I had already forgotten that Tim Robbins and Martin Lawrence had ever been in a movie together . . . and by sometime tomorrow . . .

 

Cobalt is out!!!

 

Damn, something else to spend money on! LMAO! Can't hardly complain, Gold has bumped my mixes up another notch, IMO.

 

Yep, AA keeps throwing things at us, like with no remorse what so ever for our budget. . This Cobalt thing is, pfff, . I demoed it maybe 12h before pulling the trigger (at least AS being down yesterday allowed that).
So in brief don't demo it if you don't want to put yourself at risk of being tempted, I repeat don't demo it...Specially not its comp, nor its pres. Certainly not its eq. Just don't demo it....

 

@Talmi is that like saying "Do not seek the treasure!" LMAO. I am telling myself "Gold does what you need, dude!" Maybe I can resist the urge. That dynamic eq, tho

 

Gold is one of the best at AA. The vintage neve flav, and so many choices, the eqs, the pres. "Only" two comps, but what great compressors they are.

Cobalt is different. The pultec (for eqs)/altec (for comp) combo is something else. Wouldn't say better or not, but really different. The eqs are "rounder", a bit mellow, very sweet. Different than Purple (so pure pultec emu), Cobalt is based on a homebrew handmade unit. It's more precise, less "generous" than Purple. It's all very subjective, obviously, but that's how I perceive things.

The dyneq takes a bit to get used to. No visual feedback like in izotope, no individual threshold for each band (so maybe they interact better in Cobalt, they all act in unison with the compression you dial in with the compressor), but damn, it's very unique. Interesting. I don't know. The eq curve is applied dynamicaly, it can relate in various ways with the compression going, according to how you set the compression itself (threshold, att rel time and which unit/ratio you pick), the eqs bands in the side chain (an entire eq unit available just for the side chain !), the output of the main eq, your cuts and boost themselves, and the range lets you define how much of the eq curve should be applied dynamicaly (in relation to your threshold and how much reduction is done). Pff. Written like this it seems complicated, but after a few tries you quickly get used to how it works, and the results are very appealing.
There is also a normal eq unit, so if you like the eq flavor and don't want the whole strip and the dyneq, you can go for that, but you can also use the strip with the compression pluses it brings (you can use violet ratio or mantis ratio, which is not the case in the stand alone comp unit) and use the eq like a classic eq, without enabling the dynamic side of thing.

 

Last edited: May 31, 2017

@Talmi, fantastic explanation. Thank you for taking the time.

 

Guess what's finally in beta....... Ebony!

 

Do you have an updated link to the AA Acqua plugins and the hardware they are based off of? Or Anywhere I can find a current list?
Thanks

 

There is a group on facebook if you subscribed to FB (which I haven't) and to the group called Acustica Audiophiles, it's fairly updated.
And thanks to @5teezo , we've got our own list that you can find on this topic : https://audiosex.pro/threads/5teezos-analog-modeled-audio-plugin-lists.30646/page-2

 

Last edited: Jun 27, 2017

Mix using 99% Nebula 4 and Acqua's.