Plugin Alliance insanity

[moshuajusic]

I've been blowing them off for awhile now, ever since they dropped the monthly $25 voucher. I got used to getting plugins for $4. lol But the Bax EQ for $29 finally broke my willpower.

Makes me wonder if Avid could update EQIII to allow for <20Hz and >20kHz (and a bigger window)...

[Carl Lie]

Originally Posted by amagras

At the end I didn't buy it but I was able to lower the final price to $4 by stacking the TH and my $25 monthly vouchers. You have to login otherwise the vouchers don't work.

I wasn't a fan of the TH at first but I've been toying with it lately. Its is good at the "glue" effect. Also found running in parallel on some grouped tracks works well.

My voucher did come a few hours ago so I hope we all are set. I definitely use a lot of PL plugs in my mixing and can't thank them enough for the DSP versions.

Always fun to discuss plugins with you all!

C

[amagras]

Originally Posted by Carl Lie

I wasn't a fan of the TH at first but I've been toying with it lately. Its is good at the "glue" effect. Also found running in parallel on some grouped tracks works well.



My voucher did come a few hours ago so I hope we all are set. I definitely use a lot of PL plugs in my mixing and can't thank them enough for the DSP versions.



Always fun to discuss plugins with you all!



C

I got the last train of February with mpressor, the folks here gave me a good push too. Looking forward to see if they bring more stuff down this month!

[PatriotsBiker]

I saw the alpha, mpressor and Townhouse compressors mentioned in the last 6-8 posts. With all of these new entries lately, it becomes easy to forget the very nice set of compressors the PIA has had for a few years now.

I would love an intel exchange on some of these. For me, it breaks down like this. (And I could be missing the boat.)

Alpha - I stopped using it because it was too much for my old machine to handle. It used to be on every mix-buss.

mpressor - I rarely use it, but it does do some things others do not. I have to RTFM again to find out exactly what is happening, but the frequency level adjustment as part of it is pretty nifty at times. I only reach for this compressor to solve a problem. Perhaps I should reach for it to enhance material instead.

VSC-2 - This one is very nice on my Mix bus early on. Just a teensiest bit of movement in the needle(GR) and I get a slight bit of warmth sans ultra low end thickening.

bx_XL V2 - A fun Limiter with what I think is a modern sound. I can certainly over-kill this one with considerable ease. Most of my recent songs have been slower old-school Country or 70's Soft rock songs, so I've not used it in a while. Thinking it will not work well is quite an assumption to make.

bx_Limiter - I had the crazy notion that every track needed a safety net. This is what I used. I stopped doing this after a few Sessions. I'm still not sure where this fits anymore.

254E - I recently discovered a fundamental flaw in my tracking and gain staging strategies. I'm sure I was not hitting this plug hard enough. I am curious to know, though, where this fits in with other Neve Emulations of the era, like the UAD 33609 and the Waves V-Comp.

Opticom XLA-3 - Such fun!

Opto - I have it, but do not know anything about it other than it's red and an "opto" type comp. A spur of the moment upgrade offer from the free pedal version - which I also knew nothing about.

Master Desk - Such fun. I nice, quick way to get a quick, dirty and low end focused test mix bounced. I've left it in place on some songs instead of starting a true Mastering session.

Townhouse Buss - This one is interesting. I've chimed in a time or two about it before. I can't control this one very well yet. The least little bit of tweaking before it in the chain and it goes from good to thump over-load.

Iron - I like this one a lot. I need to play with it more. It seemed to me to be part of a 1-2-3 series of PIA compressor release with some nice color in the lows/low-mids.

DSM - This is like cheating. If I am doing a song that has extremely similar sound to a particular professional reference, I use this as a learning aid. If I was a professional, I quite imagine that I would learn to do what it does using the standard set of tools available so that I would have total control. - OR - I would use this extensively as a time-saver, though specifically I do not know how that would manifest itself.

TCL-2 - I saved this one for last. I really don't know if I am using it correctly or even what tasks it works best for. I almost never see it talked about.

