme compression, at extremely high levels, massively clipping the signal with the fastest possible release, and with multiple ratio buttons almost always including the 20:1 button, and with the sidechain filter letting the lows through - although by looking at the VU meters, ignoring the clip lights, you might think there's not much level or GR going on.

In short, someone saying the MC77 is unusable because of this behaviour is most likely probably misunderstanding the level being put through it (easy to do if you go by the VU meters, which as we all know are slow and bad judges of transient levels), and is abusing the compression to absolute maximum - nothing wrong with this of course, but hardly "regular" usage.

I've never come across this behaviour because I've never driven signals +30dB over clipping, letting the low signals through, and hitting the extreme multi-ratio button behaviour, with the fastest attack/release times. (Actually, when testing this, I found some really cool things at the extremes, and it certainly doesn't behave like a few others I tried to push to maximum). I wonder whether the hardware would behave similarly, if it were possible to push those levels through it.

This behaviour in no way spoils the plugin for me, which I think is excellent, and shouldn't put anyone off trying it. (Actually I think I like it even more now I've explored it's range a bit more thoroughly.) And the extreme levels (in digital, *way* beyond what a typical analog processor can reasonably cleanly handle) you can put through it, coupled with the super fast release time means it can fuck up a signal like few others, if you're going beyond compressing a vocal or bass by a few dB or even crushing a drum parallel.

Seriously, this behaviour is like turning all the volume controls on your signal through the mixer up to maximum, and then wondering why it sounds like crap. If you don't want it to sound like that, bring it back into the intended normal signal range..! The above clip is a very specific example of abusing the extremes of the plugin, and is in no way representive of the more "normal" compression ratios and actions.

It's been fun testing it, and I hope this clears up some stuff.

If you have some queries about a crapping out sound with more "normal" levels and ratios, post 'em up and I'll have a look. And don't trust the VU meters for level...

 

Last edited: Aug 20, 2021

Interessanting explanations. I don't think that I overloaded the internal input but I'll post a clip later maybe. The way I use the 1176 on hip hop drums (which I don't use it on often, since I think that the 1176 doesn't work well with heavy processed drums) is to kill the transient and bring out the ambience to make them sound more "lively". Because ambience produced all was sounds more natural than any reverb.

I have Waves CLA76 as well as the Smasher, UADs 1176es (the legacy versions) and the Black76 from IK Multimedia. And I can get this effect with those plugins easily. With the MC77 I have to push it hard until the "livelyness" and pulsing kicks in. It feels like something is off with the internal gain structure. Maybe it's suited more for live drums, but for what I want it to do, it doesn't seem to work.

But besides that, I think PA is a great company. I always thought they wouldn't release reviews of plugin that didn't have 4 stars at least. But the do. I wrote one which had 3 and thought, they will never release this, but they did and I was positely surprised by that.

 

I tested a bunch of plugins against purple, including hardware, the klark teknik 76.
What bothers me the most is the narrow action field of attack and release with most of plugins, it either gets too grabby or punchy fast, it starts pumping fast, though this can be good sometimes.
It is also hard to get the sweet spot fast, with slates, while with purple and 76kt this is almost identical.
Purple lets trough a little bit more bass than kt76.
76kt shows interesting behavior in plugin doctor.
First of all unlike purple it acts dynamically. There is a few db sub bump at 7hz in KT that drops at 20hz and also there is a 2db slow rise from 10hz on that gets bigger the more you crank it up ( max 2.5db).
Here it gets interesting, the sub bump disappears after middle input 24 and the more you drive it to max input.
And then it gets even more interesting, at max input and output a notched filter appears that goes sharply down from 2k to 12k -16db and then sharp upturn from 12kh to 20khz.
Purple has a bit elevated highs like kt, but other than that it doesnt act dynamically to input/output changes.
Slate black 1176 also has elevated sub frequencies and acts dynamically on the input output, different from KT pr purple, with two smiley curves till 800 hz and then another smiley curve from 800hz till 3.5khz and then another rise. This curve gets bigger the more you drive the input/output.
Modern FG 1176 acts dynamically on the input but not on the output.
Regarding depth, kt76 was the winner and i would also choose purple sounding very similar to KT.
Driving hardware yields more interesting results compared to plugins at max input all buttons in.

All in all purple 77 is a beast among 76 compressors, imo a steal when on sale, i prefer it over other plugins.

Jay Ruston said this about the mc77, on the PA site.
(Anthrax, Stone Sour, Amon Amarth, Steel Panther)
The MC77 limiter plugin really surprised me. It sounds absolutely incredible on drums, bass, as well as vocals. The compression doesn’t start immediately pumping badly like other emulations out there. Having used similar hardware compressors for many years, this is absolutely the closest i’ve heard to the real thing. Very rarely do I say that about a plugin, if ever.

 

Last edited: Aug 21, 2021