Wow I didn't expect that you gonna redo the API 2500 comparison video after the feedback but really appreciate that, what a serious attitude! And you did it absolutely correctly this time, and guess what the ones I would prefer based on your last video aren't the ones I prefer in this proper and fair api comparison video! Thank you, in my opinion it's definitely important to do fair comparisons like this so people can understand you can actually get them sound pretty close and make informed decisions about which one they like the best and don't spend money on something that they won't eventually like and use that much. Now I think if you don't have a clear winner in terms of sound the most feature rich one will be your winner...
Lindell makes a Great API Channel Strip called the Lindell 50 . . . ! . . . I really like it and use it often . . ! . . . It has 2 compressor and 3 eqs to chose from. Inside . . . ! . . . It really sounds good . . . ! . . . :-) (-;
They all do the API thing admirably enough to my ears, and though there’s some minor differences between them in the speed and aggression of the attack and release, they’re all right there in same general area to me. I only have the Lindell and Waves out of these, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use either one.
Like the controlled/glued sound of the UAD. Lindell didn’t sound as controlled but had more low end weight and overall width. I would go with Lindell if I had to choose one because it’s more versatile. could get more glue with some tweaking and it has a nuke setting and separate sidechain filter for when the thrust options aren’t enough.
Yeah, I am going to revisit the Lindell . . . ! . . . I use their Lindell 50 (API) Channel 50 . . ! . . . It holds 3 EQ options and 2 Compressor options . . . ! . . . And it has weight, great tone, and an Openness. . . ! . . . :-) (-;
Very interesting. I like uad but it tends to suck a bit of high end so imo the lindell will be more polyvalent. Waves is still surprisingly good too even if it compress harder to my ears.
The UAD makes me think "This Sounds Good", but the Waves makes my head bump - really brings som excitement to the loop. The Lindell is flat and uninteresting, and the Track-comp sounds a bit all over the place. To me at least. Thanks for the great video!
Honestly I’ve heard so many people speaking over how DMG is better but if you listen closely mostly on the snare, you can clearly hear how more clear the “SNAP” is with the UAD.. now Lindell is not far from it, i would say is 2nd.. just because of how the UAD has this glue factor to it that i felt the Lindell does not. But all this is based upon my ears.
Sounds like it's rather based on your prejudice 😁 I agree that dmg is not sounding that great and It is also apparrently louder in volume... But when it comes to "snap" on the Snare it all depends on how the Hihats/rides in between are exegerated, meaning: release time. And there the uad performs really great because it leveling out the hihats really good. I think the hihats/rides are worth listening to when you want to hear the real difference... Because making the loudest part snap can be done perfectly - oc with minor differences in sound - by all of these compressors. But the behavior of the release time makes the difference in imho
I assume the reason Trackcomp sounds a bit more "spitty" and slightly harsh(er) top end is because the detector circuit reacts less to the top end with regards to the rest that have the Thrust circuit set to Medium. I use the UAD version almost entirely now that its Spark a well and its not taking up precious (and archaic) SHARC DSP power. I am happy with it. I remember using the Waves version years ago and it doing the job as well. Lindell sounds fine. Trackcomp sounds fine, although a tad harsh, which my logic tell me its the detector miss match, although it could just be the sound of Trackcomp. In any case, I'd be happy to use any of them.
Good shootout, however you didn’t set the DMG Trackcomp response to 50% (which is the equivalent of the thrust control set at MED as you have with the others) so that one is going to sound different due to that.
@@GreenLightSound I own the UAD, DMG and the Lindell, and I'm very familiar with the hardware. That is definitely not a minimal difference. TC2 is responding a lot more to the kick and a lot less to the rest (specially the snare), to me that difference really pops out. In my experience TC2 sounds more raw and closer to the hardware, but sometimes the UAD's well-mannered behavior suits the song better. I also don't like the logarithmic scale on the threshold slider, when you want your threshold below about -6, moving it 1mm already results on a big change, making it kinda finicky to set correctly. DMG stuff always sounds great, but the GUI's are lacking (with Equilibrium being the exception).
