ACUSTICA AUDIO BLACK || Is it really the future of gain staging plugins? (+ an HONEST rant)
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- Опубликовано: 26 июл 2024
- ACUSTICA AUDIO BLACK || Is it really the future of gain staging plugins? (+ an HONEST rant)
Paul Third unhappy with acustica audio plugins on mixing wednesday.. surely not!? Yes, the day has arrived when this audio engineer has had enough with all of the new plugin releases from acustica. There has been a lot of new plugins 2020 and as much as this a free plugin release there were a few things that bugged me with this. Ive made videos on how to fix cpu issues with plugins but releasing more cpu intensive plugins is a step backwards in plugin development.
Either way this plugin audio test is focusing on gain staging transients (kick, snare & drums overheads)
And i'll also be comparing cpu of black, sonimus britson and acustica magenta.
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📖 CHAPTERS
0:00 intro
0:57 what is acustica audio black?
2:44 how intelligent is acustica black gain staging?
4:57 drum audio example
6:45 Would I use the acustica audio black to gain stage?
7:34 issues with cpu
9:44 my rant
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Thoughts? Haha 😅
I sit in a similar place with Acustica to you. They're just very hit and miss. Some of their plugins are just game changing, but its almost like they know they're plugins look and sound good and will sell alone off that, so they don't bother optimising the code to reduce CPU usage. I have little interest in their channel strips for that reason, I don't want to have to bounce out tracks every 5 mins.
I'm fine with cpu as long as I can justify it. In this case I just can't do it 😔
@@PaulThird that’s an easy choice for you when you’ve got a machine like you have. I’d imagine most of us are running computers with older i7s, some of us even less powerful chips. CPU usage is trending up, some of us are being left in the dirt a bit!
I was managing near full acustica mixes with the i5 laptop using freeze & commit but that was my choice to adapt to that kind of workflow. I just used to freeze up to certain instances, commit when I was definitely happy and stick the pre-commit chain into track folders so I could go back if need be.
Once I got used to it made life a lot easier 🤓
But either way Acustica's focus should be on reducing CPU. Sacrificing sales from new plugins but definitely short term pain for long term gain
@@PaulThird fair enough, I’m not opposed to freezing, have done it enough times in larger mixes!
You should do a video on some of the IK Multimedia plugins. They’ve got a crazy group buy on at the moment, and it’s hard to know which of thier plugins are good and which ones to avoid!
I love Acustica plugins, they are so far in advance in the EQ realm from the competition. Compressor and saturation, very good but there are equal and better options. The preamp emualtions are probably better that most other devs ONLY in that clean, or slightly harmonic sweet spot. If you need more CPU, there is a product called Audio Gridder which offloads plugins to another server on your hard wired ethernet network. I use a 2018 six core mac mini for my main machine and 4 x 3.4 gHZ i7 windows 10 machines running Audio Gridder. The CPU pool I can darw on seems practically unlimited. I can easily run 50 of any of AA's plugins and probably more with the CPU load distributed over those 4 machines. I've never got close to the limit. The CPU hit on the main machine is negligable. I can be running all these plugins with Logic running at 128 buffer and CPU usage below an 1/8 of it's limit. Audio Gridder is in beta, and it's free. Once you get around the way it works it is amazing.
Audio Gridder...That's awesome...ty!
You level match every comparison to integrated LUFS. You're the closest thing to a RUclips audio angel! Your thoughts are always welcome. I came for the comparisons, but now I'm a fan of you. Keep enjoying yourself. I love to see it!
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I love Acustica Audio's Plugins quality so much, but maaaaaaan do they need to do something about the CPU usage. Glad you mentioned this. They've been on overhaul with releases and definitely need to chill out on that, and just tighten the plugins they already have.
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I agree with the CPU discussion! Thanks for really addressing this, they should improve this for sure! Although I have a heavy system, it sometimes really is scary how hard it hits!
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I am glad you mentioned it. AA is my favorite plugin company but the cpu issue is massive and needs to be addressed. Keep up the good work.
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Very informative video! I learned things from your rant. Thank you !!
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Good/fair video, Paul!
Because I have a massive collection of plugins, I can create a work-around-workflow, that always suits me.
I generally choose a plugin based upon my artistic goal. I'm an amateur who is retired; I have time to experiment casually, with many chains of plugins.
I love the sound of my Acustica plugins... BUT, my plan is to side-step them for mixing (for now); that CPU issue is real. But for serious shades of analog-ness when mastering, it's nice to chain a few of my favorite AA plugins and let my CPU complain a bit. :)
After I upgrade this PC to a more hefty i9 (or other advanced, unrealized future technology), I'll reconsider my workflow.
I remember PC power catching up to virtually ALL of my older (non-AA) plugins. This i7 can handle those with no problem. And I'm pretty certain that PC's will catch up to Acustica plugins as well. I remember trying to run AA "Ruby" about 8 years ago on one of my former PC's. OMG!!! It sucked up SO MUCH power!! (Now, I think it draws less than 1% of CPU.) LOL!! :)
P.S. "Black" has flavors I can/will apply at times. (I use plugins like a spice-rack in the kitchen.)
This is one of the greater tools that has been helping me. I also produce and I now make the drums mono but some samples aren’t even in volume from left to right I’m stereo out of FL 😂😂 could be me but a useful til! Drums will never sit in the pocket
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Another really thoughtful and honest video, Paul … really enjoying them and thank you for making them. On another note, what’s your view on Slate Digital’s products? All the best mate.
Slate and acustica are actually quite close sound wise. I just prefer other stuff to slate. I found myself using VMR less and less over time. Great plugins but just dont offer enough to entice me back
@@PaulThird cheers Paul. I’m also using VMR less these days, was wondering whether to go the UAD or Acustica route .. currently trying PA
UAD is very hardware sounding but downside is you need to invest in their DSP. PA's subscription is the best by a country mile but sound wise acustica or convolution always wins out for me, unless it's saturation then PA's options are stellar 👌
I agree 100%. I do think that Acustica has become better, cpu wise, than they were when I first tried one of their plug-ins, but it still feels like they have a long way to go. I have no idea if it's actually possible to optimize their convolution technology further to use less CPU without sacrificing quality, but if it is then that should be their main priority!
