>> AlexB - SoundTec 432 Vintage Parametric Disk Master eQ + EXPANSION PACK <<

[AlexB]

Hi,

the SoundTec 432 Vintage Parametric Disk Master eQ released.


It has been an honor for me to work on this Vintage Parametric Disk Master eQualizer, a wonderful and classic creation by Mr.Burgess Macneal. I have totally refurbished the unit, restoring it to it’s original and beautiful sound, along with two mods done at request by the owner to make it more suitable for Mastering. The original Gain step has been changed from +/-12dB to +/-6dB and an additional High Shelf Filter at the Air Frequency of 16kHz has been added. Now this Holy Grail of equalizers fully expresses sweetness and musicality. It's not colored or necessarily “warm”, but it is subtle, focused, detailed, fast, immediate and extremely natural. The more you listen it, you begin to notice a little something “special” imparted across the audio signal... Simply Beautiful.

At the end the owner has allowed me to sample the unit, so with a lot of care to not damage the delicate circuits. It's not only a matter of banal 0VU = 0,775v but an accurate matching in signal, i/o impedance, filtered power supply, invisible converters and more. Now I'm glad to offer you the sound of this rare marvel for your music production, thanking you for the support that will allow me to keep on developing these programs.

. High Quality programs with full dynamics and harmonic content
. Special light edition "le" programs (CPU friendly)
. Low and High Shelf combo at 50Hz and 10kHz +/- 6dB
. Low and High Shelf combo at 100Hz and 10kHz +/- 6dB
. Low and High Shelf combo at 50Hz and 16kHz +/- 6dB
. Low and High Shelf combo at 100Hz and 16kHz +/- 6dB
. Bell Filter from 11Hz to 150Hz +/- 6dB, slope from 5 to 15 dB/oct
. Bell Filter from 150Hz to 1000Hz +/- 6dB, slope from 5 to 15 dB/oct
. Bell Filter from 1kHz to 5.7kHz +/- 6dB, slope from 5 to 15 dB/oct
. Bell Filter from 5.7kHz to 25kHz +/- 6dB, slope from 5 to 15 dB/oct
. Special AlexB skin for N4


Please, check the website and download the user manual, download the Demo for free Nebula preset and audio comparison vs IK Multimedia Master 432EQ. Please read the txt.



New Expansion Pack !!!
Expansion Pack consists of native 48kHz and 88.2kHz Vectors.
They are two complete library programs useful when you work at these sample rate and you don't want to lose any audio quality by Sample Rate Conversion Algorithm.

. Expansion Pack 48kHz Native
. Expansion Pack 88.2kHz Native
. Expansion Pack Bundle (48/88.2)
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Thanks, all the best !

[antago1]

This looks absolutely gorgeous!

[RJHollins]

Finally to see this for Public Release !

Had the pleasure and honor to participate in the 'testing' team, and immediately began putting it through analysis, and the
all important test Mastering session.

My first choice Audio was a 1987 Alt Rock recording that had not been Mastered.

Preparing for this, I had put together a special GUI interface [Reaper - Stripper], that housed the original EQ layout/function. Once I received
the beta-library, I could begin testing.

My initial EQ moves were a bit aggressive to start. WHY ... because I could continue pushing on a band with abandonment. [+/-6dB is really massive in Mastering]. I slipped through the large choices of FREQ [in both CUT/Boost] to sense out how the spectrum was affected.

Settling in on the needed Band Freq, Bandwidth [Q], and GAIN ... was decisive. I could broadly re-shape a given spectrum range, and also lock in on narrow band 'trouble' spots, with musical precision ... all the while maintaining a musical, vibrant, transparency.

The final GAINS required got into the 1/2dB zone on a couple Bands. The HF Shelf brought out what was previously missing in the original Mix presentation. Again ... I continued to A/B, finding that I could overdo the goodness. Tempering back the Gains maintained the original intent of the recording ... yet enhanced to fill out the soundstage top to bottom, left and right ... effortlessly.

This just one example.

N-4 users should consider DEMOing the provided Preset for their own listening. [I'm sure it is only a taste].

Great library creation AlexB. Well designed/layout/ efficient management of Presets.

Sincerely.
RJHollins [Up All Nite Studios]

[Shibata]

Judging by Demo it's probably the best Mastering eq i've ever heard. Both, in Nebula and Acqua world and of course, in algo.