I like the Waves the most. Lindell and UAD sounds more analogue but overall it's less fun because they eat transients for breakfast. The release on Trackcomp sounded way different, I didn't like it in this example, but maybe in real-world use it would be set differently.
Great video! I may be imagining it, but I find the UAD version of all four to be the best. After that, Lindell takes second place, third Waves and last but not least the DMG version
In addition to the 'response' fader needing to be set to 50% for a 1:1 comparison with these other models, if you use the output instead of the makeup slider to make up gain, you're not getting the same effect as you would from the hardware- its essentially like using a fader instead of the makeup knob, which in most of these devices with transformer-coupled outputs, is going to impact the tone and harmonic saturation. Also, every time I see a demo of trackcomp, almost no one uses the oversampling, which does make a difference in compression behavior and harmonic distortion ie aliasing. What is the oversampling on the lindell set to? I know the 80 series defaults at 2x. Thanks for the vid!
Well the Waves plugin doesn't have oversampling so you can't win. Although honestly drum bus compression sounds better without oversampling most of the time, IMO... gives it more bite.
been using the waves version for a very long time on the drum bus and it does nothing but good to me, love it. Finding myself using the DMG TrackComp lately because it generates close to no harmonics and cleaner, so I can add my own saturation plugin after to color the drum bus how I like it. From the comparison it seems like the Lindell has similar sound to the Waves, it is a lot smoother and rounder compared to the more aggressive grabby UAD but some people may like it that way.
DMG trackcomp2 needed the response adjusted to match the medium tone settings. Its not subtle. What were the sample rates too? DMG at 16x is hard to beat. That said, they all sound good 👍
I'm a big fan of Lindell and Plugin Alliance - owning almost everything they've released. However, in this instance I feel absolutely satisfied staying with the Waves version. I've used it on so many things over the years and it's never failed for me. I think Waves did a reasonable job at the time modeling it and the hardware itself is not really known as a "color" piece by any means.
Sounds like the UAD has the fastest and most "grabby" attack, which is pretty much what I remember and like from the hardware. And the sound is quite spot on. So as much as I dislike UAD's business model, it's the winner here, to me. The Waves (another highly dislikable business model, BTW) also seems to do well regarding the attack timing, but the release is too slow and the overall sound is murkier, flatter, more audibly squashed. The Lindell sounds great but has a slightly too slow attack, lets some excessive transienst legnth and hihat hits through. The DMG seems to be even slower and less accurate, as if just attempting to emulate the compression parameters, but not the hardware's sound. Well done, nice of you to update your own test so quickly! Which one did you prefer?
The Versitile use you can get out of the SBC...makes it the Winner...you can use it on a Guitar, Pluck Synth, Drum Bus and Bass Bus, plus Master Bus....But your getting EVERY COMPRESSOR YOU NEED IN Track comp 2...making those two...a way better and more useful idea.....Plugin Alliance has smoked UAD as far as a Subscription, IK Media Tape Collection, PA Analog Black Box and Elysia Karacter blows...the UAD TAPES....awwwwaayyyy...LOL
30% of nuke button at 60 gives the Lindell the edge.....and....the SBC....has a sound identical to the UAD....but....the Lindell sounds more Analog...giving the edge on master bus....but....Track Comp And UAD.....would have the edge on drum bus
Can you help me with the calibration? I wanna replace all my Waves 2500 instances with the Lindell SBC, so how do you exactly matched them? As far as I can see, you lower put a difference of +4db in the threshold. Besides that, anything else? Did you turn off oversampling in the SBC, or changed the calibration from 14DBfs to 17DBfs on the SBC?