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I bought both volumes. I don't have a lot of Pre-s from the acustica catalog and G said these are all new samples, they sounded nice to me. But I'm using the it often at the end of my chain for color and smoothing. It's convenient to scroll though a number of Pre-s from one place, with additional filters (though those are not THAT nice). The cpu is definitely worse than the independent pre plugins, and it's annoying that the input trim resets every time you pick a new bank. I hope it will get better with time, they often update their stuff post release (just look the attention Sienna was having).
100% agree. I'm tired of them releasing new plugins like it's no tomorrow and while having the best sound they don't give a *** about making them usable CPU wise. Is it the time for a massive user request so they finally fix the issue?
That was my hope with this video
thanks for the review! kind of like Celestial was free at one point, the CPU usage was HORRIBLE, but can't be that mad because it was free, still frustrating that it's not really usable
They have released some good free plugins over the years I'll give them that 🤓
analog smoothes out transients and that helps in a mix. you would work down those transients anyway in a mix with compression, saturation and limiting. as for the cpu, i use black guru in my „pre mix“ phase were i edit and prepare the tracks for mixing. i am using black gurus lo- and hi-cut filters and gainstage into optimal or hot. than i bounce in place and can remove black guru plugin from all tracks and start mixing.
Paul I think you're spot on about the missed opportunity to logically present a plugin designed to work on every channel of a mix to at least be cpu conscious. I like Acustica stuff and own a LOT of their plugins and I don't even consider using some things due to the CPU hit I would have to take.
For gainstaging, have a look at the other Italian manufacturer's offering Hornet Plugins VU Meter Mk4. It works great, and is CPU efficient. No color from a preamp emulation but you can get that from something else later in the chain anyway.
Keep up the good work.
I have MvMETER2 but I do get many recommending hornet to me 🤓
I almost cried when I tried using the Ivory dynamic stereo eq. I hate that if I want to master at 96khz I have to make choices.
Bang on with the CPU , i've bought loads of Acustica , but struggle to use !
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can i say u rock mate ,,,,,, all u say is right , as a man that has worked on the hits u love , ur spot on mate
I always think im gonna get nailed for my honesty and still get surprised when I don't haha
Tbh, I did like what Black did to the transients - yes, there was less of them, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing, I mean - quality of contemporary recording equipment combined with basically perfect reproduction of digital audio makes the transients "too perfect". Also, they /will/ get compressed somewhere later down the line anyway, so taming them at the begining isn't an issue at all, I'd even say it's benefitial. As you say - the drums lost some energy, but I only agree if we consider "energy" as a function of amplitude or peak-loudness ratio. To my ear those drums gained some "tonality" at the expense of the loss of peak-loudness ratio, which was a problem to begin with.
That's why audio is subjective 🤓 every tool that doesn't work for one, will work for another
Hopefully Acoustica fixes the cpu issues. Ive recently picked up some gain stage / VU plugins and i noticed on transient material it lowers the audio way too much so im going to have to adjust how i use them.
For fast transients I always adjust my output at the end of the chain as I'm going in so low at -15/-10vu . Its easy enough to stick a gain plugin at the end of the chain to compensate your output to -18dbfs or whatever you want to set it.
@@PaulThird ah. Ok. Good idea. I usually don’t use gain plugins and its only recently I’ve been starting to use gain stage / VU plugins at the start of my chain. Ive been gain staging all wrong for years so trying to develop better habits and use the right tools to speed up my process. Mixing and Mastering is such a technical craft and theres so much to learn and know. Like a lot of home studio producers i do everything but realized my mastering / mixing skills were terrible about 5-6 years ago and have been working on it since. Thanks for the suggestion!
I completely agree with you, they need to focus on cpu usage. I mean how many EQs do you really need?
Don't ask me that 😅😅 haha 😂
That is Sooooooooooooo true the only thing that's holding them back is CPU issues I just started to use there plugins because a friend of mind told me about them, I must truly say that there quality is honestly next to none, but I'm running a 12core 2.7G 64G Ram and if I'm running 30-40 tracks with other plugins and just a few of there plugins on my Mix Busses and a next 4- 5 on the Sub Master tracks and my Computer is Crying out, but like u said because of the sound I agree if you're computer can handle it's all worth it, but great review mate I always watching your videos.👊🏾
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Using the satson now lol! Shhhhhh! Haha another gym, I sending to the 4 buses post compression 😩 tryna find a sweet spot..
SNOW IS CRAZYYYYY!!! On the cpu I try and use multiplicity too lol cancel that for now hahha.
thoughts , 1st is thank u for doing this test , i dont have the time as i always tell u and i go with what u say , u have way better ears than i do , i know i get paid to work in music , but i trust ur ears better paul , THE CPU is mega bad , i have a comp that cost me 8k so good for u
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I predict Giancarlo's reaction to be: "ma perché mi rompi i coglioni?" On the other hand, Paul, you're spot on. CPU abuse remains Acustica's super power, and although I own a few of their plugins, I rarely use them. I recall G's post on Gearspace a while ago, stating that they've fixed the high CPU use. It would appear that most of us disagree. I own a 64GB i9 MB Pro 16", and the new 16GB MB Pro 13 M1, and neither's a match for Acustica plugins. Maybe, they just can't optimize things any further.
I had to Google that 😂😂
I aint the only italian watching this guys then
Just to let you know I've now done an experiment using the M1 Mac with Reaper and can run 50 instances of Black with the HP and LP filters on before running into issues.
Probably sounds about right as it's a more powerful processor and a DAW more set up for running acustica. What about a channel strip in comparison? Less or more?
