Im not a 76 expert, I just use IK Multimedia and DMG and I'm fairly happy with them (I'm sure my PC is also really glad, since they're both really lightweight)

 

100% agree.
It's absolutely a convenience thing, just because you could load 100 compressors in offline mode into every channel and activate them as you please, doesn't mean you have to. I'd rather just use one tool and have the option to quickly replace it when I want to.

->

What I posted in the Pultec thread. We might be onto something, or at least you're not alone

Man, sounds pretty good for an unknown compressor. Will further look into it. Positive Grid are the Bias FX guys in case anyone wonders

Was it envelope following? I thought it was convolution sampling that considered impulse sampling the dynamics of the hardware unit as well, that's something differen, so works more like a lookup table without any algorithmic processing like envelope following.
It could be that they stereo link in order to preserve processing power, unlinking gives you more realism at the cost of CPU and cluttering your routing.
This works great for non-acustica plugins as well btw ;)

 

What I love is there's a mixed bag of people who:
1. have in-depth knowledge of all the intricacies (audio nerds)
2. just know how they like to use their tools (e.g don't know their comp is a FET)

And I'd like to see if those with better 'knowledge' produce better quality.

Take 5 people from both categories and mix 5 songs. See which group wins

Could be an interesting competition.

 

It's like a false dichotomy. Both of them, if they are successful, trained their ears and that's what matters most.
They aren't as different as you make them out to be

 

Trackcomp got some great emulations but I unconsciously tend to prefer dedicated plugins over all-in-one ones

 

Bill Putnam, the original designer of the 1176, is also the founder of UA. no doubt about it.

 

There is a big difference between hardware making and hardware modeling

 

I picked the UAD version because I mostly use an 1176 for tracking if ever, not so much for mixing. Although the UAD 1176 plugin is not very heavy on DSP load, I usually save DSP for heavier plugins that might eat up my Duo processor, like the Distressor, Culture Vulture or Massive Passive, which have no alternatives, at least for my ears (never tried the physical units). That said, I've always loved the CLA 76 from Waves and now that I'm off the Waves world, I go the Avid BF-76, which is stock in Pro Tools and does the job well. It even has the all-buttons-in mode when you shift click on any of the ratio buttons.

 

Last edited: Jan 3, 2023

This is a very interesting and intelligent guess, regardless of it's right or not. I know Nebula works mainly by "brute force" (probably there're lookup tables involved at some point but that's beyond me). Also, they sample at several input levels which gives different sets of harmonic-kernels (volterra, dynamic IRs,... ). Hence the famous Nebula gain-staging stuff.

This means they have to use interpolation for any given input level. So probably there's just a loudness detector (or similar) at the start. Their interpolation algorithm is buried under patents BTW.

But I have no idea how they handle/optimize the stereo thing, because that would mean another set (doubling) of kernels.
It would make sense your explanation and I guess @macros mk2 could give some insight just looking at the CPU usage.

 

Last edited: Jan 3, 2023

hey- sorry if this is highjacking the 1176 poll thread, but here goes my attempt at expanding what I think I've figured out. tl;Dr according to Tim Petherick himself splitting duplicating nebula instances to run in dual mono is more "accurate" to the hardware sound (for stereo), as confirmed by messaging him and also he mentions this on I believe on one of the tape pages on his website.

so- here is what I think I know, please correct me if anyone knows more. adding harmonics also add IMD, intermodulation distortion. Definition: IMD results when two or more signals of different frequencies are mixed together and additional signals are formed at frequencies that are not, in general, at harmonic frequencies (integer multiples) of either source signal.

the cool thing about nebula is it's capturing all the harmonics dynamically from the electronics it's captured.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volterra_series

harmonics=good overtones basically, IMD=bad overtones. both get added. the dual mono/env follower thing comes into play like this, for stereo of course not mono. the env follower is grabbing the center/mids to figure out how to apply harmonics. this ends up applying harmonics/IMD to side information, but not based on the side audio... if that makes sense. like take a drum bus, kick snare up the middle and a ride cymbal panned hard left, bongos panned hard right. the kick and snare will be controlling the harmonics/IMD being added to ride and bongos.

there seem to be a few answers to this. one is to say who cares, one is too duplicate nebula dual mono it, one is (like for Pethericks compressors) to use a single compressor instance but then dual mono the preamp it goes into. depends on what you're looking for, especially with the compressors. you'll notice with Pethericks the compressors instances are all 44.1 because I'm pretty sure they're just controlling the attack/release stuff, then going into a clipper sometimes to a preamp always where sample rates do matter so use 96khz. when you don't separate the preamps, clippers, anything adding saturation to just deal with a mono signal it is potentially adding extraneous distortion to the sides that don't belong there.

to be clear- like with compression, if you use a stereo signal with just one instance of nebula you will get a stereo output. so one part of this is stereo unlinking (like is available in many other compressors) but the thing I'm trying to avoid is the cross contaminating of IMD. like if the kick snare hit hard and tell nebula "apply this amount of harmonics" to the ride that SHOULD be getting a much less strong dose of harmonics based on it's volume, I feel like that can stack up. especially if you use nebula as much as me.

it also depends of course on how the libraries are made, and I'd have to further testing but like Cupwise includes the preamps/filters in one instance, where Petherick will separate his out. so for a Cupwise filter on a stereo file I believe you'd want to duplicate, split them left and right. but like, Pethericks neve EQ let's say I'd have to do some testing with plugin doctor to figure out if it is necessary to duplicate everything (which is what I end up doing. got lots of reaper chains now with the parameters linked) or if it's just the preamp/distortion where that would be "necessary."

so depending on whether you want a stereo linked/unlinked compressor depends on whether you want to duplicate the compressor instance, but for stereo it should theoritically cleaner regardless to duplicate and dual mono the preamp section. for tape saturation, clippers, distortion, all of that stuff stereo signals into just one instance will result in "bleed over." my brain isn't good so sorry for repeating myself, or if I'm super wrong. mods feel free to delete or say start a new thread.

 

Has anyone here used the "Meldei 1176" from the Melda MTurboComp? I just acquired the v16 Melda bundle and gave it a test run and was actually quite surprised at it. It sounds great. I haven't compared it directly against other 1176 plugins yet, but i felt more impressed with this than i was with most other stuff i've tested in the past (like Overloud, Waves, Arturia, etc). It's got that "juicy" analog sound

It has an odd gain structure by default (it's driven really hard into the compressor) but once you tame it and blend it sounds real nice. I'm definitely gonna give it some more test work over the next few days.

For that matter, all the compressors in the MTurboComp plugin are quite good (there's 12 of them). Do they sound like the real hardware? No idea tbh, but they all have a nice analogy sound, all with different particular behaviours, and you can quickly and easily switch between them all and audition the comp that fits best for the given source (kinda like how the McDSP comp bundle works)

 

Last edited: Jan 6, 2023

Thats right, there is no plug-in emulation that sounds the same as hardware. Technically not possible. But I only believe in experience. An old friend of mine had been using early 1176 models in his studio for a long time and as he switched studios to ITB he said the UAD 1176 was the closest.

 

Also worth giving a shout out to the UBK compressor by Kush. Not explicitly a 1176 emulation, but one of the compressor modes in there is based off a 1176 FET, i think it's the one called "Glue", from memory. UBK is like 10 years old but it's still one of the best compressors around. One of the few digital compressors that sounds good when you drive it hard. Very analogy

I also just tested the Purafied VU comp pretty thoroughly. It's good. Better than the Pulsar offering imo