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RC-20 Retro Color $19 (normally $99.95) at Plugin Boutique


Craig N

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https://www.pluginboutique.com/products/3016-RC-20-Retro-Color?nosto=frontpage-nosto-1 🙂

Your Sound. In Color.

RC-20 Retro Color is a creative effect plugin that adds life and texture to any recording. It easily recreates the warm, cozy feeling of vintage recording equipment, but also works perfectly in any modern production setting.

Adds life and texture inspired by classic gear

Great on drums, guitars, keys, bass and full mixes

Flux Engine adds warm, analog-style fluctuations

6 Unique FX Modules

RC-20's six unique FX modules can replicate everything from vinyl records to VHS machines, adding noise, wobble and dropouts to your tracks. Its raw distortion and crunchy bit reduction will add grit to your bass and drums. The space and chorus effects will make your guitar sing like never before and the filtering effects fit right into the most modern club track.

Flux Engine

Our exclusive Flux Engine adds subtle (or not so subtle) instability and fluctuations to all of the FX modules, providing the character, warmth and analog goodness of yesteryear's best technology.

Magnitude Slider

The Magnitude slider controls the intensity of all processing. Easily accessible all the time — even when browsing presets — it makes it easy to find the perfect sound and processing amount. Automate this control for awesome intros, breakdowns and transitions in your song.

Presets

The included presets for drums, keys, guitars, bass, full mixes and post-production let you get to work right away. The RC-20 interface invites experimentation, and you can access the processing amount of each FX module while browsing.

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10 minutes ago, simon said:

I'm assuming it's VST2 not VST3 ? - the XLN website isn't clear.  

(thinking future Steinberg plans)

It's VST2. 

Though that's not going to stop me buy buying VST2 pluigns...

It will be ages until CbB drops VST2 support.

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22 minutes ago, ZincT said:

You would also still be able to run VST2s in a VST3 wrapper app, something like Kushview Element, DDMF Metaplugin or PG Unify (assuming that they carried on supporting VST2). 

yes - although wrappers can be a bit cumbersome (IMO) and you wouldn't want to run them in a wrapper if you didn't have to - hence, now,  if I'm sat on the fence about a plugin lack of VST3 is enough to tip me to the 'don't buy' side.

This doesn't apply to RC20 of course but I wonder how some of the wrappers deal with surround/atmos formats too.  Lots of stuff I use isn't just 2 channels.  Also doesn't Unify show as just a VSTi plugin so you couldn't insert it as a FX in cubase/nuendo ?

Bl**dy Steinberg - why do they make so many unfriendly choices ?

Edited by simon
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41 minutes ago, ZincT said:

You would also still be able to run VST2s in a VST3 wrapper app, something like Kushview Element, DDMF Metaplugin or PG Unify (assuming that they carried on supporting VST2). 

I've thought about this as an option too, but of course your existing projects won't open up with them, so you would lose all your settings. Unless you started saving a preset for every instance of RC-20 🙃

Apart from that not a bad option.

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50 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

I've thought about this as an option too, but of course your existing projects won't open up with them, so you would lose all your settings. Unless you started saving a preset for every instance of RC-20 🙃

Apart from that not a bad option.

Yeah, it's not ideal but I think of it as a workaround if worse comes to worse.

Even at this price I'm wondering if I really need it as I have Vybz which does similar things.

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Just now, ZincT said:

Yeah, it's not ideal but I think of it as a workaround if worse comes to worse.

Even at this price I'm wondering if I really need it as I have Vybz which does similar things.

Completely agreed and a good workaround especially for some of those great plugins we already own and will never get updated.

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that almost none of us really need any more plugins.. of course that doesn't seem to be stopping us though! Haha..

I have plenty in this space and if it was VST3, I suspect I probably would have bought it anyway at that price 🤣

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2 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

 

Im going to go out on a limb here and guess that almost none of us really need any more plugins.. of course that doesn't seem to be stopping us though! Haha..

 

very true :)

although I don't want to lose Altiverb XL (or Indoor) or the Gforce stuff  ...or Jamstix....or Addictive drums...or Superior Drummer...etc

I'm sure some will get a PAID (?) update and I'd probably update anyway but still very poor show by Steinberg (and it's 99% political NOT technical, trust me I've spoken to people with much more inside knowledge than me).   Bear in mind VST2 working well in other hosts...including M1 native.

I could rant much more about some of SB decisions - and it's not the developers fault, but I'll just leave it there :)

In the meantime I'm avoiding non-VST3 plugs...which is exactly what SB wants me to do 😠

 

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14 minutes ago, simon said:

very true :)

although I don't want to lose Altiverb XL (or Indoor) or the Gforce stuff  ...or Jamstix....or Addictive drums...or Superior Drummer...etc

I'm sure some will get a PAID (?) update and I'd probably update anyway but still very poor show by Steinberg (and it's 99% political NOT technical, trust me I've spoken to people with much more inside knowledge than me).   Bear in mind VST2 working well in other hosts...including M1 native.

I could rant much more about some of SB decisions - and it's not the developers fault, but I'll just leave it there :)

In the meantime I'm avoiding non-VST3 plugs...which is exactly what SB wants me to do 😠

 

Some valid points for sure and I definitely won't be happy losing access to some, but VST3 has been around since about 2008 I think, so that's plenty of time for developers to pull their finger out.

SB stopped issuing licences for the SDK for VST2 in 2018(?)