I am still very much just amateur stuck at the back of the class, in no small part due to owning far too many tools and mastering none of them. It is great fun, though. Being a hobbyist can have frustrating moments, but sure is fun most of the time.

I'd love to hear some usage habits from y'all.

[amagras]

Originally Posted by PatriotsBiker

mpressor - I rarely use it, but it does do some things others do not. I have to RTFM again to find out exactly what is happening, but the frequency level adjustment as part of it is pretty nifty at times. I only reach for this compressor to solve a problem. Perhaps I should reach for it to enhance material instead.

I just made a video analyzing the niveau filter which is modeled from the filter section of the mpressor, you could find it interesting
https://youtu.be/1IfxnviS8vQ
From my simplistic approach to mixing and point of view in general I can say the easiest way to know how compressor plugins can be used is finding out what type they are. There are only that many types of technologies used to create compressors (VCA, FET, Optical, Vari-mu, etc or feedback vs feedforward detection) and learning the general characteristics of each of these them can help decide which is the best for each job, then you can try different models of the same or switch to another type if you are not getting what you need. Most plugins that are based on real hardware respond to these which makes it easier to understand at least for me. Cheers

[musicman691]

Alpha - it lives as part of my mastering chain along with Dangerous Bax EQ from PA. Tried it on my 2-bus and it just didn't do enough. To me it's not designed for heavy lifting.

mpressor - got it but rarely use it.

VSC-2 - use it when I want a VCA type compressor that's not an SSL. Same situations but I don't always want a VCA comp.

bx_xlV2 - demoed it and it screwed up my mixes really bad. Deleted it less than a week into the demo period.

bx_limiter - use it when I want a not-so-clean limiter. But when I want clean with a lot of level I use Fabfilter Pro L2

Lindell 354E - use it on synth tracks and busses. Waiting on a sale to get the 254E. I actually find it quicker/easier to setup than Fabfilter Pro C2

Opto - have it and it's my second choice for an LA2A style compressor. The first is IK's White 2A. Love the speed control on the Opto.

Townhouse - just got it and haven't done much with it. Been doing a bunch of synth stuff these last couple of weeks and it just doesn't work for that.

SPL Iron - got it and love it on things like piano and bass. It runs neck and neck with the TCL-2 in valve mode for piano duty. Been trying Iron on strings and it's not too shabby.

This is sad but I haven't really found anything for my 2-bus from PA that I like on a consistent basis. VSC-2 on maybe 10%, Waves SSL Bus Comp at 10%. Waves Abbey Road TG Mastering at 20%. Believe it or not most of my 2-bus stuff goes through Blue Cat Dynamics. Slowly trying to work Fabfilter Pro C2 into that spot but it's not easy.

[amagras]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Alpha - it lives as part of my mastering chain along with Dangerous Bax EQ from PA. Tried it on my 2-bus and it just didn't do enough. To me it's not designed for heavy lifting.

mpressor - got it but rarely use it.

VSC-2 - use it when I want a VCA type compressor that's not an SSL. Same situations but I don't always want a VCA comp.

bx_xlV2 - demoed it and it screwed up my mixes really bad. Deleted it less than a week into the demo period.

bx_limiter - use it when I want a not-so-clean limiter. But when I want clean with a lot of level I use Fabfilter Pro L2

Lindell 354E - use it on synth tracks and busses. Waiting on a sale to get the 254E. I actually find it quicker/easier to setup than Fabfilter Pro C2

Opto - have it and it's my second choice for an LA2A style compressor. The first is IK's White 2A. Love the speed control on the Opto.

Townhouse - just got it and haven't done much with it. Been doing a bunch of synth stuff these last couple of weeks and it just doesn't work for that.

SPL Iron - got it and love it on things like piano and bass. It runs neck and neck with the TCL-2 in valve mode for piano duty. Been trying Iron on strings and it's not too shabby.