@@PaulThird I tested Titanium straight after, as it's optimised for the M1 chip, and I could only get 32 channels working without hitches. Cream has been the best so far with around 70 instances running with no problems
Why is there such cpu inconsistencies 😅
Strange - I agree that they lose punch but I really like the vibe and feel with black on vs off. I might try a transient designer on the buss to bring some of it back post black to get the best of both worlds. Scoop up a neural dsp amp buddy you won’t regret it
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actually was shocked how bad it was on these examples. Sounded muffled. Like the Drummer had no snap to his play or had socks on the beater.
@@akagerhard I really enjoy the front to back depth of the lower mids when black is on - you’re correct in that it’s a lot darker, but I’d tweak and see if there was a good compromise worth keeping.
Agreed on the CPU issues. I sold almost all of my Acustica plugins outside of Sienna and Lift3 because I just don't have the resources to actually do a mix with Acustica plugins. Even just two or three on my mix bus would limit the amount of other plugins I could use later on in the mix.
I was getting by freezing and committing on the i5 but not going to lie getting the i9 computer was like taking a dump truck off my back 😂
I tend to use Acustica Audio for mastering only, and use it after the final mix has been exported.
I have the processing power to use probably 10 or so in a mix, but prefer to add the analog magic during the mastering stage. Keeps my work flow smooth during mixing and still yields amazing results.
I don’t quite get it. The pro tools meters are amazing. You can have VU and peak at the same time - see the transients and where the peaks are.
You can also customise the colours so that transients above -6dbfs (for example)
How is this more useful?
Obviously I’m sure the preamps sound great and that would be worthwhile on its own
It's a real pickle to want the sound quality of AA's plugins but then have to contend with freezing/rendering in order to do it. I like having everything running live so I can tweak as I go. I will continue to use the AA plugins I have (Coffee, Camel & Gold 5 are so good) but I do throw in my PA/UAD plugins here and there so I can run everything live. I find my AA plugins are running more on the sub-busses just so I can get that preamp/eq sound without punishing my CPU.
Nice one Paul, it needed saying!
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I haven't tried it because I don't like their new way of their commercial model. Getting something free and need to buy bundles to fill it up. It's the same for Sienna but I bought that one. I like the preamps from the Nebula landscape so I stay there and I think the compressors from 3rd parties like TimP are absolutely amazing. Aquarius can't beat that. I stay out of Black even though it is free :). Totally agree on the CPU issues. I freeze quite a lot of tracks in my mixes but it would be amazing if they focus more on getting their current and future plugins lower on CPU!
My hope is that maybe they look at the comments and think.. No what.. Let's chill and give it all our effort. See if they came back and was like
"we were at it for 6 solid months and we tried everything but the tech limitations with convolution just can't be passed."
Then i'd be like.. Fair enough, however I'm still no changing my opinions on blacks cpu 😂
@@PaulThird yeah totally agree on that. Acustica Audio is sometimes a bit of a mystery what they are doing etc.
I have a few Acustica plugins & I love what they do, but I agree. I have to leave a one or two out of my chain unless I want to run it through processing multiple times & I don’t have time for that.. CPU is the main issue for me and I’d love to get the most out of Acustica but they make it nearly impossible.. Shit if Mike Dean didn’t partner with them I’d never have touched their software 🤷🏼♂️
Mike Dean was a big coup for them. I personally don't like gain station but I don't work in that genre so it was never gonna be for me anyway. That's why I didn't do a video as I felt it needs to be used in the right context 🤓
VIlmos Zsigmond would be proud of your expert flower lighting.
💪💪😂
Oh and by the way Paul Third i love your content..💪🏾 Kudos..!
I'd be careful with the realistic comment haha tomorrow's video is going to show how unbelievablely far off an Acustica comp is to a very rare piece of hardware.
Not only that.. Artefacts galore 😅
And its been around for a good while as well..
Sigh.. I'm such a bitch 🤣
Great..! can't wait to see. But for the record im not one of those "It needs to sound EXACTLY like the original" heads. As long as i can use it to bring some "analog life" to my digital arrangements im in.
This one is that far off there's actually no way they sampled a real deal. Can't see it. I printed sweeps of hardware and the plugin as well as audio examples and it's night and day harmonics wise. Not only is it audibly clean vs saturated, even the compression is off.
When it comes to saturation convolution struggles. When you get deeper into acustica you start to see what's 'analog' and what's not.
They tried to hide the aliasing of pensado eq by adding in 'oversampling' but its only for the algo clipper they put in it. Doesn't change the aliasing of the saturation one bit.
When they do it right... Another level. but when they run into sampling issues they just release it anyway which is what I strongly disagree with as they should be consistent with their sampling quality, especially when it involves chirp and truncation (echoes)
I use a lot of the studio DMI stuff and some AA pre's now but I'm picker than what I was when I first got into them. I look more into them to see what they've done right and what they haven't
@@PaulThird well that's why we need people like yourself to keep them honest. Me.. im just a 51 year old mixer/truck driver from New Jersey looking for more colors to add to my palette. Honestly quite a few of there plugins do nothing for me. but like you said when they get it right its amazing.! I just bought there Nickel plugin which i LIKE but the 4 band eq and preamp included with it im LOVING and cant wait to hear your thoughts on.
STL Control Hub?
I certainly wouldn't use Black on my tracks (I get enough color and gain-staging control with any other AA channel strip), but I DO love it on my master bus to add some color and glue before my mix compressor. I've learned to live with the CPU issue by using Freeze in Pro Tools.
I looove the El-rey from them. Sadly making a bonfire inside my macpro each time I add even one instance is getting old.
Try klanghelm mjuc if you ever get the chance. When I compared them in a vocal leveller shootout I struggled. Mjuc has 3 different vari mu comps and also tonal options as well
@@PaulThird Thats the one I use 😂🍻
WHAT ARE THE BEST ACUSTICA PLUGINS WITH LESS CPU ?
Blond is pretty good cpu wise. I use that for all my pre mixing but being honest compared to algos I don't think there are many or any acustica plugs that are really good on cpu. Some are pretty unbearable but even their 'good' ones are still pretty cpu intensive compared to algos. I'd say probably the nebula third party stuff is less cpu intensive than aquas but you'd need the full commercial version which is ridiculously expensive
Does it not even have an output knob? What if you want to drive it harder? Yes, it does have the autogain, but doesn't that mean you would have to have it gain staged perfectly before the plugin?
