mshilarious
Banned
OK, if you know me, you'll know I'm a big UAD fan. Recently there have been some interesting threads places like PSW, GS, and KVR, discussing the differences between various EQ plugs. The consensus is that all properly designed, minimum-phase, fully parametric EQs can be adjusted to sound exactly the same. That's not necessarily bad, but it does have implications for the number of EQ plugs one needs to collect . . .
To avoid repeating all those threads, let's just stipulate that. The threads go on to discuss the operative differences between EQs--GUI and saturation features among those being discussed. I don't care about GUIs (actually don't like UAD's, they are too big, and I don't care how big the analog box is). One very esteemed poster opined that any saturation feature added should be made switchable, or even a separate plug.
The equivalency of EQs was not felt to apply to compressors, although given full control over compression parameters, I am not sure why that wouldn't also be true.
It was generally felt that such discussion did not apply to UAD, because they were algorithms modeling physical hardware, sometimes supposedly at the component level. But then there was another discussion about the UAD 33609 in particular, as to whether or not it saturated. There was quite a lot of argument about that.
So I broke out my UAD plugs and tested them. None of the plugs are sensitive to input level with respect to distortion, at all. None of the EQs I have distort, at all (note that I don't have all the EQs, Helios and Pultec here along with the Precision which I would not expect to distort). None of the plugs generate any second-order harmonic distortion, at all. This includes Nigel! I mean, I love Nigel, but what kind of amp sim doesn't yield any of the exact kind of distortion that most guitarists want
(yes, I know UA has discontinued Nigel support for the UAD-2).
I must say I find this all somewhat disappointing, and an obvious reason--perhaps the primary reason--people say the plugs still don't sound like the real boxes. UA should rework the plugs to faithfully model the distortion of the actual boxes. Clean is a good option too, so either:
- make the saturation switchable, and model the real behavior of the circuit with 0dBu = -15dBFS
- trigger the saturation only with input levels exceeding 0dBFS (yes, I tried that already, no distortion)
For me, well I was writing a saturation plug for myself, so I'm going to make sure it fits into my chain where I really want it (<cough> Nigel!)
To avoid repeating all those threads, let's just stipulate that. The threads go on to discuss the operative differences between EQs--GUI and saturation features among those being discussed. I don't care about GUIs (actually don't like UAD's, they are too big, and I don't care how big the analog box is). One very esteemed poster opined that any saturation feature added should be made switchable, or even a separate plug.
The equivalency of EQs was not felt to apply to compressors, although given full control over compression parameters, I am not sure why that wouldn't also be true.
It was generally felt that such discussion did not apply to UAD, because they were algorithms modeling physical hardware, sometimes supposedly at the component level. But then there was another discussion about the UAD 33609 in particular, as to whether or not it saturated. There was quite a lot of argument about that.
So I broke out my UAD plugs and tested them. None of the plugs are sensitive to input level with respect to distortion, at all. None of the EQs I have distort, at all (note that I don't have all the EQs, Helios and Pultec here along with the Precision which I would not expect to distort). None of the plugs generate any second-order harmonic distortion, at all. This includes Nigel! I mean, I love Nigel, but what kind of amp sim doesn't yield any of the exact kind of distortion that most guitarists want
(yes, I know UA has discontinued Nigel support for the UAD-2).I must say I find this all somewhat disappointing, and an obvious reason--perhaps the primary reason--people say the plugs still don't sound like the real boxes. UA should rework the plugs to faithfully model the distortion of the actual boxes. Clean is a good option too, so either:
- make the saturation switchable, and model the real behavior of the circuit with 0dBu = -15dBFS
- trigger the saturation only with input levels exceeding 0dBFS (yes, I tried that already, no distortion)
For me, well I was writing a saturation plug for myself, so I'm going to make sure it fits into my chain where I really want it (<cough> Nigel!)
