jkuehlin
New member
Re: Johnny Amato - My thoughts on Slate Plugins
I stated this before and I'll say it again. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Steven Slate and what he's doing to make quality music recording tools available to everybody. I will never join in with the other haters and say that nothing he makes is any good, because I feel quite the opposite is true. That anyone who knows what they're doing should be able to turn over an acceptable product with that Everything Bundle if given enough time to adapt to the way they sound and function.
So I did get a chance to fiddle around with it for a bit. I went in and noodled around with the API on the Slate VCC for a while and decided I didn't like it. So what I ended up doing was Vision channel strip infront of the VMR and toggling the EQ modules in and out to compare them. I realize that the API lunchbox EQ modules are very popular. You don't need a UAD preamp infront of everything so I did this for my own familiarity as much as anything else. Sort of like how when Chris Lord Alge was asked to mix a track entirely with Slate plugs, he loaded down his entire session with SSL E saturation at the top of every channel.
I struggled a little with how different the Slate one sounds. There were a few familiar characteristics. You could tell they were trying. But the Waves is definitely more similar to the UAD one than the Slate is to either. I think its somewhat irrelevant at this point which one is closest to the hardware. What matters is if they captured what makes an API one of most stunning amazing EQ's that has been engineered to date.
Bottom line - I like the EQ as an EQ, but it doesn't act like an API in my opinion. Some of the ratios between curve, boost/cut, and interpolation of the Qs were there. Some were way off. If I had to use this plugin, I would probably just figure out which band widths I needed to avoid on the Slate. But the problem is that certain bandwidths on the same fucking dial worked better than others. So the cuts and boosts to 1.5 were good until you exceeded 4db. But as soon as you went one notch higher to a 6db boost, it sounded NOTHING like an API lol. I had the same problem with cutting at 12.5 and I expected the 100hz boost to act WAY different than it did.
If you take the UAD plunge, I'll give you some pointers. Make sure you buy all MK2 revisions. They're night and day better than the legacy models. You're not really hearing UAD at its best unless you get the recent plugins. Some of their old ones aren't any better than the Waves stuff. Try to save as much cash as you can and buy a used bundle. Mine was $6000 used and it took me another $3500 in additional plugins to really get set up with a plugin library I was happy with. But check back in later for the must-have's. When you get really close to buying, I'll be happy to take a look at the sellers plugin list and give you my thoughts on it.
In a nutshell, the only reason I'm not using Slate stuff more is because I have other things I got used to. Apart from those 1176's which I hate, there's really nothing in there I'd be opposed to using. Some highlights - I like his Bricasti emulator. Again, I never use it because I have the Liquid Sonics version that acts more like a real one. But Slates is good. I like his Eiosis de-esser, and again I think his Red 2 is the best one out there. I also like his distressor. I'm distressor fanatic. I have every serious distressor clone that anyone's ever made, and I think his is nearly as usable as UAD's. I think he did and excellent job with the delay plugin, and if I didn't have all of the UAD and Waves tape emulators, I'd gladly use his as well.
I don't know a soul on earth who would rather use the Slate Everything vs the UAD everything, but I know a hell of a lot of people that don't want to pay $10,000 for the UAD plugin library. However, for everyone else, I honestly believe that Slate bundle for $15/mo is one of the best bang-for-the-buck values you could possibly buy. If I was a broke kid who just graduated Full Sail with a music production degree, the first thing I would buy is the Slate Everything bundle, the Waves CLA compressors, and Melodyne light. I'd take out a $500 loan for a pair of used Yamaha HS5's, a Focusrite Scarlet Solo, a Rode NT1 and be off to the races!!!
I stated this before and I'll say it again. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Steven Slate and what he's doing to make quality music recording tools available to everybody. I will never join in with the other haters and say that nothing he makes is any good, because I feel quite the opposite is true. That anyone who knows what they're doing should be able to turn over an acceptable product with that Everything Bundle if given enough time to adapt to the way they sound and function.