Correct you'd need to gain stage before the plugin haha 🙃
Never even noticed the lack of output knob until you just brought it up.
@@PaulThird Well, I suppose you can just use two instances of this highly efficient plugin. Its the classic "gain staging the gain staging plugin".
Computers like... WHY... F***ING WHY???!!! 😂
AA came to quick on this word. Wait 10 years. Tech are amazing.
100% in agreement Paul.
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you are the man
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i love what u say BIG time ur right
The future of gain-staging or the way audio files are processed. It seems as though DAWs/plugins don't yet analyse & process recorded audio as a 'file', but are still stuck in the 'tape machine' mentality where it's mostly treated as a live recording being fed through in real-time. I know there's 'look-ahead' compression and wave editors can take averages into account when applying processes (like normalising) and Adobe Audition supposedly produces better pitch-shifting results during processing than it does when your tweaking settings in real-time. But why are we still having to worry about gain-staging & oversampling when it seems to be an ideal job for computer algorithms to determine optimum settings, taking the amplitudes of whole audio files into account(?)
Ahahaha, you are actually pissed. I was worried a bit until the last third of the video started and you actually cracked a couple of smiles. You are speaking the truth... the CPU-issues are the reason I'm not even willing to TRY AA plugins. I'm not. Some of them sound good or even great - but not OUT OF THIS WORLD-great. Other plugins compete. I have 4 tape-emulations that are very CPU intensive.. and it really is a pain.. eventhough they are amongst the best plugins I own, I hate using them. I do use them selectively and I usually have to commit something down the line because of it. With tape-emulations - okay.. you always had to commit tape, that's just how it was and with the (imo) best tape-emulations it still is. But I will not have these issues for compressors, eqs, meters, pres, common saturation etc. etc.. I'm just not having it. I would hate my life.. and I mean it.. I would actually hate every second of it. I don't want to think about "oh, do I really want to use the plugin, or will it force me to commit?" when I'm mixing - let alone producing.. that's just a thought in my way and I hate stuff that gets in the way.
AA should thank you for speaking up about this. However I fear that they just count on PCs getting faster and faster and CPU-usage becoming irrelevant. Some use ProTools Carbon, some have NASA-machines - and those people don't care about CPU (usually). But right now the average producer, mixer and mastering-engineer will not use AA because of it..
The invention of reaper helped them A LOT with cpu complaints but releasing plugins like this just fuels the fire. See being someone who does acustica videos.. Absolute pain the arse.. Every video.. Cpu, cpu, cpu. This release hit a big nerve though as you can see 😅
scratch mastering engineer. I guess mastering is the only area where you actually don't care about the CPU-hit. Yes, very visible that that was a nerve well pre-excited and overstimulated right there mate haha.
@@PaulThird Even using Reaper won’t help. Reaper is my main DAW and I have desktop i9 too. I’m only able to use 43 Navy 2 instances across whole session. I did a test last week and I was really shocked. It was not enough for that session as it was 60 track…
I'm away to try out reaper soon so I can compare
bruh the CPU on this is CRAZYY I wasn't expecting THAT much load
might as well have 26 omnispheres open to equal a couple of these
Omnisphere.. Now that's a blast from the past haha
Is there anything that can deliver on what this promises in 2022?
Haha many small devs that take their time have but big devs rushing out products have fumbled this year
@@PaulThird any specifics recs? I did pick up that API console emulation from sonimus. I'd love a sampling of a hardware console's preamp chanels. I know there are Nebula programs for this, but they sample one of each types of channel and often sound kind of...meh
THANK YOU!!!!
Ironically I was looking for a gain-staging plug-in. But it DID sound audibly muddy to me... and I will NOT allow such CPU taxation for the convenience of an inconveniently muddy gainstage.
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Hello everybody
You made me smile....few days ago I decided to to erase all acustica plugins from my arsenal...even if my computer is strong...I still have issues working with acustica...so...I'm so sorry for this company...just...Good luck!
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Only thing that is holding them back == YEP! I'd go all in with Acustica if they cut their CPU usage by 50%
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@@PaulThird And I own a Mac Studio :)
I do lots of work in 192k...Cant use any of my Acustica plugs correctly on those projects...Plugin Alliance here I come
Yeah they only do up to 96khz. If they did do 192k your computer would probably combust and melt in a heap in the corner 😂
@@PaulThird That is correct P3! 😂
You need a water cooled gaming rig just to run AA plugs without freezing tracks/commiting
Ok P3, I have a question... what if I have preamp plugs already from Acustica? what will this offer me as opposed to the actual preamp that comes with the different bundles? Pink for example?
Just a different linear frequency response and harmonic
@@PaulThird Thought so, thanks P3
Black's definitely losing transients, i didn't expect it to be that obvious
I've been told that other pre's in the paid volumes apparently do a better job in transient preservation but first impressions count so personally I wouldve put my best 'all round' pre in the free version.
i produce 10 years and mix now 4 years audio but its still a hard game to win with gain staging,
i start at -18db -20db i compres and eq kick snare and bass route parallel & group tracks and bam i am at -6db -4db
and have many tracks over to work with i never get it to have a mix ready with -3 or -6 db headroom
i go allways over 0db, i dont get it how people fix this with a final -6 db mix
Tbh I just use my faders for my headroom. The analog emulations are always gain staged but due to the build up of the sum I use the buss faders to control the overall mix headroom so sonimus Britson masterbus instance is getting 0vu. From there it's just about clean gain to raise the level to whatever I want
@@PaulThird i touch my faders always after gain staging
I use cubase i have a pre gain inside my mixer...
Have also a gain tool plugin but its still a mess to get it right with all the levels
Also with a reverb effect at 1 track its to much at others i pull the fader all the way up and still to less reverb
Put a maximizer plugin after the reverb and its to much or it change the reverb sound you know
Its just a mess for me to get it right🙈😜
Honestly
Purple
White 3
Navy 2
Sand 3
Amethyst 4
Lava
Magenta 5
Granite
And Lime 2...
