Brian Walton

Nah, WAVES has to go above and beyond to earn my money. It isn't free for the taking when they have a proven track record of not treating paying customers well.

Note the Royal Compressor you can currently get at PluginBotique as a freebie (i.e. $5 by buying something else) is theoretically also based on the RS124. Might want to run a test to compare before just blind buying the thing from WAVES, consdiering the RC one doens't have restrictive authorization schemes and prone to Waves Central failures, and show stopping shell scans in Cakewalk.

CLA the same guy that doesn't even use his own "signature plugins?" I've been around enough collaborations between the the "expert/artist" and the company that is doing the product development to know the product developer still needs good ears to interpret the jive the expert/artist speaks in. It is great that we have wonderful tools and an internet of both experts and hobbyists that can call out snake oil or genuinely useful tools. But most plugins don't have a world renown engineer behind them....and those that do also have a pile of money being paid to do so. I also know Grammy winning engineers that are very good at what they do, but don't have the ability to discern very minor changes in sound, such as the ratio or attack and release times in a compressor in the context of a mix. If a plugin maker doesn't have good enough ears to discern certain characteristics and changes in sound then, yes, I'd say that kind of matters if they have a goal of creating something that basically sounds like something else. The problem with audio is there is a ton of snake oil. You can make a simple one knob plugin that simply compresses and adds eq at a certain frequency range and as long as you pick a frequency range that is in a non-harsh range you have a plugin someone will think is magical as it can bring out or emphasize something in the mix. Look at the Aphex Exciter....that thing was considered magic and yet you push it a little to far and it the most awful thing you will ever hear. All you have to do is simply change the sound and there is someone out there that will like it, even educated people. edit: look at all the TS-9 or TS-808 pedals sold and the high prices for originals. Anyone with half way decent hearing knows those things can destroy good guitar tone. What they can do is cut through a mix by re-equing the guitar signal and adding not exactly world class harmonics/distortion, and compress so the guitarist doesn't have to control their own dynamic playing. But people buy them because they read everyone uses them and SRV had one, and they are the only thing in his rig they could afford.

X1 was pretty buggy. By X3-E the platform felt quite solid. I agree the move to a dark theme in SPLAT was a move in the right direction, but the Skylight interface was alreaedy better than other things on the market with X1 visually. Things have only improved since then. I'm thankful we can change our themes as it is interesting how taste changes over time. I was using an all dark theme for years, and recently started using a custom "middle gray" theme a good portion of the time and I never thought I'd get out of the dark theme space again.

It depends on how they created the emulation. Some use the actual unit, others are emulating a schematic, etc. No matter which way it is done, I don't think anyone expects it to be the exact copy of the best unit in existence. I also don't think the people creating the plug-in have ears like Ken Fischer did. So the idea that these plug-in creators are even capable of creating something that is the greatest audio processing unit of all time is equally unrealistic. I appreciate the notion of going beyond a clone of the hardware in this digital age. I don't want to have unnecessary limitations, etc. But I also don't have unrealistic expectations that these coders have better ears than the giants of the audio world. We have reached a point where the audio tools for many effect processing tasks in box are good enough in the right hands. I did not believe that was the case 20 years ago. If I buy a 670 on the internet, I don't expect it to be the best one ever made, nor do I expect a plug-in to sound exactly like it. I don't even expect two guitar amps that came off the same assembly line to sound identical. But they will have more similarities than dissimilarity as part tollerences even on sensitive circuits yield "minor" differences in tone, sound, and responsiveness. And typically it takes a controlled environment and A/B to call out and really notice the differences. Which plug in makers can tell you what comp or eq was used on some random album track that was recorded by someone else by ear alone. I'm going to bet not one single person can do it with even 80 percent accuracy.

You literally don't need any other EQs, just knowledge of how to use them. I have EQs that were not free and they are not any better than the Quad Curve with Flyout and generally not as convenient. For a general purpose will work on every track EQ, the Cakewalk one is hard to beat.

2020, they say it is ready to go but with the Black Friday sales for support reasons wanted to wait until the sale is over before dropping the major update.

No clue, and I'd imagine tryign to measure the attack and reelase time accuratly in something that is normally captured in ms...would take a bit of wizardry to figure out. Indeed, it is a use your ears situation...which is good and bad. Even trained ears can struggle with suble adjustments of this stuff. You take it to extremes and you can hear it, but less extreme you end up spending more time wondering if what you are hearing is what you are hearing....(at least in my case).

normally you set an attack or release time in milliseconds. On Turbo Comp you have 0% - 100% as values to adjust those controls....no actual "time" fuction, percentage instead. 0% is less time 100% is more time, but no idea what time value it correlates to.

Indeed, it woudl work on some but not all. Given how complicated the plugins are, I'm sure they could make it so those get grey'd out when not applicable when a comp has a fixed attack/release/ratio or one that is outside the bounds of the settings. I mean they just seem to crave complexity as it is. Using the plugin makes me realize all the more how myopic my worldview is having an arsenal of compressors in hand...knowing full well none of that really matters and that the consumer of the final mix isn't going to notice a difference unless I do something flat out wrong.

Good point, there are some settings where you can go in an manually lock that individual setting (not avaialbe for all settings though).....such as the attack, release, ratio, i.e. the standard settings the comp. They are more "input/output" types of locks. That is helpful though.

haha...I ended up getting both the Turbo Comp and The Royal Comp. Agree that the A/R is pretty odd to not be in ms as that is pretty much the standard, and a clear "thing" in the scientific real world. That said, still a good value here as they have items to purchase for $5 that can get you this plugin. I also think it would have been interesting if they had a "keep the settings' option to let you then select the different styles of COMP instead of having to re-tweak everythign when you want to try a different one. Granted they do have more than an A/B which you can save to and then switch between. And honestly I also agree, ratio isn't quite as prohibitive as the A/R being a percentage. That kind of stuff I find harder to hear especially not in isolation.

