I know Acustica for a long time but always avoided it because their stuff is resource hungry.
But when I watched Paul Third and saw him use Acustica that made me change my mind, maybe you could benefit from checking his Youtube channel out too, mate.

 

3 on that. Share with us your wisdom willtheweirdo! I would enjoy learning what you like.

 

Why didn't you share some of the names of these "standard, optimized VSTs"? Is that so we can go waste our time too?
What are we talking about here? PA? FabFilter? Stock DAW? Softube? Kush? DMG Audio? Dada Life? Kazrog? Valhalla DSP? SoundToys? ReLab? Voxengo? Melda? Eventide? D16? Fuse Audio Labs? Cytomic? Black Rooster Audio? MAAT Digital? Nugen Audio? etc... Overloud... Pulsar Modular... Pulsar Audio... Waves ??? Newfangled... etc...
People love to talk, but do not like to name the alternatives.

It is obviously a time-consuming endeavor, but it is hard to know if something works for you until you try it for yourself, even if at the end of the day you end up only using a couple plugins from a handful of developers.

Good to know your options and expand your horizons regardless, plus it is super easy to overlook or forget some things too.
Most consumers will take what they are given so it is not necessarily a good measure. You are right though, it is the idea and vibe of the song that is felt by the listener.

@WillTheWeirdo

Make it 3. Are there are any tweaks one should do for Nebula in different cases, such as with EQs, Compressors, or various other units like Preamps and time-based effects/special effects?

Besides what may be mentioned by the creator of the library, are there are any special user tweaks one should know about? How can a user check how many kernels a library is using, or the length of certain samples such as for the Preamps?
So we do not use more kernels or lengths than necessary. This all comes with its own compromises as well.
As it is, Nebula works and sounds great straight out of the box, without any additional tweaks.

º Skins/setups help make things pretty whilst usually adding additional functionalities and streamlines in workflow. º

Having good organization helps when using Nebula, especially if you really start to get into it.
Do NOT put all your programs and vectors into a giant pile in the nebulatemprepository.
Live and learn, then share.

 

Last edited: Aug 5, 2024

I started using Nebula after one AlexB SSL 9K thread from here (wanted to see what big fuss was about), dunno what the thing does, but everything just sounds the way I like it, with azzimov's skin, it's breeze to use, moderate CPU usage and somehow special sound.

 

I recall Paul Third using Pulsar Massive as his go-to Massive Passive clone, though for Vari Mu he uses Magenta Comp.
Arturias Neve comp was another one that sounded really really close in comparison to the original he tested on mix:analog.

I also agree with Paul that he says it's really hard to make a compressor that sounds like the original, that's why TimP STA Level and SSL Bus are basically all I need from Acustica, they are the bare minimum for working in the box for me. Feels like cheating, like having some kind of hybrid setup.

 

Am i the only one who finds Paul Thirds face extremely punchable?

 

Faceist.

 

Nah, he is a cool dude. But I'd punch Underbelly all day.

 

Sorry, I didn't mention earlier. I'm TRYING to keep this short-winded and focused on FX:

Melda Production: This is my Acustica/Waves/FabFilter/PluginAlliance replacement. I bought the complete bundle with LIFETIME updates. Their "turbo" plugin series combines popular emulations and the interface will render a different look depending on the model selected. Most importantly, it sounds very good to me. Their MXXX plugin is for nerds who want to experiment mixing all their different fx inside of one plugin -more than just a rack, it offers patch bay features and multiple parallel lanes for single crossing. The interface of every plugin can be deeply customized with options button, color, and font styles. Has GPU acceleration of vector UI. The entire fx bundle is just a few hundred megabytes, so lightweight footprint with efficient processing (opposite of Acustica). If you use VST3, it will stop CPU usage when no active audio is passing through.

Arturia FX Collection: Particularly their distortions, reverbs, and delays are really good and provide both modern and vintage classic options.

IK T-Racks/MixBox: Still my go-to compressors, limiters, tape machines.

For guitar fx, I stick with Amplitube 5 (for realistic) and Guitar Rig 7 (for creative).

For creative or sequenced fx, I use Sugarbytes Artillery and Looperator.

Convolution Reverb - I have Altiverb but make more effort these days to use DAW convolution.

In the FX category I think these cover all grounds - sound design, mixing, and mastering.