On sale.... that's about, $800, you spend another $200, making sure you have an i7 or an I-9 and at least 32 to 64 GB of RAM and you're set you pretty much can do all your Productions with those set of acoustica audio plugins
$1000 investment....added... to an affordable analog rack and mixer you pretty much got a $500,000 sounding Studio
Those AAPlugins....With
Basic outboard gear, you're looking at basically a $10,000 Studio that will put you on the same level of a $500,000 Studio
Core 50 will be nice and low.... Hopefully!
What core are we on again? 😂
Acustica audio it's really taxing on cpu maybe an external dsp could help handing the extreme amount of cpu usage.. i got some plugs but i can't for example use snow on my chain due to the CPU issue D:
I actually mostly use the PRE instances now. Sonible smart eq for balancing and the Acustica pre's for the colour. Find that helps more with cpu
@@PaulThird pre are awesome! Some of them really make the difference in context! :D
I first I thought you were funny.. when I saw 2videos ..I got scared by the way you say hello... But now I am following you .. You are cute and I like your knowledge.. Which country are you would like to be your friend.. I am a mixing and mastering engineer
you are dead right about the cpu usage. the only reason why i have never bought any acustica channel strips is because how its basically impossible to insert them onto every single channel of the mix. and its not like im using any crap trash cpu.
im glad im using windoes right now, because i've heard acustica drains your cpu even more on mac. man, with the quality of acustica, i cant think of any reason for them to not be the same place as say UAD as long as they fix the cpu issues!
I used some macs at college and uni years and years ago and never liked it haha ive been a Windows man ever since
They need to give us like a piece of hardware that we could off load the CPU to
Agreed 🤓
Audio gridder 😎
I do love the sound of Acustica but bloody hell, can they ever stop frying my CPU like a quadruple fried portion of potato crisps?
If computers were people they'd just be rocking back and forth sweating at the thought of you loading your session. I genuinely believe acustica has given computers PTSD 😂 my poor i5 laptop never recovered haha
@@PaulThird I'm on the i9900k too on W10 on a desktop and I wish to God it would be enough but it's not. Mac next time but Acustica seriously needs to slim down CPU load.
This video is now the main video on Google for black so they may have to consider 😂
I wish I can mix my songs like his accent is mixed
I tried the Black gain stage and I didnt like and it used to much cpu, useless plugin. I prefer my VU-meter when gain staging.
I'm Sticking to MvMeter2 🤓
@@PaulThird I mainly use Klangheim VU meter 👍
Agree they need do something bout CPU when comes to AA line plugins .. AA plug-ins are not even close to N4 n 3rd party library .. I treat N4 as hardware n that’s wat it shud be anyways
What nebula stuff do you use?
Tim p and Alex B stuff ...
Well maybe everyone should think for a second that they sound so good because they are heavy on CPU usage, maybe the solution is to use GPU resources or external processor like McDSP does it
Or remove their anti piracy crippleware which they have admitted has an impact on CPU
I do like me sum acoustica my dude but maybe not this time haha 🤘
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@@PaulThird appreciate your honesty bro.. Stay up!
Hilarious! Love Acustica, but yeah, CPU 😂
have you tried any in reaper as opposed to pro tools? lol DAW choice does matter... sadly it is not all AA's problem really. most DAW developers need to get their heads out of their clapper. as for your comparison you cannot compare algo and convo demands. that is like 'apples and oranges'.
That's why i compared it to magenta. So the pro tools thing has nothing to do with this. It's actually pretty irrelevant as I compared 2 convolution plugins. Black even without any pre activated still uses more cpu on my computer than a full AA channel strip. That's where my issue is. Either way, without a pre activated surely we're looking at a gain staging algorithm? There's nothing about convolution in the gain staging element so where is the high CPU coming from 🤷♂️
@@PaulThird britson is NOT magenta. but as for the diff between black and magneta... magenta has had a LOT more work on it over the years as in optimization. i agree with most of what you say but going in people know there is a price to pay to use AA plugins. i am not defending them... i just like the sound i get and can get nowhere else at this time and i deal with it. but when i mentioned reaper... i have heard many say over and over how much better it deals with AA. used S1 pro for years now and finally demo'd and tried reaper with AA. with my aged system i was only getting like 5-7 instances max in S1 pro... but i get to use about a dozen AA instances in reaper before my sys starts to bog. as i said there IS a big difference between how DAWs run 'slaved' software. although AA can do their best to optimize the DAW can disallow anything it wants and controls the show in the end. cheers
@@MadDogE134 of course you can compare algo and convo demands.. you HAVE to. If the results are close or similar - and they are - CPU-usage and interface-intuitivity are the next top-factors on the list and play a VITAL role in every engineers evaluation of: Do I use it? So yes, of course convolution-based plugins need to and can be compared to algo-plugins. We're using them for the same thing. Just like algo- and convo-plugins need to compare to the hardware. Saying "yeh, but they are made differently" is not an argument.. it really isn't.. it EXPLAINS the difference but it doesn't JUSTIFY it. Very important distinction right there..
I would very much welcome Pro Tools and Ableton to get to where reaper is cpu-wise.. but let's not kid ourselves.. never in this lifetime will I switch DAW because of one plugin-company. AA is not the only company who has some heavy-CPU-plugins. I have a couple that are just as heavy or heavier - and I give them tons of shit and really don't like using them (eventhough they are toptier) because of it.
Since 12 years they´re telling me that they´re working on better CPU performance. Nebula 4 with TimP programs using less CPU than their own & or equivalent ones on the Aquarius....
Yeah it really annoys me that the 3rd party guys can't make their own platform. Relying on nebula must be frustrating but for any of these guys to make their own standalone probs take years of development
@@PaulThird Giancarlo decided to close down the NAT platform, cut down developers and launching Aquarius a more CPU hungry platforn than the Nebula. It´s clear he was just doing this for the money and control of their Aqua products. It´s that simple, you see this with all their new products Sienna and now this Black, they´re just building products around their Convolution tech. With aditional packages, claiming it´s a free product but you have to buy the ad on packages based on a CPU high consumption. How many different product with their pres do we need? If convolution, Just get an N4 all Henry Olonga, Tim P , Cupwise & AlexB Lybraries for a fraction of cost & better sounding & less CPU usage.