While the font type doesn't seem to be publisehd anywhere.....it seems to be a very close cousin of Ariel, which is one of the most widely used and beloved fonts. The UI is one of the best ones on the market when you factor in the ability to customize it. It just seems so odd to me to criticize some of the features that make it better than the other applications on the market. Yes, if you could vectorize fonts and UI elements to never show limitations of screen size or resoltuion that would be intersting. There is a reason why others are not able to do that, and if you are using A nice dual monitor setup, frankly I don't exactly see a whole lot of need for it if you just buy corrective eyewear.

If they throw in Luminar AI, I'll bite. ?

Multiple things, idea creator, put down basic chord structure quickly (using voicings that might be difficult or unusual on my main insturment - guitar) as that can create a different feel, I'll use some of the "phrases/patterns/whatever you want to call them" to come up with another layer or ideas, use it to audition chords that I might not think of, to audition scales without having to think about notes on a fretboard type of thing, which can lead to melody creation I might not have gravitated towards. I even use the "felt piano" that is built in sometimes, sounds interesting.

Already had it, use it all the time.

Every article I've ever read on compressors shows the ratio as it serves a mathematical function of what is going on. I'm not sure how a percentage plays into this. Even if it was setup as a ratio knob or slider, in the digital realm it could be much more accurate and all points between, but could still give a reference to that. Now if a compressor doesn't have a ratio knob....that is a different thing...But if you are adding a ratio knob - there is basic math involved in what it doing to the signal. While it might not be 100% accurate in the analog realm on a particular machine, it still makes sense of the range that is expected. Other controls I might agree with them.

interested in it as the interface seems more straightforward than many other "m" plugins. However, ratio as a percentage seems like they have never used a hardware compressor....and to a lesser extent using attack and release as a percentage.

If the retailer wants to remove the license from anyone you can be assured they can. The ilok system that most of us have paid extra money to use these manufacturer plugins in the first place makes it super easy to revoke those seats. Go to the eventide authorization how to documentation page. There is a section on how to redeem if you got a product free. Point being they do give this stuff away with enough frequency to have a public write up. They didn't mail out a $2k compressor, they delivered software that is of frankly limited value and they even setup an easy process to revoke licencing if they feel it is worth the bad taste on the consumer end to do so. If you look up an actual definition of opportunist, you will notice there is frequently a section after the exploitation part that says this was done without being guided by consistent principles or plans. You can't tell anyone that the group here doesn't live by a consistent principles of find deal, share deal, redeem deal. This is the guiding principle of many of us. So by the very nature if a deal is posted it is to be acted upon. Thus calling any of us opportunists isn't an accurate use of the term. This "mistake" also likely got them more foot traffic than they have ever seen in a day and more awareness of the product on the market. Ethical or not, I can't imagine the company is out anything financially other than the time to clean up the error with customers, eventide and ilok. Or in an extreme case future business dealings with the same company if they consider you a liability for mistakes in the future. (and no, I didn't even have an opportunity to grab it, seems like it might have only been a few minutes of free for all).

It is software. Almost all software companies use an online distribution system now. The only exceptions I can think of are HUGE libraries that come on an overpriced hard drive. I don't remember the exact size but it wasn't as big of a download as I expected given I have all of it. Way smaller than Drum Core. If you mean online only from an authorization standpoint. Once installed and authorized it doesn't need an internet connection to continue to work. If you only want to use the brain and no samples, to drive other drum libraries you may have...that installer is super small.

Most of the upgrades between products are packs that can be purchased separately. Id message Ralph with what you have and tell him which product you want to upgrade to and see what he comes back with.

The story suggested the previous hosting was compromised and replacement files were placed in the downloads. The new site supposidly used the original files that were not compromised. Bugs still existed, but to his credit he has been releasing lots of updates that suposidly address many of those previous issues files. I tend to only attempt to use his newer stuff based on this situation.

I've been using it for a few years, and honestly still don't feel like I have any idea what I'm doing. But even still, would not want to live without it. I get a good amount of use from Jamcussion too which I didn't pickup for at least a year or two after I purchased the inital XXL Package. I own it all now, including the minipacks Another thing of note, I initially only used the Brain to drive other drum software, but after I had to download everything (if you want Jamcussion to work, you have no option), I found the main drum sets to also be usable with some post processing. Not saying the are the best, but better that a lot of people give them credit for.

Well some support alternatate vst paths, but not specifically for VST3 (which ends up not working) https://answers.presonus.com/41480/studio-one-load-vst3-from-different-folder-than-the-default However, on topic here, I tested it and the VST3 for this plugin related to this thread does worth with Cakewalk in an alternate path (assuming you have that path added in the VST scan folder)

I use a plugin or two of his, but I also procede with caution when I do. We were not talking about a couple bugs....more like a small infestation. I really appreciate the new model he setup and I think that is better servered than charging for plugins that many have legitimate issues. I only noticed a couple of small things in his newer plugins, but I think anyone would be wise to use with some caution if htey are using it for professional work. (I would say the exact same thing about WAVES, for perspective - as I do not believe the system they use is completly reliable and have plenty of examples to that fact). His plugins also have not been super efficient for the type of plugin in my experience either. I haven't given up on him at all, but I do think it is fair when someone asks about the history to make sure they know some of the facts.