AAX DSP / Plugin-Alliance question

[Stephen Bond]

Originally Posted by innerbooty

IRON seems pretty cool, but worth $300...? Guess I'm still looking...

Good case in point. Here's what I paid.

Your Order

1 SPL IRON $299

Subtotal $299
2020-11 Customer Loyalty Monthly Vouchers - $25 (Code: 2020-11-25-GC3EE) -$25
SPL Iron for $39.99 (Code: SPL-IRON-3999) -$259.01
VAT United Kingdom (20%) $3.00
Total $17.99

So if I was in the US it would have been $15.

I only bought it because it was hard to refuse at that price. I had demoed previously it as lots of people liked it but I was non-plussed. I'm not saying it is a bad plugin, just it wasn't doing anything much for me the day I tried it. You can try a plugin another day and it can be excellent.

So subscription is NOT for me. Why bother? Paying over and over for the same stuff?! It is NOT Netflix, sorry Steve Slate. I do not watch the same films over and over again. If I did I would buy them. Neither do I drink the same coffee over and over. It is a new cup of coffee each time, not the same one as yesterday. Slate is the KING of marketing in audio plugins. However, is isn't as savvy as Dirk at PIA would knows he won't get a single $$$ from me for subscription, hence he keeps the sales going

Plugins are big business. During the recent 'Flood Sale' over at PIA they sold 10,000 plugins over two days. Do the math, at say $10 profit a plugin that is $100,000 which is what Dirk quoted in royalties. I'm sure the sales price could have been much higher, at an average of $30 or more?

As much as I like the Softube stuff I can't understand their pricing. They can't be selling a quarter of what PIA are doing. As for UAD then it is extortion. Sure, some great and unique plugins but when you factor in the cost of the same code plus the expensive hardware to run it on...

So my advice is to demo the plugins, especially when they come up at the right price and buy them one a month or so if they seem like they might get used.

Stephen

[innerbooty]

I am demo'ing the Arouser now. The feature set is crazy. Is it just in my mind that it doesn't seem to have the "oomph", heft, of the UAD Distressor? As a longtime owner of two Distressors, I am super impressed with UAD's version. As for Empirical Labs, the Big Freq also sounds amazing, and super cool features. I was disappointed to see that they didn't do a DSP version for that one though...

As per above, I also have no interest in plugin subscriptions. Avid's got us by the b**ls, so no choice there. That being said, I did recently subscribe to Roland Cloud, which has a mind-blowing array of incredibly well done plugins and libraries, and emulations of all their classic synths and drum machines. That seems worth it me, in what I do.

Seems Plugin Alliance is having kind of a cool sale. I would welcome thoughts as to the most "go to" overall useful plugins in their arsenal. Might be a good time to buy a few

[sdemott]

I do like the PA plugins. The ones I find on all my mixes are:

Lindell 50 (API channel strip)
SPL Iron
SPL Passeq
Mäag EQ4
Purple Audio MC77

I also really like McDSP’s 6060. I use that on a lot of tracks as well.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ben Jenssen]

Originally Posted by innerbooty

Seems Plugin Alliance is having kind of a cool sale. I would welcome thoughts as to the most "go to" overall useful plugins in their arsenal. Might be a good time to buy a few

Some of my favourites are:
ADA STD-1 STEREO TAPPED DELAY
- not a regular delay but a great tool for widening synths, dual guitars.
BX-OPTO - Sweet opto compressor.
MAAG EQ4
FOCUSRITE CHANNELSTRIP
BLACK BOX ANALOGUE DESIGN HG2 - Good-sounding easy tone shaping saturator.
BX TOWNHOUSE BUS COMPRESSOR
NEOLD BIG AL

[innerbooty]

More fun tips, thanks! That delay does look intriguing. But I have a LOT of delays. I also have a lot of EQs and compressors, but that's still what I'm mostly looking for, a couple of really nice ones I can run on DSP...

Very impressed with the PA EQ's, the Passeq, Maag EQ4 and Amex 200, The high end seems very smooth, and the low end nice and round. I continually find myself underwhelmed with UAD EQ's. They still sound kind of harsh, slightly digital to me. The UAD Pultecs I think are just ok. I do like the UAD Massenburg MDWEQ. Having liked the ELI Big Freq but disappointed that it's only Native, I wonder if the PA Amek 200 is what I want -- maybe even not on sale??