By the Way N3 was 80 Euros back than 12 years ago, now N4 is 500 Euros, is this greedy or innovative? Find the error here mate :)
For sure you´ll hear very soon from Giancarlo here based on your video here. He hates bad reviews and negative comments on all his products or company.
Don´t worry, we´ll back you up :) Cheers mate!
I'm still annoyed by the announcent of the nebula crack though. Kind of shit on the third party devs.
Me and G have never spoke so I doubt they'll be any response. I digged my heels into sienna and there was no response.
I'd like to think there wouldn't be any bad blood between me and acustica as I've taken a ton of abuse over my fascination in AA plugs. I know for a fact my videos have sold a TON of plugins and got guys into acustica. I never cast it up as its not my intention to make money off my videos unless somebody offers me an affiliate code or whatever but its always my choice what videos I make and the result of the video is never guaranteed to go in your favour. That's why devs don't really work with me. I'm a bit like a loaded gun that can backfire at any moment.
I've never been asked to betatest 1 acustica plugin which is their decision but I do wonder why as I could have made it clear that this was a terrible idea 😂.. Actually maybe it's my honesty why me and G have never spoke haha 😅
@@PaulThird I went all in on acoustica not really satisfied.
What have you been using?
the snow is class but they have messed up on cpu , i do get why but ur right they are now going for cash
a plug in that has a AI that is way a head of any plugin , i dont think people have a clue how good it is ,,, rant about they shit bro mayb look at how good snow is , u kind os dont need any other plug ins
paul look at it please as someone that gets paid big bucks to mix , look at it its MEGA dude , less is more u dont need a 100 plug ins u just need a few trust me. one day ill teach u kid , anyways keep making music MAKE MUSIC dont just talk about it , that is a bad road to go down ,
he has a video on the snow. You talk like a producer, what is it about the snow that you love - I wasn't really able to make it out?
@@akagerhard pauls vids dont go into deal on the snow , he plays music using different plugins and tries to set them the same so you can make ur mind up if you like them , and does a great job , there is one vid that does the same with the snow and hardware that is good .ruclips.net/video/EAzBQe4KPBc/видео.html
on the EQ of snow there are presets , u set a preset of who you would like to eq your track and press learn . it them will eq your chan how that producer would eq it , and yes a ver will nor be same as a mid 8 or ch , but thats ok . its very smart , and its a new way to have presets . very very cool idea . never seen this b4 , apart from the things they do with Ozone and smart eq . mayb the new ones from focusrite do something the same but not had a play , but the snow is kind of not the same with that AI .
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Remember to check out my autism channel if you want to learn more about my life 🤓🤓
Great video Paul..very sad that's a shit company.
Qualität Lieferung
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u havnt pissed me off
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This will not happen, according to Giancarlo, it‘s a kind of hacked framework their plugins are based on.
One instance of Acustica. Bounce. One instance of Acustica. Bounce. It's the only way I can survive!
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Acustica = GPU compute as Nvidia CUDA... No CPU (native compute), try again with that option active and let me know the difference.
So I have to buy an entire new graphics card.. Is that what you're saying?
@@PaulThird I don't know what graphics card you have, but with nvidia, you should check that the hardware acceleration option (cuda) is activated
Apparently for the current versions, for now, they do not have planned the implementation of the gpu as it was done with the other server
I love you Paul 😂. You’re gonna get criticism for it but I 100% agree with you. Acustica has a diehard base that don’t want to hear any criticism of the company and it doesn’t do them any favors cuz you’re spot on about AA. Acquas force you to install several gigs each *in* your plugin folder. You can’t specify a separate sample folder like every other large sample based plugin manufacturer allows you to do… a bunch of users on GS told me it was Ableton’s fault I couldn’t specify an entirely separate VST2 folder *just* for Acustica to use my external drive 🙃. Black fails as a gain staging tool also because if you use the Pres they sound best driving the input which takes the output passed optimal gain for other plugins. I have to adjust gain before Black to get that level, adjust the input for the preamp hotter and use auto gain to get me back down. The Navy pre you get for free does soften transients a bit. A lot of the other pres in the paid volume I love do not and I really like a lot of them… but then having to commit tracks one at a time for CPU kind of makes it hard to A/B preamps in a plugin that’s a large collection of pres: The difference is only apparent when you place them everywhere like console summing
not an AA -man myself, but I am producing in Ableton (mixing and mastering in Pro Tools) and I would absolutely urge Ableton to give the option to create more than 2 VST folders that get scanned automatically. It's not super important, but it definately would be a very easy improvement.
@@akagerhard well you can have one VST2, one VST3 and a custom folder in Ableton. Those are all assigned with hundreds of other plugins. I can’t see any legitimate need for multiple VST2 folders to be honest, it’s just unnecessarily messy. Literally every other plugin manufacturer using large samples not only allows but defaults to placing them outside the scanned plugin folder, and it’s for good reason. Ableton even advises you to *not* put anything other than actual .dll plugin files in that folder because it slows down start up scans. Meanwhile AA has put 40 gigs of random files in it, with no way to move them. I’d have to move *all* my other plugins out of that folder onto my secondary drives just to accommodate AA. No other plugin has ever asked me to do that 🙃. Why I’ve just stopped buying them, even though I love the sound 🤷♂️
@@mrnelsonius5631 I am confused.. because as far as I know - but I'm not on the newest version - I'm on the Live 10 Suite - there is only 1 VST 2 and 1 VST 3 folder... and yes, you can choose that these folders are your own designated folders instead of the designated/common system-folders (which I, as most, do) - but I have never seen an option for a third folder. Having the possibility to scan a third or fourth folder automatically is not something you COMMONLY need.. but SOMETIMES it would be rather handy. Here are a couple of situations: 1. you are demoing a plugin, but don't want to search it.. neither in Ableton, nor once you are done demoing and want to delete the .dll out of the list/folder with all your purchased plugins (sometimes the dll names are not wisely chosen). 2. you are having problems with installing a plugin or a plugin is acting up after an update and you have to repeatedly reinstall it in older versions and have to delete the dll again and again. 3. your ableton session is mysteriously not loading and you need to troubleshoot which plugin is causing the issue (have had that issue three times in my life.. but it does happen).