- uad is so accurate, controlled, clean and punchy but hi-hat is too bright - lindell has really powerfull low punch and width but snare and other drumz have uncontrolled punch than uad (because of width I reckon) - waves is good but drums is a little bit dry and blurry (lindell has more 'big' punchy sound) - dmg sounds deep but dirty for me I don't have uad and I think you can see what's wrong with hh if open plugin doctor.
If you read the document for the UAD plugin, you will understand that it works in a different OS by default - and this radically changes the operation and sound of the device. You at least had to install OS4x for the Alliance Plugin! But you still have 8x and 16x left ! So conclusions had to be drawn based on the Capabilities of each of them. This is not a correct Test.
I think people who use and know the sound of good hardware appreciate this. It usually sounds more natural. That said, I really liked the Lindell - it’s very beefy and thick, but the DMG sounds more like the hardware 2500 to me.
I don’t like the way DMG TrackComp compressed. Both the attack and release curve seemed not right for me, making it sounded like weird choked pumping. I’ll choose Waves’ for natural big punch & natural room sustain, or UAD for snappy punch & extra tightness.
Track Comp....wins again....sounds more even with the Hi and Low End...later when you mix that track down with other tracks...you dont want the low end so poundy...you cant balance out the whole mix, DMG does a better Job of balancing out the Hi s and the Low s, its just a better plugin app
again? Never won anything - it's a cheapo plugin with 2005 style GUI.... Lost here - it's a cheaper plugin, for beginners who can't articulate what they are hearing.
I thought that the UAD sounded more open and punchy, but, it was the first I heard, there was no direct comparison from one to each of the others. The only one I own is the Waves but in honesty, I cant compare it either favourably or negatively against anything other than the previous option. In my opinion it is a wasted update, as you are not giving the option to hear each individual vst compared to each of the others.... it would have created a slightly longer video but with no huge amount of effort in edit and no more filming time.
Though, the Lindell, sounded the most Analog...the Most like actual hardware...so....taking the time to level out the Lindell SBC may be more worth it, especially if you dont have analog gear, I have analog gear, so that gives me the freedom of choosing which one sounds the best for me, because Im gona run that track through my Analog Rack anyway....so over all, I think the Track Comp just sounds better, newer, or I would prefer the Slate FG Modern....on Drums before I run them through my ART Transy Stereo FET Compressor in the Rack
Now that's the real truth, because of that nuke function on the lindell.... and it having more of an analog even sound makes the Lindell...King on the master bus as far as API compressors vsts Especially on Master bus with the little API bus Channel plug in them together uad has nothing on them on master Bus!! Now I know I made all the overpriced stuck up uad people angry but so what deal with it!
Wow I didn't expect that you gonna redo the API 2500 comparison video after the feedback but really appreciate that, what a serious attitude!
And you did it absolutely correctly this time, and guess what the ones I would prefer based on your last video aren't the ones I prefer in this proper and fair api comparison video!
Thank you, in my opinion it's definitely important to do fair comparisons like this so people can understand you can actually get them sound pretty close and make informed decisions about which one they like the best and don't spend money on something that they won't eventually like and use that much.
Now I think if you don't have a clear winner in terms of sound the most feature rich one will be your winner...
UAD 2:41
DMG 2:51
LINDELL 3:01
WAVES 3:11
Lindell surprised me on this shootout!
Lindell makes a Great API Channel Strip called the Lindell 50 . . . ! . . . I really like it and use it often . . ! . . . It has 2 compressor and 3 eqs to chose from. Inside . . . ! . . . It really sounds good . . . ! . . . :-)
(-;
Response on the DMG TrackComp should have been set to 50% to match MED filter on all the other comps.
Fair enough, though I did test it both ways and there's minimal difference.
They all do the API thing admirably enough to my ears, and though there’s some minor differences between them in the speed and aggression of the attack and release, they’re all right there in same general area to me. I only have the Lindell and Waves out of these, and I wouldn’t hesitate to use either one.
