Does anyone know when they will release new plugins. Or will they no longer release aqua?

 

Onur Sarihan.... same here...I hope R2R gives us more Acustica Audio plugins for Christmas. I'm gona believe in Santa Claus again if R2R releases Erin, Pensado EQ 2 and Green4 :D

 

they just released a free DBX 160 emulation. it sounds good! punchy and tight

 

Agreed.

Then why are there multitudes of FFS site's making money off of warez, who have been doing it for years? "BUY PREMIUM" - The credo of every one of these POS "services" - cRapidGator, KrapFile, NitroPee, etc, etc... All making money from warez. YET, they seem impervious to scrutiny or ridicule for violating the first rule of the scene. Why is this? If any of you are thinking "well, they (the FFS's) probably don't know about the warez part. They probably think all that traffic on their site's is all just legitimate file sharing"... That's prime naive thinking. They ALL know about it and allow it because they are greedy mofo's and don't want the gravy train to come to an end.

 

Last edited: Dec 22, 2023

I see no reason for them to lie. They have been consistent in saying this for many years. Naivety is an inability to take consistency into account and to automatically mistrust everything and everyone they come across. That's like saying because some do something, everyone does it. That is as naïve as it gets. Additionally, I would consider myself an ignorant and stupid fool if I thought I could mind-read anyone's modus operandi and intent, especially a hacking team that takes great pains to remain anonymous. Fortunately, I take people at face-value until they show they do not walk their talk. If you knew enough, you would not wish to be on the wrong side of them. If you consider what they have managed to cut into and how high the encryption levels are, your computer if online is child's-play to them if you piss them off. And you call me Naïve??

 

Huh???
Point totally missed... might want to re-read my response. it was not directed at you (or any teams) in any way. only money grubbing FFS sites... whatever...

 

Last edited: Dec 22, 2023

I think you misunderstand each other.
BassDude only says that R2R is not lying, they have no reason to do this.

When R2R has enemies, they hit them with rubber sticks.

 

I'm still trying to figure out where I said ANYthing about R2R lying about anything.

 

Your statement sounded as if R2R and hosting cannot do without each other.
ALTHOUGH THIS IS ONLY FOR THE SAKE OF SECURITY AND PRIVACY.
WITHOUT ANY MONEY MEASUREMENT.

that's why..

 

Then I genuinely apologise for misreading it

That said, what Virtualex said below, is playing it down. I heard of one person who laughed in the face of R2R. Apparently, they had to buy a new computer.

 

that person was me
Now I can't use plugins from R2R. I explained to them that it was a bad joke, but it was too late.

My computer was damaged by overheating of the process and then I received a digital torsion attack and was taken to the hospital.
So I don't recommend you joke with R2R....

https://activehealthcare.co.uk/literature/science/82-torsion-waves

 

You guys keep going around in circles about the same subject. Those FFS sites are selling bandwidth and since they are not BBB members they can deal with some dubious files. They make their Free service suck, so that people get corralled into paying for Premium service. Sites that publish such information always provide a way the files can be acquired for free. That is their "out" against claims they are selling the files. That doesn't mean your download experience has to be wonderful; only that it is there.

But they aren't. You can find sites of people selling specific releases. Even on eBay. Now they are selling someone's own work. It may even be solely on the reputation of their work that anyone would ever buy stuff from them. Some of them are fully developed e-commerce sites, and it seems to be all they sell. They are profiteering. Some people may even go as far as to take one person's work, repack it for upload, and make money that way. R2R have even written personal notes to some of these people about it. Look in the nfo for Standard Clip. If all this work is being done 100% legit, for charity, and no-one makes any money doing anything; who is going to buy more retail software to give them?

Somehow, this seems to have morphed into what plugins a artist, whatever; that you think they are "allowed" to use. Or the way some hosting company does it's business. get over it.

 

OMG !!

I am so sad it was you
I tend to take people at face value. I know in this computer age that is considered unnecessary gullibility. However, somewhere in human history, people forgot that in order to truly believe anyone, they have to trust that what they are saying is true instead of taking an automatic disbelief stance. In order to trust anything is true, you have to give someone the benefit of doubt...i.e. believe they have no reason to lie unless it is too far-fetched to have credibility.
In R2R's case, they ask for nothing other than people buy what they intend to make money from. They do not ask for anything else. No money, no accolades, nada. I hope you are better now.