This is just off the top of my head.. but I would love to have a "troubleshooting" and "demo" folder in addition to the two I have. I don't need them 99,99% of the time.. but I've been in the situation where I want them multiple times by now. And yes there are workarounds at least for the VST 2s since you can create subfolders that get recognized by Ableton there (doesn't work as well for VST 3) - but it's always nice to not need a workaround.
Again: This is not in defense of AA and of course it's moronic that they make you drop 40 gigs of files in your .dll folder.. I'm not talking about that. I do not use AA (because they are too CPU-heavy ;) ). I'm just talking about Ableton. I think it would be an easy but great improvement to offer the possibility to scan for more folders.
@@akagerhard ah, I may have been mistaken about the Custom option allowing a third location. It may very well just mean “I want to specify the file path of my VST folder”. It wouldn’t do me any good either way, because I already have my folders set for the thousand other plugins I own. Which out of all those plugins, if I took Acustica out of my VST2 directly they’d total less than 1 gig. So that’s why they don’t allow it, space isn’t an issue with any other plugin manufacturer: the .dll files are tiny and they just point to the data they need in other system folders. I’m not disagreeing that Ableton shouldn’t allow more folder locations, but I still think it would cause more problems than it solves…. for every other plugin besides Acustica. I’m not going to risk breaking my other plugins by moving them to a different folder just for AA. I want the .dll files on my primary, just not the samples. They should let users manage sample storage like Kontakt/Spitfire/Izotope/LiquidSonics etc etc do. I have 6 terabytes of SSD in my home studio: yet I don’t have space for any more Acustica 🤷♂️
@@mrnelsonius5631 haha I feel your anxiety about breaking plugins - and agreed I'd never work around with everything for one manufacturer. However let me tell you that moving .dlls is very unproblematic 99,9% of the time (izotope is one of those that gave me more problems..). Many manufacturers don't give the option to choose the VST3 folder in the installation-path.. so I almost always need to go grab it and put it into my VST 3-folder. Like I said 99,99% of the time that works just fine.
You have a lot of SSD-space, Sir. When it comes to SSD I have to make due with 2 TB atm .. I must admit I'd prefer having 6 :D.
This product is completely rubbish, you´re absolutely right what you found out in your test. Agreed 100 %
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The cpu is the price you pay for the sound, the IRs etc. If you make the plugins cpu friendly you will lose the sound, as simple as that.
Doesn't explain blacks cpu though 🤔
so i am paying for they to burn my cpu mmmkay
Basically yeah. Cpu hit right from the off
If this rant was directed, it would be a good promo stunt for their upcoming CPU-friendly versions of all their plugins. But unfortunetely it's not, I'm afraid.
PS. Maybe the Acustica dev team should talk with the Cocos Reaper team how to code cpu-friendly in order to solve this issue once and for all.
It's definitely not 😂
@@PaulThird 😂
If you have enough money to buy three or four of AA's plug ins, then maybe you should have bought 3 and more RAM, or picked your favorite console emulation and bought a faster computer. Or, even 2. I think people forget sometimes that for half of the money of 1 LA-2A you can buy everything AA offers and a fast enough computer to run EL-ray and several consoles at once. What's wrong with bouncing down your track to free up your CPU? An extra external drive for your treated , or clean, takes? Also worth mentioning is that the company gave away the player and sells packages that have many, many, pre amps from the consoles that they offer. Each of those channel strips are priced at $100-$300ish. What if you don't need a new compressor and eq, but are interested at having a wider sonic pallette in the form of pre-amps? Voila! A way to spend what you would on one of their consoles, but get the pre's from like ten of the ones that they sell. Sounds like a good deal to me! Maybe not for you. But why give away the best pre amps when you are selling packages of pre amps? Also UA's are $100 + for every single pre-amp they have; and they all eat up you DSP like a mo-fo. (Still easier to work around, and cheaper, than out of the box)
I get what your saying but.. It shouldn't have more cpu than an entire channel strip. You'd be better off just using the AA pre's you already have.
I've made do with freeze and commit on an i5 and do fine on my i9 computer now but I'm sorry I'm personally not willing to except a plugin that even without pre's engaged still hits my cpu harder than an entire channel strip with pre, eq and compressor working
As an acustica user that's poor in my book. Going back the way in regards to cpu isn't making any sense, especially if with the PRE off its doing what you could do with free vu meter can do without any cpu hit. If it was low cpu then I wouldn't be as critical but 25-30% cpu on 5 instances for something I could do myself with a vu meter.. Come on.
Its more about the logic behind this than anything else. Why would I use black to get a 'console sound' when sonimus Britson/satson allows you to group, add cross talk, lower order harmonics via the fat switch, hi and low pass as well as gain stage or auto gain for console saturation.. at a tiny hit of cpu.
I'm all for when acustica nail it and I get something I can't get from any other plugin but this is a bit of a head scratcher for me. Im just being realistic
Hello Julian, this doesn't strike me as a very objective argumentation. The majority does not own a single LA-2A hardware.. and next to nobody NEEDS it. So the whole "save the money on a hardware LA-2A"-argument is purely theoretical, because nobody intends on buying one in the first place. Secondly: "If you have enough money to buy three or four of AA's plugins" you should buy a better PC instead.. while that is logically sound, the presumption (you need to use AA-Plugins) is flawed.. because nobody NEEDS to buy a better PC, as long as they don't buy the 5% of plugins on the market that give you a hard time on your "old" PC. "What's wrong with bouncing down your track to free up your CPU?" there are a multitude of reasons.. bouncing is a pain, it destroys most peoples workflow, because they are not used to doing it - so you want them to change their workflow in order to use AA-Plugins? I'm sorry, but that seems quite ridiculous to me mate.