Really digging the PA Purple 77! I keep trying to like Iron, especially since it's on sale now. But I find the interface and option set clumsy and non-intuitive. Going to keep demo'ing today as I master a record and do some revised mixes. Fun...

[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by Stephen Bond

I'm pretty Waves centric. I have a little SG Mobile Server to run a good number of Waves plugins on. StudioRack goes in one slot in Pro Tools and a bunch of Waves plugins in there to use the Waves DSP.

I reached 100 plugins from Plugin Alliance the other day. I have been purchasing one or so a month for the last few years. Once you have made a purchase you will get a $25 voucher each month so if you are savvy and bide your time you can get the plug-ins for around $20 each if you wait for the right deals.

My suggestion is to demo the plugins before you buy them. I have too many which I seldom use. There are some great offerings from PIA that I use all the time but give them a good try before you buy. You could go the subscription route but you might be overwhelmed with all the plugin-ins at once and personally, I am anti subscription.

To be honest I can't get away from the Waves LA2A, LA3A, and 1176 CLA plug-ins, even with the other alternatives I have for these.

There's plenty of other manufacturers to check out. I have a few Sonnox offerings. Softube make some good stuff and McDSP etc.

Hope that helps?!

Stephen

Yeah the Waves DSP route is a very valid way to go, especially if you already own a multitude of their plugins. You save money by not having to "rebuy" any plugins so you only really need to grab the SoundGrid in most cases. It has a low enough latency to track with too, though I think it requires you to monitor via their software. But there are a few other products like this too.

However, to answer the original question...

For different reasons I'm liking the Mpressor, 254E, TCL-2, Shadow Hills, Iron and the VSC-2 as their most flexible compressors, each with their own aesthetics.

Of those the most flexible would probably be the Iron, Shadow Hills and Mpressor. Between the Rectifier selection and the Tube Bias the Iron is like several compressors in one. The Shadow Hills is literally two compressors in one and the mPressor can do really fast attack and release times as well as negative ratios, plus you can crank the gain to distort it legitimately. The downside is you need to place a trim plugin after it to counter for the extra gain release.

[JFreak]

Here's what I don't understand so please someone explain to me.

How come SoundGrid latency of 2ms (AD/DA) plus 4ms (SG coreaudio driver), or total of 288 samples at 48kHz session is low enough, but 128 or 256 sample latency is not okay on a PT system? And as I have understood SG latency comes on top of your audio interface latency so they combined have even more latency?

Good luck running SG at 32 or 64 samples when the SG AD/DA itself takes more than that.

But maybe I am wrong as always...

[innerbooty]

Thanks! Based on my mucking around this week I think I'm going to use the 3 coupon codes get the Maag EQ4, the Purple MC77, and the Townhouse. (I was only look at PA DSP compatible plugs) I would have been interested to check out the Shadow Hills Class A, but it's not eligible for the codes. I already have the UAD Shadow Hills. I opted for plugins that I thought just sounded really good, and had vibe. I don't necessarily need flexibility, or super clean. I took a pass on the Passeq because I couldn't read the damn frequencies, and I felt like the lower frequency range options on the Cut side weren't well represented enough. I was impressed with the Amek EQ 200 and will jump on that if there's a sale at some point. The Townhouse I thought was really cool sounding. It feels like it's what I thought the UAD version should have been, but isn't...

The Waves thing is interesting, the DSP option, but I haven't really thought about it, or looked into it. I want to optimize my HDX card. Even simple plugs like the REQ2, which I used to use for lots of little simple gain and EQ utility purposes, load way more slowly in my new system than they did in PT 10. Probably mostly moving away from Waves now that AAX DSP is not supported, except for the vibey ones I like

[TOM@METRO]

Originally Posted by innerbooty

Thanks! Based on my mucking around this week I think I'm going to use the 3 coupon codes get the Maag EQ4, the Purple MC77, and the Townhouse.
Probably mostly moving away from Waves now that AAX DSP is not supported, except for the vibey ones I like

I very much like the choices you've made from PA.

As for Waves, they've been uninstalled for years here.

[innerbooty]

Originally Posted by TOM@METRO

I very much like the choices you've made from PA..

That's great to hear! Yeah, I'm excited for them. I've been really enjoying using them already... (I do notice the Purple MC 77 distorts when compressing bass heavily, but maybe I need to mess with the headroom or something...)