So I did get a chance to fiddle around with it for a bit. I went in and noodled around with the API on the Slate VCC for a while and decided I didn't like it. So what I ended up doing was Vision channel strip infront of the VMR and toggling the EQ modules in and out to compare them. I realize that the API lunchbox EQ modules are very popular. You don't need a UAD preamp infront of everything so I did this for my own familiarity as much as anything else. Sort of like how when Chris Lord Alge was asked to mix a track entirely with Slate plugs, he loaded down his entire session with SSL E saturation at the top of every channel.
I struggled a little with how different the Slate one sounds. There were a few familiar characteristics. You could tell they were trying. But the Waves is definitely more similar to the UAD one than the Slate is to either. I think its somewhat irrelevant at this point which one is closest to the hardware. What matters is if they captured what makes an API one of most stunning amazing EQ's that has been engineered to date.
Bottom line - I like the EQ as an EQ, but it doesn't act like an API in my opinion. Some of the ratios between curve, boost/cut, and interpolation of the Qs were there. Some were way off. If I had to use this plugin, I would probably just figure out which band widths I needed to avoid on the Slate. But the problem is that certain bandwidths on the same fucking dial worked better than others. So the cuts and boosts to 1.5 were good until you exceeded 4db. But as soon as you went one notch higher to a 6db boost, it sounded NOTHING like an API lol. I had the same problem with cutting at 12.5 and I expected the 100hz boost to act WAY different than it did.
If its the only bus compressor you have, I'm sure it'll work. I'll take the Waves or UAD for a G emulator. However, I think his Red 2 compressor is one of the best emulators he's ever made. I like it MUCH better than Focusrites own Red 2 emulator. Its one of the few Slate plugins I still use.
Ok...so like many others in the UAD community, I already own the Waves ones and they are my go-to when I run out of processing power on the UAD side. I could do without any of those 1176's. I think they're THE WORST emulators in his entire library. I think the attack and release behavior is horrifically out of whack, and fact you can't go all-buttons in ridiculous. You rely on the metering quite a bit when dialing things in, and I've found the meters completely unreliable too. Even though your ears trump your eyes, if you're meters are going haywire on your typical 4:1 medium attack fast release, it'll always cause you to freeze for a sec and have to re-think if the GUI visual feedback matches your what you're hearing. I found them really distracting.
Yes. I do. And part of the reason is that any unique tube saturation is hard to find. On these, I'm of the opinion that it doesn't matter if it sounds anything what it was modeled from. Its different than the API because you reach for an API when you want an API. With these VTC units I find them good for a lot of real aggressive mangling. They're just really vibey and different sounding in a good way.
If you take the UAD plunge, I'll give you some pointers. Make sure you buy all MK2 revisions. They're night and day better than the legacy models. You're not really hearing UAD at its best unless you get the recent plugins. Some of their old ones aren't any better than the Waves stuff. Try to save as much cash as you can and buy a used bundle. Mine was $6000 used and it took me another $3500 in additional plugins to really get set up with a plugin library I was happy with. But check back in later for the must-have's. When you get really close to buying, I'll be happy to take a look at the sellers plugin list and give you my thoughts on it.
In a nutshell, the only reason I'm not using Slate stuff more is because I have other things I got used to. Apart from those 1176's which I hate, there's really nothing in there I'd be opposed to using. Some highlights - I like his Bricasti emulator. Again, I never use it because I have the Liquid Sonics version that acts more like a real one. But Slates is good. I like his Eiosis de-esser, and again I think his Red 2 is the best one out there. I also like his distressor. I'm distressor fanatic. I have every serious distressor clone that anyone's ever made, and I think his is nearly as usable as UAD's. I think he did and excellent job with the delay plugin, and if I didn't have all of the UAD and Waves tape emulators, I'd gladly use his as well.
I don't know a soul on earth who would rather use the Slate Everything vs the UAD everything, but I know a hell of a lot of people that don't want to pay $10,000 for the UAD plugin library. However, for everyone else, I honestly believe that Slate bundle for $15/mo is one of the best bang-for-the-buck values you could possibly buy. If I was a broke kid who just graduated Full Sail with a music production degree, the first thing I would buy is the Slate Everything bundle, the Waves CLA compressors, and Melodyne light. I'd take out a $500 loan for a pair of used Yamaha HS5's, a Focusrite Scarlet Solo, a Rode NT1 and be off to the races!!!