 

Yes, thank you very much for your sympathy. Now I feel much better, and this does not mean that I began to dislike R2R.
The only thing I have left after that story is the knowledge that I was mistaken in relation to them.
I hope they ask me and give me the opportunity to use their plugins again...

 

Been distracted by life and just found this thread. Bit of schadenfreude reading through 35 pages of comments laying into Acustica Audio. On the one hand, a lot of good information in here, and hopefully it will force Acustica to improve their business. OTOH, a lot of misinformation and bilious hatred.

Giancarlo is right that we all should want there to be a vibrant ecosystem of plugin development with many independent developers and not 3 big companies owning everything. Watch out because it's headed in that direction (e.g. Francisco Partners, InTune, etc). I think his comments here were sincere, perhaps misleading and definitely tone deaf. I don't think he hides behind sock puppets, but there is a cult of AA users who club anyone with a dissenting opinion like a baby seal. AA's transfer system is convoluted, and I'm sure they wouldn't support it without an EU mandate, but reselling their plugins is possible and there is a vibrant aftermarket for them, at the right price.

I'm not going to use R2R, but that's my own personal ethics. I think they did a service to all Acustica users by pointing out the bloat, and security vulnerabilities. Not sure why anyone's DAW should be run as a privileged user to allow a privilege escalation via an Acustica flaw, but I'd bet they are right that one exists. Not my problem on Mac OS. There are a lot of very sloppy practices and lack of attention to detail in Acustica products, and longstanding simple problems that don't get fixed in a timely manner. Doesn't take much digging to find them.

I prefer devs who pay attention to detail, so this year sold off Gold, Purple, Amethyst, Ceil/Celestial/Cerise and don't miss them. With Gold and Purple, there are so many Neve and Pultec algo options out there that anyone can find a good alternative at any price point and quality level. Amethyst is a buggy mess. The Ceil suite I got for free. To AA's credit, they periodically provide useful free plugins to their users. I am keeping Water and Cream for now and would consider buying an aftermarket copy of Blond. As others have said, the magic (such as it is) seems to be in their pre-amps and Eqs. Hopefully all of this will lead to improvement of existing products and less slapped together new junk. It's unclear what the business model of Acustica Audio really is. One could argue that it is generating a cult-like fanbase who need to collect them all, and they might not be wrong.

 

Reigniting this thread as I finally took decided to try out Acustica's plug-ins last night, for the first time. Up until then I had been sat on the side lines observing the R2R fiasco and all the drama that took place after. I am not an Acustica hater, nor lover, so I came into this neutral. Here is my experience of trying out these plug-ins and the thoughts I have surrounding them:

Gold was the one I was most eager to try as I love anything Neve inspired. My initial avoidance of Acustica plug-ins stems with their UI. The majority of them are fatiguing to look at in a way that discourages workflow and just isn't intuitive. The best way I can describe it is it seems like the person who designs these layouts probably has a really cluttered home and is okay with it, that's how these plug-ins feel.

It took me a good few minutes to realise the EQ section of Gold was split into two halves, and even with that figured out, EQing with it somehow felt slow and like a chore. I can't say that I've ever used a Neve emulation that felt that way. Even the Lindell whilst having a lot of controls and features feels intuitive and fast to use.

Does the Acustica plug-in sound good? Yeah. But not in the "oh my god this is the analogue sound I've been searching for in the box" level I was expecting and that some people online purport it to be. I also noticed that whilst changing between settings, the sound would momentarily drop out. No plug-in I've ever used has done this, and all I can assume is it's a result of the type of emulation modelling being used. Even the IK Tape Machine collection doesn't cause drops like this, and it uses way higher CPU on my system than Gold does.

After toying with the EQ, I moved on to attempting to use the saturation and preamp drive. I feel ashamed to admit this because I've been producing music for over 20 years now, but I could not for the life of me even figure out how to do it from this plug-in. I tried all the usual things I would to drive the signal harder to push it, and didn't really notice any harmonics or grit. Maybe I was just being an idiot, but it shouldn't be that hard to achieve, and this once again brings us back to the UI issue.

These plug-ins just aren't intuitive to use and don't aid workflow. People can bang out all they like about how the sound quality is better and truer to analogue, maybe it is, but if you have to fight the plug-in to use it, at a point it becomes diminishing returns. If you're a tinkerer and love toying around and experimenting in plug-ins, maybe it's a rewarding experience using this. For somebody who wants to work quickly and methodically, like you would using the actual hardware, these plug-ins are amongst the worst I've ever used, regardless of sound quality.