Like the controlled/glued sound of the UAD. Lindell didn’t sound as controlled but had more low end weight and overall width. I would go with Lindell if I had to choose one because it’s more versatile. could get more glue with some tweaking and it has a nuke setting and separate sidechain filter for when the thrust options aren’t enough.
Yeah, I am going to revisit the Lindell . . . ! . . . I use their Lindell 50 (API) Channel 50 . . ! . . . It holds 3 EQ options and 2 Compressor options . . . ! . . . And it has weight, great tone, and an Openness. . . ! . . . :-)
(-;
Very interesting. I like uad but it tends to suck a bit of high end so imo the lindell will be more polyvalent. Waves is still surprisingly good too even if it compress harder to my ears.
Lindell is a beast and capable of way more. I have been using waves for years and I have the Lindell after my own shootout. Lindell wins
The UAD makes me think "This Sounds Good", but the Waves makes my head bump - really brings som excitement to the loop. The Lindell is flat and uninteresting, and the Track-comp sounds a bit all over the place. To me at least. Thanks for the great video!
Honestly I’ve heard so many people speaking over how DMG is better but if you listen closely mostly on the snare, you can clearly hear how more clear the “SNAP” is with the UAD.. now Lindell is not far from it, i would say is 2nd.. just because of how the UAD has this glue factor to it that i felt the Lindell does not. But all this is based upon my ears.
Sounds like it's rather based on your prejudice 😁
I agree that dmg is not sounding that great and It is also apparrently louder in volume...
But when it comes to "snap" on the Snare it all depends on how the Hihats/rides in between are exegerated, meaning: release time. And there the uad performs really great because it leveling out the hihats really good. I think the hihats/rides are worth listening to when you want to hear the real difference... Because making the loudest part snap can be done perfectly - oc with minor differences in sound - by all of these compressors. But the behavior of the release time makes the difference in imho
I assume the reason Trackcomp sounds a bit more "spitty" and slightly harsh(er) top end is because the detector circuit reacts less to the top end with regards to the rest that have the Thrust circuit set to Medium.
I use the UAD version almost entirely now that its Spark a well and its not taking up precious (and archaic) SHARC DSP power. I am happy with it.
I remember using the Waves version years ago and it doing the job as well.
Lindell sounds fine.
Trackcomp sounds fine, although a tad harsh, which my logic tell me its the detector miss match, although it could just be the sound of Trackcomp.
In any case, I'd be happy to use any of them.
Didn't expect this but I prefer Waves. Great video.
I prefer the Trackcomp 2 and the Waves API and the Lindell SBC & the UAD are very similar
Good shootout, however you didn’t set the DMG Trackcomp response to 50% (which is the equivalent of the thrust control set at MED as you have with the others) so that one is going to sound different due to that.
Minimal difference, doubt anyone could actually hear it on RUclips. Tried it both ways to confirm.
the DMG version sounds noticeably different in character to me
@@GreenLightSound I own the UAD, DMG and the Lindell, and I'm very familiar with the hardware. That is definitely not a minimal difference. TC2 is responding a lot more to the kick and a lot less to the rest (specially the snare), to me that difference really pops out.
In my experience TC2 sounds more raw and closer to the hardware, but sometimes the UAD's well-mannered behavior suits the song better. I also don't like the logarithmic scale on the threshold slider, when you want your threshold below about -6, moving it 1mm already results on a big change, making it kinda finicky to set correctly. DMG stuff always sounds great, but the GUI's are lacking (with Equilibrium being the exception).
Thanks and Blessings to you
Sir !!!
You're welcome!
Thanks for Good Comparison🙏🙏
I like the Waves the most. Lindell and UAD sounds more analogue but overall it's less fun because they eat transients for breakfast.
The release on Trackcomp sounded way different, I didn't like it in this example, but maybe in real-world use it would be set differently.
Yeah,, that's amazing :) Now we have a perfect comparison! Thank you very much! :) Good job 👍
Thanks for doing these videos, appreciate it.
I liked the Lindell and UAD equally over the others.