You tend to assume that the goal is to work with AA-plugins at all costs, so if it's possible - it's all good. That's a rather narrow-minded assumption in my opinion. None of what you suggest truely sounds "like a good deal" to me. I AM spending money.. but my money doesn't go to AA, because I don't want to think twice wether it will be a pain CPU-wise when I load up a plugin. My PC-system surpasses the average PC by quite a margin and STILL AA would be a pain to use. This should never be a thought I have to bother with - because it's a thought that is not about getting shit done.
@@PaulThird yes a step in the wrong direction as far as taxing CPU. I guess it's just a matter of is the 'juice worth the squeeze" and most times I would say yes. Also, if you cook a meal, you don't use no spice; you just don't overdo it and leave a little spice on the table for individual flavor tastes later. I don't know why people don't pick a good preamp to record through, just don't make it distorted (you can't take salt out once it's in there). Then turn off the pre amp and you wont have to worry about CPU usage unless you want to add more during the mix down. The inability to ever do 'destructive edits' is the same as not being able to make a decision w/flavor. You can always add more later but it makes a more pleasant recording if you pick the right preamp 'pre' record. (I think)
You can either bitch about CPU usage or do something about it. I got me a threadripper 3970. Problem solved??? Well I have a totally different problem now. I can only use 20 instances of Sand. On the 21st instance it shuts down my DAW
after spending about 3k on there plugins i say RANT a way kid
so thats why its free lol
He lost to enable the plug in. Mohahaha!
What?
Acustica kills cpu in bad way.
It's just inefficient coding. MANY plugins sound awesome with hardly any CPU hit.
Nah To be fair convolution is a different kettle of fish as its loading a brand new impulse response with every move you make. Convolution and algos are very different. It's a trade off. You get more realism with convolution as its actually sampling the hardware and giving you a snapshot but the trade off is cpu.
However, true like sonimus Britson. my new main 'console' plugin and hardly any cpu hit. As I said there are some plugs I can personally justify the CPU hit on and it is getting better with every core update but this one just has be absolutely baffled 🙃
true, but to be fair they are usually not convolution-based plugins. But yes, to the user it's irrelevant what the tec behind it is.. the sound and CPU-usage is all that matters.
I used to think there plugins were to cpu intensive until i got my Ryzen 9 5950X with 64gb of ram. Acustica should NOT make there plugins less cpu intensive since the cpu load is in direct correlation with the huge realistic sound of the plugins. I feel they have been ahead of there time for years and cpu tech is finally catching up. So the same thing you want Acustica to STOP doing.. Other developers are starting to do. I can do full mixes with only my Uad and Acustica plugins for the 1st time EVER and i love it. So Acustica PLEASE remain uncompromising in your efforts to bring us the closest plugins to analog ever made... And to everyone else.. Use Waves plugins or GO BUY A NEW COMPUTER...🤨
who's the big loser?! Black,, jeeezus!! kills your transients and uses 15x the CPU!?!?!?!?!? WTF
ACUSTICA AUDIO ARE GREAT BUT A CPU HOG AND THAT CAN SCREW YOU MIXES
I'm guessing the CPU overload is caused by the closeness to the original gear which none of us can afford. It sounds like you want the cake and eat it as well? Try a bit harder to complain about something important wud Yee 😂😂
It's no about that. Its about consistency with cpu. High cpu load is expected with convolution due to them loading a new impulse response with everymove but when you have a full AA channel strip with less cpu than just an AA pre.. Doesn't make any sense.
CPU in this case can be improved and for me personally the CPU needs to be justified which in many acustica plugs I believe it does but algos offer way more than what black can at 20x less cpu
@@PaulThird Ok! They work fine for me , sound great and I've got CPU to spare 🤷
You need a 10 000 dollars computer to run AA plugins... I suscribed to MWTM and nobody of the big guys that are 100% ITB (SCHEPS, KING, BLAKE) are using eather one AA plugin. Dont see the point of this company.
You'd be surprised. I know a few Grammy winners who use acustica and nebula guys like TimP and remember dave pensado, Luca Pretolesi, Greg wells and Mike Dean all have their own plugins with Acustica. I was watching a video only last week where Marc Daniel Nelson was showing off AA titanium in a mix.
I've got an i9 pc and can run 47 instances or whatever of their pink channel strip. I had an i5 and mixed an entire record using freeze and commit so its all about your workflow.. And daw also as reaper runs a lot more AA and there are lots of other ones out there.
I'm just not accepting new plugins with more cpu than before.
Acoustics plugins are poorly programmed. And as much as I sonically love them, they’re often just garbage. You want do see for yourself? Just open JADE and increase the input amount and listen to that chirpy sounds that so called analog IR technology brings to your ears. It’s ridiculous. Or open the SILVER reverb and press the GURU button and make yourself a coffee while the GUI is changing some knobs. By the way, I also hate how they throw hundreds of files into my plug-in folder. Garbage. Sorry to be so hard on you. But I just don’t understand their vision and aesthetics.
Their Howie Weinberg mastering bus uses 60% of my 12 cores Mac Pro. And most importantly, IR technology is not a reason for absurdly high cpu consumption. Just take a look how other companies like liquid Sonics do it properly. Their reverbs take less than almost any algo reverb.
I've not covered an acustica release since this haha I kept to my word as silver was cpu central, desert didn't really take my fancy and howies gui doesn't even fully fit in my screen on PT so I can't even use the limiter .. And takes an age to load.. AND they updated the colour to a dark theme and in the process broke the low shelf 🤣
Ive told them that pensado eq 2 aliases and there is chirp all over one of the pre's. No reply, no update but I know now that the oversampling is purely for the algo clipper in it.
I still use their plugins that I've tested and I like but there is still existing issues that they haven't fixed in others and to this day are still churning out the same overly cpu endulgent products. Its genuinely get worse on the CPU front 🙈