I even find his concept quite funny. It describes roughly but well the cross-section of this industry.

 

Fuck careful gainstaging! You can override true iron really hard!
Up to +60dbfs gain on input, crush x2 to maximum, mix to 100% (Not less than 100% or it will blow up your speakers!!) and play with the strength knob, voicing and output knob.
You can also carefully turn the crush knob back a little bit to find the sweetspot (Be careful: it gets louder! Never deactivate the x2-button!!). Switch boost to give some LF back to the signal. Experiment with DNA and morph.

I promise you, it will still have some kind of analog character. Heavy distorted, but usable!

Nice as an FX AUX on drums, bass, synths, guitars

 

Last edited: Nov 5, 2020

I love the Kush trasformers, but unfortunately the `try before you buy` version are very unstable .. would this toy be sonically comparable to the Kush ones?

 

Not even close to my ears. Omega N and A are really really good, the N reminiscent of the Neve flavour and the A very API. Maybe they're still laying around some other site.

 

just heard True iron. The flavor is totally different. Kush doesnt add to much amplitude to the sound, and more effective for mid range. Apparently True Iron is fatter (more 3d), for distributing harmonics over a larger range.

 

Word!

 

I knew you would jump on it

 

Any chance seeing KClip and/or Synth Warmer as well?
@KarateChop @Noobonic Thanks for providing Iron and Dynamics, by the way. Really appreciated.

 

A lot of work was done in the past to get rid of transformers - and coils in general - in audio, as they compress signal, have considerable inertia, introduce intermodulation, bring noise, suffer from inductances overlapping, impair impedance, etc.
So those hard working people were fools?
This sound degradation hype looks to me a bit like buying a new suit, and then intentionally wearing it off to look shabby ('more lively').
Better than the original? Just look at all those girls freaking behind their make-up.

 

Did someone just say sound degradation?

 

So, obviously I need your help.

This is what you hear:

1. 'untreated'
2. True Iron on each of the 12 channels (Crush 0, Strength 10, 4001B, DNA on, I even set all sources to 0VU, even if there's nothing mentionend in the manual about it, but just in case)
3. 3 simple Reaper and JS plugins in the main out

https://fidbak.audio/na/player/4a53c5a4332b/aaa410222e83

Where's the depth, the greatness, 3D, 4D and 5D?

 

I can't listen to the audio demo right now. Try the following: Set strenght to 0 and increase the input level (per gain plugin or crush doesn't matter) until the effect is noticeable. Enable boost on tracks that are driven by low end (kick, bass, etc). Set the strenght knob plus or minus to your taste and adjust the input gain again.

 

Been there, done that, doesn't matter.

 

there are good alternatives for kclip (ozone exciter) and synth warmer (literally every good saturation plugin like inflator or noveltech character) but same can not be said about true iron from what ive gathered

 

Is this a request?

 

So, you can hear a significant difference between the tracks 2 and 3 in my forelast post?

 

I simply meant that the processed and unprocessed A/B-ing should be matched so as not to get fooled by one being louder than the other.

I don't really know what to tell you, but my individual tracks alone are improved (by my standards,) saying nothing of the combined channels. I can hear a difference on everything from Orange Tree Samples Flatwound Bass, to my Purgatory Creek Mark I, to Imperfect Samples' Walnut Grand and Braunschweig pianos (the latter two both sounding very nice with True Dynamics....but we can quibble over compressors later. ) I don't have any audio examples on hand, but when I first got it, I showed some musician friends (who know nothing about mixing, not really,) the A/B-ed tracks and they could blindly choose which had True Iron on the tracks without effort, every time...so, it's not just me.
Also, Sinus Well's advice to push the input doesn't vybe with anything that I've encountered using True Iron, as I play/record at very moderate levels, and keep everything low until the very end, since I hate fuckin with a hot mix, and I still get results.

The drums seemed ever-so-slightly more pulled out/defined in #3, but I haven't slept in 20+ hrs, so I could be hearing things.

 

Clipper is mainly used to tame transients in a pleasant way, not "for a flavour". I use apShaper for that currently, but it's broadband, and I'd like to clip my frequency bands separately. There's no other mastering-focused multiband clipper I know of, and Saturn+apShaper combo is rather clumsy and not really giving me the results I want.

 

I did some testing here, I mixed a simple song (drums, piano and bass), used True Iron at the beginning of the chain (for every track the rest of the chain consisted only of a Pro-Q 3 except for the drums which had a soothe2 at the end of the chain, just to tame some harshness), normalized the mix to -21 LUFS-I and bounced it, then did the same thing but without True Iron. After that I opened the two stems on Reaper and used Blind Test, by Hofa, to compare them, the version with True Iron sounded pristine... it just sounded, better? I repeated the blind test 4 or 5 times, I could recognize the sound of the mix I liked better right at the first try, after that I could instantly recognized the version with the True Iron instances.

Here are the files (they're too big for the chat so I uploaded them on WeTransfer), I'll leave the examples, I won't tell which is which, I think most of you will get it right: https://we.tl/t-H5eOAPWvx6

(WARNING!! I RECOMMEND READING THE NEXT BIT AFTER YOU'RE DONE LISTENING TO THE EXAMPLES ABOVE!)

That being said, thing is awesome, things I noticed and liked about my True Iron settings in this particular mix:

1 - It made the whole song louder even tho the two examples have the same integrated loudness.
2 - It gave more air and depth to the mix.
3 - Made it hit harder.

 

Last edited: Aug 12, 2022