Great video! I may be imagining it, but I find the UAD version of all four to be the best. After that, Lindell takes second place, third Waves and last but not least the DMG version
In addition to the 'response' fader needing to be set to 50% for a 1:1 comparison with these other models, if you use the output instead of the makeup slider to make up gain, you're not getting the same effect as you would from the hardware- its essentially like using a fader instead of the makeup knob, which in most of these devices with transformer-coupled outputs, is going to impact the tone and harmonic saturation. Also, every time I see a demo of trackcomp, almost no one uses the oversampling, which does make a difference in compression behavior and harmonic distortion ie aliasing. What is the oversampling on the lindell set to? I know the 80 series defaults at 2x. Thanks for the vid!
Eagle eyed 🤌🏾
Well the Waves plugin doesn't have oversampling so you can't win. Although honestly drum bus compression sounds better without oversampling most of the time, IMO... gives it more bite.
I preferred: 1 SBC, 2 Waves (suprisingly), 3 UAD, 4 DMG
been using the waves version for a very long time on the drum bus and it does nothing but good to me, love it. Finding myself using the DMG TrackComp lately because it generates close to no harmonics and cleaner, so I can add my own saturation plugin after to color the drum bus how I like it. From the comparison it seems like the Lindell has similar sound to the Waves, it is a lot smoother and rounder compared to the more aggressive grabby UAD but some people may like it that way.
DMG trackcomp2 needed the response adjusted to match the medium tone settings. Its not subtle.
What were the sample rates too? DMG at 16x is hard to beat.
That said, they all sound good 👍
ok a cheapo plugin for noob/nerds...Shouldn't be here - and it was beat! everybody says it placed 3rd or 4th - what planet do you live on ?
Could you do this with LA2A? Amazing comparison.
I'm a big fan of Lindell and Plugin Alliance - owning almost everything they've released. However, in this instance I feel absolutely satisfied staying with the Waves version. I've used it on so many things over the years and it's never failed for me. I think Waves did a reasonable job at the time modeling it and the hardware itself is not really known as a "color" piece by any means.
Somebody hold LINDELL back....Lindell Audio...and Track Comp....killed em.....LOL
Sounds like the UAD has the fastest and most "grabby" attack, which is pretty much what I remember and like from the hardware. And the sound is quite spot on.
So as much as I dislike UAD's business model, it's the winner here, to me.
The Waves (another highly dislikable business model, BTW) also seems to do well regarding the attack timing, but the release is too slow and the overall sound is murkier, flatter, more audibly squashed.
The Lindell sounds great but has a slightly too slow attack, lets some excessive transienst legnth and hihat hits through.
The DMG seems to be even slower and less accurate, as if just attempting to emulate the compression parameters, but not the hardware's sound.
Well done, nice of you to update your own test so quickly!
Which one did you prefer?
UAD is the winner for me.
The Versitile use you can get out of the SBC...makes it the Winner...you can use it on a Guitar, Pluck Synth, Drum Bus and Bass Bus, plus Master Bus....But your getting EVERY COMPRESSOR YOU NEED IN Track comp 2...making those two...a way better and more useful idea.....Plugin Alliance has smoked UAD as far as a Subscription, IK Media Tape Collection, PA Analog Black Box and Elysia Karacter blows...the UAD TAPES....awwwwaayyyy...LOL
Somebody.....arrange a funeral for UAD Plugins....LOL
@@johnisrael5183 Dude, with the way you write I can't help but think that you should lay off the glue sniffing.
Hi, could you tell us which calibration settings you had on the Lindell SBC? Thanks. :)
Default calibration.
30% of nuke button at 60 gives the Lindell the edge.....and....the SBC....has a sound identical to the UAD....but....the Lindell sounds more Analog...giving the edge on master bus....but....Track Comp And UAD.....would have the edge on drum bus
Where's Acustica Pink 🤔 literally my favorite software API
Can you help me with the calibration? I wanna replace all my Waves 2500 instances with the Lindell SBC, so how do you exactly matched them? As far as I can see, you lower put a difference of +4db in the threshold. Besides that, anything else? Did you turn off oversampling in the SBC, or changed the calibration from 14DBfs to 17DBfs on the SBC?
