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Acustica Taupe (Personal Review)


Larry Shelby

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On sale right now for 109 Euros...cheaper if you have 
an Acustica Customer Discount code...BUY IT! 

I just pulled the Demo on this and HOLY MOLY!  IMO, it's
THE BEST I've ever heard!!!  Yes it's a bit CPU heavy, and the GUI is bit unintuitive, but I've never, ever, heard a better
Tape Simulation ITB, the Console EQ's are great, and the compressors are very nice....it's actually 21
Tape Emulations, 3 Consoles, and 2 Compressors, and ALL can be used separately
or in a Channel Rack, and it's a STEAL at this price
https://www.acustica-audio.com/store/products/taupe

Edited by cclarry
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14 minutes ago, Mesh said:

Downloading the demo....that Aquarius  installer is awfully slow (or they're getting slammed at their end).

It's a pretty big file Mesh...I bought it this morning and COULD NOT AFFORD IT AT ALL!  
I put myself in BIG trouble...but WOW!!!  I'll figure something out...LOL

My justification was that it would push my Discount Coupons up....to what I don't know,
but I only get 15% right now...don't know what the next level is...but this purchased pushed
my spending total to the next level...

Total price was $105.   SUPER DUPER WORTH IT!
I've bought (and sold) a LOT of plugins...this one takes the cake IMO!
I had heard it was good...I just didn't realize HOW GOOD!

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3 hours ago, cclarry said:

It's a pretty big file Mesh...I bought it this morning and COULD NOT AFFORD IT AT ALL!  
I put myself in BIG trouble...but WOW!!!  I'll figure something out...LOL

My justification was that it would push my Discount Coupons up....to what I don't know,
but I only get 15% right now...don't know what the next level is...but this purchased pushed
my spending total to the next level...

Total price was $105.   SUPER DUPER WORTH IT!
I've bought (and sold) a LOT of plugins...this one takes the cake IMO!
I had heard it was good...I just didn't realize HOW GOOD!

You really bought it? Lol

Haven't gotten my Coffee Bundle coupon either.

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4 hours ago, cclarry said:

Yep...I shouldn't have...but I did...couldn't "not" buy it...

Aw that part sounded so sweet.
Glad you found something you love, I mean, since we are all behind close doors.
I don't think I have ever read you giving high praise to a plugin ;)

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1 minute ago, Carlos said:

Aw that part sounded so sweet.
Glad you found something you love, I mean, since we are all behind close doors.
I don't think I have ever read you giving high praise to a plugin ;)

It's rare...that's for sure...and most of the time, even if I like something, I tell myself...
I have lot's of those, and really can't afford it, to talk myself out of it.  Not
this time.  I was seriously VERY impressed!  I really like the IK Tape sims...but this
is WAY beyond those!  I did a lot of A/B'ing with my tape sims...no comparison IMO!

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4 minutes ago, cclarry said:

It's rare...that's for sure...and most of the time, even if I like something, I tell myself...
I have lot's of those, and really can't afford it, to talk myself out of it.  Not
this time.  I was seriously VERY impressed!  I really like the IK Tape sims...but this
is WAY beyond those!  I did a lot of A/B'ing with my tape sims...no comparison IMO!

I can see that smile on your face ;)

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22 hours ago, cclarry said:

On sale right now for 109 Euros...cheaper if you have 
an Acustica Customer Discount code...BUY IT! 

I just pulled the Demo on this and HOLY MOLY!  IMO, it's
THE BEST I've ever heard!!!  Yes it's a bit CPU heavy, and the GUI is bit unintuitive, but I've never, ever, heard a better
Tape Simulation ITB,

I have always heard good things about this. Can you compare to IK's Tape machines?

And CPU, compared to IK's Tape machines?

and this Aquarius thingy, is it required?, if so is it very intrusive?

I really shouldn't even be thinking about this with the exchange rate the way it is, it will cost 190 - 200AUD, but like I say I have heard good things about this in the past.

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6 minutes ago, ensconced said:

I have always heard good things about this. Can you compare to IK's Tape machines?

And CPU, compared to IK's Tape machines?

and this Aquarius thingy, is it required?, if so is it very intrusive?

I really shouldn't even be thinking about this with the exchange rate the way it is, it will cost 190 - 200AUD, but like I say I have heard good things about this in the past.

It is FAR better than the IK Tape Machines IMO.  I all 4 of them...and it's far better.
That was part of my A/B comparison test. It's heavier on the CPU, but usable.  The
interface is not very intuitive out of the gate, but once you get the gist of what's going
on, it's a really nice (visually) interface.

Aquarius is very easy to use.  It takes some getting use to, but very
unintrusive.

At the BARE MINIMUM, get Aquarius to get the FREE ones!  You won't regret it.  They are
better than most paid Plugins...seriously!  

Edited by cclarry
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Lars I have a toe in the acustica waters. A user really has to get past a learning curve on those interfaces.

I'll agree that there is a slight advantage in a three dimensional quality they can give to a sound, if you figure them out.

I only have purple and gold, but I've tried a few others. Not taupe.

On the downside, in my experience anyway, acustica plugins are more buggy. They don't always play nice. And there's that inherent lag between moving a gui knob, and hearing a result, because of how they have done their modelling.

Do you have softube tape? I use that a lot, I'd be interested in a comparison.

More downside? Ok, if you have a support issue, they seem to operate on something like a helpdesk ticket system which, at least a few years ago, was not very well run.

If you have a nice fast computer, I don't think the extra CPU hit is going to be noticed.

To be fair, I don't own their latest offerings . . . but there might be a reason for that. Perhaps later iterations have solved some of those downsides.

 

Meanwhile I will dutifully download the taupe demo tonight. What the Hades. Thanks, Larry!

 

By the way they are going to run out of colors soon.

Edited by emeraldsoul
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5 hours ago, emeraldsoul said:

Lars I have a toe in the acustica waters. A user really has to get past a learning curve on those interfaces.

I'll agree that there is a slight advantage in a three dimensional quality they can give to a sound, if you figure them out.

I only have purple and gold, but I've tried a few others. Not taupe.

On the downside, in my experience anyway, acustica plugins are more buggy. They don't always play nice. And there's that inherent lag between moving a gui knob, and hearing a result, because of how they have done their modelling.

Do you have softube tape? I use that a lot, I'd be interested in a comparison.

More downside? Ok, if you have a support issue, they seem to operate on something like a helpdesk ticket system which, at least a few years ago, was not very well run.

If you have a nice fast computer, I don't think the extra CPU hit is going to be noticed.

To be fair, I don't own their latest offerings . . . but there might be a reason for that. Perhaps later iterations have solved some of those downsides.

 

Meanwhile I will dutifully download the taupe demo tonight. What the Hades. Thanks, Larry!

 

By the way they are going to run out of colors soon.

Yeah their support is one of the  downsides to Acustica. Lag is not an issues in the latest core updates for me, now it’s finally possible to sweep the EQs.

I’m a huge Acustica fan but funnily Taupe was never a big hit with me, didn’t have that option to drive it as well as IK tapes and I like all the options in the IK ones (IK tapes are a mix of algo and dynamic sampling so best of both).  Larry has inspired me to A/B them again though!

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