This is sad but I haven't really found anything for my 2-bus from PA that I like on a consistent basis. VSC-2 on maybe 10%, Waves SSL Bus Comp at 10%. Waves Abbey Road TG Mastering at 20%. Believe it or not most of my 2-bus stuff goes through Blue Cat Dynamics. Slowly trying to work Fabfilter Pro C2 into that spot but it's not easy.

Great response, this is what I was talking about. About Blue Cat, it might not be the most inspirational to use but it's a monster that can do all of the other, if mixing wasn't 80% inspiration for me that's all I would use.

[64GTOBOY]

Love the TCL-2 on anything acoustic, incl real drums, AG, Mando,etc. The 245 I like when paired with a mostly uncolored limiter after it. Weiss usually. Somehow the 245 gives me that 70's midrange sound but it's always too dark by itself IMHO. The Townhouse I got last month so very little use yet. I got the DSM yesterday and it does feel like cheating but i like the fact that it doesn't seem to bump the bass up the way most compressors do when hard limiting, course just getting started with it.

[PatriotsBiker]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Alpha - it lives as part of my mastering chain along with Dangerous Bax EQ from PA. Tried it on my 2-bus and it just didn't do enough. To me it's not designed for heavy lifting.

...........

bx_xlV2 - demoed it and it screwed up my mixes really bad. Deleted it less than a week into the demo period.

.......


Opto - have it and it's my second choice for an LA2A style compressor. The first is IK's White 2A. Love the speed control on the Opto.

.....

This is sad but I haven't really found anything for my 2-bus from PA that I like on a consistent basis. VSC-2 on maybe 10%, Waves SSL Bus Comp at 10%. Waves Abbey Road TG Mastering at 20%. Believe it or not most of my 2-bus stuff goes through Blue Cat Dynamics. Slowly trying to work Fabfilter Pro C2 into that spot but it's not easy.

On the alpha, I tried some of the pre-set to add a good bit of juice to the mix. It's been a while, but a few of them gave me "how in the did they do that?" moments.

The XL_V2 took me forever to learn the basic flow and order of doing things. Once I did that, I found that it went from never works to being quite nifty at times. It's been so long now that I will have to go back to the 3-5 pages of notes I took on it to get me in sync again. FWIRC, it was kinda sorta like gains staging inside the plug.

My LA2A style of choice had been Softube's Summit Audio, but now is UAD's mkII version.

I don't have any consistent compressor on my mix buss. I'm still exploring. I sometimes wonder if I ever will. I've tried several combinations as done my various tutorial makers on PureMix and Groove 3 who seem to use the same things each time. (sometimes by admission only) I've recently thought that I could cover most of what I do by choosing elements from the TG Mastering suite for brighter material and Iron or even the Mix Desk from PIA for the low-lowmid centric efforts. Again, I could be WAY off.

I thought of the Blue Cat Dynamics suite quite some time ago, but I ended up having their background MIDI control scheme cause all sorts of crashes in an earlier version of PT. Maybe 3-5 years back now? I've since re-installed my EQ pack, which I used extensively, but took it out of my plugins folder again while chasing some glitches. I've not used it since, though it did not cause the more recent set of glitches that made me move them to begin with. That free 3-band EQ is a very impressive bit of free software fwiw. Very musical.

[PatriotsBiker]

Originally Posted by amagras

I just made a video analyzing the niveau filter which is modeled from the filter section of the mpressor, you could find it interesting
https://youtu.be/1IfxnviS8vQ
From my simplistic approach to mixing and point of view in general I can say the easiest way to know how compressor plugins can be used is finding out what type they are. There are only that many types of technologies used to create compressors (VCA, FET, Optical, Vari-mu, etc or feedback vs feedforward detection) and learning the general characteristics of each of these them can help decide which is the best for each job, then you can try different models of the same or switch to another type if you are not getting what you need. Most plugins that are based on real hardware respond to these which makes it easier to understand at least for me. Cheers

The Niveau bit in the mpressor is quite a nice feature and will even take a heavy handed approach decently. Now that you reminded me that it is indeed a niveau inside, using it for subtle frequency shifts makes more sense.