- uad is so accurate, controlled, clean and punchy but hi-hat is too bright
- lindell has really powerfull low punch and width but snare and other drumz have uncontrolled punch than uad (because of width I reckon)
- waves is good but drums is a little bit dry and blurry (lindell has more 'big' punchy sound)
- dmg sounds deep but dirty for me
I don't have uad and I think you can see what's wrong with hh if open plugin doctor.
If you read the document for the UAD plugin, you will understand that it works in a different OS by default - and this radically changes the operation and sound of the device. You at least had to install OS4x for the Alliance Plugin! But you still have 8x and 16x left ! So conclusions had to be drawn based on the Capabilities of each of them. This is not a correct Test.
PUT THE DMG ON x8 Oversampling and try that again sir!
DMG Trackcomp 2 does not lose transient detail.
I think people who use and know the sound of good hardware appreciate this. It usually sounds more natural. That said, I really liked the Lindell - it’s very beefy and thick, but the DMG sounds more like the hardware 2500 to me.
Any of them will get the job done. Just get to work on your music :)
This is the correct answer.
But then when your music is finished and it's about extracting the last 1% of quality, it does start to matter
It makes it hard to give TrackComp 2 a fair assessment if its' Reponse setting does not match the others...
Fair enough, though I did just try it set to both 0% and 50% and there's very little difference.
@@GreenLightSound gotcha. I have both as well. I think I’ll do a shootout too. Thanks for the video!
Waves wins it
I don’t like the way DMG TrackComp compressed. Both the attack and release curve seemed not right for me, making it sounded like weird choked pumping.
I’ll choose Waves’ for natural big punch & natural room sustain, or UAD for snappy punch & extra tightness.
Track Comp....wins again....sounds more even with the Hi and Low End...later when you mix that track down with other tracks...you dont want the low end so poundy...you cant balance out the whole mix, DMG does a better Job of balancing out the Hi s and the Low s, its just a better plugin app
again? Never won anything - it's a cheapo plugin with 2005 style GUI.... Lost here - it's a cheaper plugin, for beginners who can't articulate what they are hearing.
UAD rules 😅.. Lindell also not bad tho
I thought that the UAD sounded more open and punchy, but, it was the first I heard, there was no direct comparison from one to each of the others. The only one I own is the Waves but in honesty, I cant compare it either favourably or negatively against anything other than the previous option. In my opinion it is a wasted update, as you are not giving the option to hear each individual vst compared to each of the others.... it would have created a slightly longer video but with no huge amount of effort in edit and no more filming time.
I mean you can just click between them on the timeline. They are labeled :)
Though, the Lindell, sounded the most Analog...the Most like actual hardware...so....taking the time to level out the Lindell SBC may be more worth it, especially if you dont have analog gear, I have analog gear, so that gives me the freedom of choosing which one sounds the best for me, because Im gona run that track through my Analog Rack anyway....so over all, I think the Track Comp just sounds better, newer, or I would prefer the Slate FG Modern....on Drums before I run them through my ART Transy Stereo FET Compressor in the Rack
UAD sounds most juicest here, Waves is close but the transients are poking out too much, Linden is duller and DMG even more dull
Now that's the real truth, because of that nuke function on the lindell.... and it having more of an analog even sound makes the Lindell...King on the master bus as far as API compressors vsts
Especially on Master bus with the little API bus Channel plug in them together uad has nothing on them on master Bus!! Now I know I made all the overpriced stuck up uad people angry but so what deal with it!
UAD Sounds really Digital....LOL...Welp...for sorry for all the suckers that UAD took advantage with their dsp plugins....LOL
It'd be easier to hear the differences if you removed the drum fill at the end and subsequent audio gap.