If they don't do it, they will need to support them for the next 20 years! It was the same as dropping support for Windows XP that many developers eventually did, almost some 20 years after its release as well 🤣

Same with dropping 32bit plugins.

There's some annoyance to get there, but once everything is just x64/VST3 (and some other formats for those other crappy DAWs (Jokes!), then it will be so much less work for all of the Devs and they can focus on core compatibilities. Probably even release new Mac compatible updates faster as they don't need to dev and test VST2, VST3, etc.

It will also stop Devs installing VST2 plugins by default that I end up having to delete as I only use VST3 if they've got it! It will reduce the myriad of random folders around my hard drive that these guys install into as well, as there's only one file path for the standard (two if you include 32bit) 🙂

So yep, it sucks a little, but will actually be a lot better in so many ways 🙂

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12 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

Some valid points for sure and I definitely won't be happy losing access to some, but VST3 has been around since about 2008 I think, so that's plenty of time for developers to pull their finger out.

<SNIP>

So yep, it sucks a little, but will actually be a lot better in so many ways 🙂

at the risk of derailing the thread (sorry) - I'm not sure I totally agree with your analysis.

VST3 isn't 'better' in every regards...actually lots of developers find it much worse than VST2.   And VST3 is nearly as old as VST2, you could say it's just as. 'legacy'...there are good reasons that many devs failed or refused to move over to it.

There were other factors in dropping DX/32bit plugs that don't apply here (IMO)...but even then, SB created a wrapper in Cubase (up to version 8?) to run 32 bit plugins to ease the transition.

I don't treat audio/studio software or technology to be 'disposable' in the way people treat cell phones and other modern technology.   In my view there needs to be a very compelling reason to change a good working standard that is universally adopted and works well....MIDI 1.0 would be a good example of this.  It's not perfect but it works well in practice.    Steinberg should have open sourced VST2 when it was released - they should NOT be the guardians of the format...it's a conflict of interest.  Imagine if Yamaha owned the MIDI standard and told people companies they couldn't use it any more or made it difficult for them to develop products using the technology.  

Don't be fooled - Steinberg are not dropping VST2 because they can't make it work - there are other political and business reasons for this.  Essentially forcing developers (check the T+C of the VST3 SDK) to move  to VST3 are 100% to benefit Steinberg as a business NOT to help or support the 3rd party developers, the users or customer.   

I'm an early adopter and welcome positive change but this is a cynical and unpleasant move worthy of Apple not Steinberg.

I say this a very, very, very long term and loyal Steinberg customer. 

(apologies for the rant ! - promise not to whinge about it any more)

 

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I prefer VST2 for the simple reason that Ableton Live has an absolutely rubbish means of organising plugins, you can't reorganise VST3 at all. VST2 you can at least organise into a custom folder tree, which I do. 

I tend to forget about the VST3 only plugins I own, because I hardly ever look outside of my VST2 folders. 

It's unfortunate. I wish they'd allow a unified organisation of plugins somehow, like other DAWs seem to manage to. 

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2 hours ago, simon said:

at the risk of derailing the thread (sorry) - I'm not sure I totally agree with your analysis.

VST3 isn't 'better' in every regards...actually lots of developers find it much worse than VST2.   And VST3 is nearly as old as VST2, you could say it's just as. 'legacy'...there are good reasons that many devs failed or refused to move over to it.

There were other factors in dropping DX/32bit plugs that don't apply here (IMO)...but even then, SB created a wrapper in Cubase (up to version 8?) to run 32 bit plugins to ease the transition.

I don't treat audio/studio software or technology to be 'disposable' in the way people treat cell phones and other modern technology.   In my view there needs to be a very compelling reason to change a good working standard that is universally adopted and works well....MIDI 1.0 would be a good example of this.  It's not perfect but it works well in practice.    Steinberg should have open sourced VST2 when it was released - they should NOT be the guardians of the format...it's a conflict of interest.  Imagine if Yamaha owned the MIDI standard and told people companies they couldn't use it any more or made it difficult for them to develop products using the technology.  

Don't be fooled - Steinberg are not dropping VST2 because they can't make it work - there are other political and business reasons for this.  Essentially forcing developers (check the T+C of the VST3 SDK) to move  to VST3 are 100% to benefit Steinberg as a business NOT to help or support the 3rd party developers, the users or customer.   

I'm an early adopter and welcome positive change but this is a cynical and unpleasant move worthy of Apple not Steinberg.

I say this a very, very, very long term and loyal Steinberg customer. 

(apologies for the rant ! - promise not to whinge about it any more)

 

Haha.. no apologies needed for the rant 🙃

It's good to look at all sides. I think you somewhat misinterpreted me there. I in no way said that VST3 is better in every regard. There are definitely some benefits though beyond the VST2 standard. But I'm more saying adopting a single standard makes more sense. I also don't think SB is doing it to make the lives of other Devs easier, that's just an incidental benefit that comes with it.

Incidentally, VST2 was released in 1999, while VST3 was 2008, so it really is quite a bit older.

I definitely agree it should be an open standard. Maybe that would also help adoption in Protools etc. Having multiple standards in general, makes little sense and just leads to extra coding, testing and disk space.

I did have a good laugh at the Apple comment too 🤣 That is somewhat something they would do!

I also agree they shouldn't be commodity, but that's the nature of computers, software and tech. Analogue hardware wins that battle for sure.

I do half wonder if they might have fired it off as a threat to get some of the Devs moving and then there could be an extension, but I guess we'll have to see 🙂

Edited by MusicMan
Typo
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