To the people who like Acustica plug-ins, more power to you. I noticed R2R stopped with the releases mid-way through the collection, and for me, I can honestly say it wouldn't bother me whatsoever if they never released or cracked another one of the Acustica catalogue.

It gives me more appreciation for the plug-ins and developers out there who release good quality stuff with amazing workflow, like the Arturia FX collection and a lot of the Plug-in Alliance stuff.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 1, 2024

AA is very hit or miss. Where I find a good 75% of Acqua preamps are so subtle it's really not worth adapting to their workflows, there are a couple of interesting ones. I honestly prefer their tools (Ash, Druma, Pumpkins, Fire the Filters, etc) over their console emulations.

If I need some console "sounds" (depth and all) or compressors, I use 3rd party Nebula libraries. I like the workflow, especially once you get familiar with Nebula and creating your own setups (basically your own plugins). I'd say where 75% of Acquas are meh, 75% of Nebulas are excellent.

 

That's valid. Their GUI's often give me the impression that the designer is an artist 1st and an audio engineer 2nd. Workflow is not the primary intention. And yeah, it has been one of acustica's main detractors. It's always about making a piece of art rather than a functional GUI.
It seems like Acustica have listened to those criticisms in recent releases though, if you look at releases like Tiger Ultra (not released here), Pumpkin Pro, Cherry, Midnight, Grey, Ash Ultra, etc. They have the flat 2D GUI's like Fabfilter would.

But yeah, Acustica plugins are certainly no magic bullet for the analog sound. They can sound good and interesting, but I think there's a phenomena at play where when ppl invest money on something they will recommend it and overhype it as a way to justify their investment to themselves. I know because it was me for about the first 6-9 months of being an Acustica customer. I thought I'd found "the secret". After a while you notice the weaknesses and simmer down, lol.
These days I see Acustica plugs as an interesting range of colours that put sort of a "hifi" sound on things.
They've got their strengths and weaknesses. You sort of have to accept their weaknesses going into it before you get any sort of value out of it. But the marketing will always rise people's expectations, as will the loyal customers

Gold is okay. I sold it about a year after I bought it, I never used it because of the same workflow reasons you mentioned. Also didn't love the sound as much as I thought I would, particularly the compression was underwhelming to me (can't push it very hard, like most of acustica's comps).
I did love the Gold preamps though, I must admit.

Recent stuff is world class though. 2023 and beyond.

Great recent Acustica plugs = Salt, Cherry, Tiger Ultra, Opal Comp, Midnight, Grey, Ash, El Rey 2, Amber 4 Ultra.
That's where I'd start if I were new to Acustica.

And pretty much anything with the word "ultra" in it from here on out I'm confident will sound great. This new tech is pristine

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 1, 2024

Reading the Framework notes again, I think it might be over for the AA R2R releases, at least for the foreseeable future.

My understanding is they released what they accumulated and cracked internally since 2015.

 

ive never used Nebula so i can't speak to that but i have a lot of UAD plugins, a few Plugin Alliance plugins, obviously waves(which i dont use anymore), and I have to say Acustica's stuff is great. I played around with a couple of breaks and put together a quick idea and the sheer weight i was able to add to the break was almost night and day difference. I gain matched everything and the original break sounded so dead. The kick had depth, body, and punch and the snare was so crisp and clear..i ended up bouncing and saving the break like that and keeping it as a sample. So i moved on to an actual record that im working on for a whole project and removed the final waves plugins that i had in there and added Pink on 4 different instances of guitars, Sand Bus Comp on the mix bus. The preamp already gave the guitars way more presence and life and the pink pulled them out and sat them in the record incredibly. I added two other instances of guitars that had a different tone from the others and decided to just use pink preamps for those(although as im typing this, i kind of want to try Gold Pres) and used a different EQ for those and it just gave the sound more life. I'm a producer and not an engineer by any stretch of the imagination but i know how i want my records to sound and I cant see myself not using their plugins going forward. they really do sound great. the ONLY downside is the CPU hits. But im also at 96k and if i just dropped down to 48k that would probably alleviate some of that issue.

So far my favs from them are Amethyst, Sand, Gold, Midnight(gonna use on vocals some more for sure), Ultramarine(i put on the mix bux on another project), and El Rey. The teams that cracked everything really gave us a lot of tools to work with and im not gonna sit through and try and grab all of them because there is no need, considering all that i already have, but I must admit, AA has some incredible stuff.