[ekkord]

Wow, what a stunning sounding EQ! The clarity and depth is beautiful!

[audiodistortion]

Well, I'm very happy with my purchase.

Excellent EQ.

[AlexB]

Ok guys, I have received a lot of email where people ask me about N3 vs N4 and if what I said it's the truth.

Absolutely: YES !
To my ears Nebula4 sounds better, more alive, dynamic, detailed, deep and wide. I have done a test with the mix demo of the SoundTec 432, you can listen by yourself and then to decide if upgrade or not.

Upon users demand I have done a test between Nebula3 1.3.903 and Nebula4 1.4.170 (the releases I have) by processing the mix with the SoundTec 432 Demo preset and uploaded on my webspace so you can listen by yourself and then to decide if upgrade or not.

Here the download link:
http://www.alessandroboschi.eu/public/c ... php?id=119

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(Edit) NB:
To me null-test says almost nothing since I use my ears to listen. However null test gives -63/-70dB difference and it is A LOT for me ! These values are the difference in transient, i.e. more transient = faster sound = less digital fog = more details = more depth and open stereo image = more musical dynamics.
I call all these things: "Better Sound" as described above.
Better is your room, monitors, converters and better you can hear the differences.

As Mastering Engineer for me every cents worth the audio quality.

Note: for the test I have used Samplitude PROX2*, the most transparent DAW I have tested vs Reaper, Cubase, StudioOne, ProTools.
I know... Samp is full of bug and it looks horrible but I do music with my ears and not with my eyes
IMHO

* Other PROX releases (PROX, PROX3 and PROX4) don't sound better in playback despite the engine is the same, but in the digital summing-mixdown all them sound exactly the same (they null to zero).
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I hope to have done something useful for everybody

Thanks, all the best!

[markgalup]

This EQ is absolutely unbelievable. The demo program is even shockingly good. Purchased and will go on every mix and master. I have wanted an EQ that sounds this deep and brilliant forever.

Thank you, Alex.

MG

[Barendse]

N4 mix sounds better indeed. Bad news...

[emilieitor]

Hi Alex

You are the only developer of Nebula that no include a "pre" preset in the libraries, something very useful knowing that all mastering enginner in the world and in the real life doing a simple pass through of the hardware a lot of times depending the audio project, but I don´t have this possibility here in this library. It must be very hard make a "pre" preset of a hardware for a Nebula library, I suppose.

[AlexB]

Hi Alex

You are the only developer of Nebula that no include a "pre" preset in the libraries, something very useful knowing that all mastering enginner in the world and in the real life doing a simple pass through of the hardware a lot of times depending the audio project, but I don´t have this possibility here in this library. It must be very hard make a "pre" preset of a hardware for a Nebula library, I suppose.

Please, use one HD (7 Kernels) shelf preset and leave it flat, i.e. controls to zero, and you have a linepre.
This for all my libraries.

[mmarra]

I got this wonderful EQ the other day and am loving it. I am still using it with N3 but even then it sounds great.

Just one question...I am assuming we should be gain staging each instance of the SoundTec to -18 to get an accurate sound?

[fastersound]

Absolutely loving this library! What I find interesting is that when using either of the 16kHz shelf combos, when boosting the 16kHz shelf between 0 and +3, it boosts the hi-mids, but actually filters the frequencies above 10kHz. It's only when boosting past +3/+4 that these frequencies start to reappear and eventually get boosted around +5/+6(max). The combos that contain the original 10kHz shelf act as expected. I'm guessing this is to do with the 16kHz mod that the owner requested?

[AlexB]

Absolutely loving this library! What I find interesting is that when using either of the 16kHz shelf combos, when boosting the 16kHz shelf between 0 and +3, it boosts the hi-mids, but actually filters the frequencies above 10kHz. It's only when boosting past +3/+4 that these frequencies start to reappear and eventually get boosted around +5/+6(max). The combos that contain the original 10kHz shelf act as expected. I'm guessing this is to do with the 16kHz mod that the owner requested?

No, I don't hear or see what you describe.
It acts as classic shelf filter without filtering frequency above 10kHz until boosting over +3/4dB. Maybe you have wrong settings or not perfect room acustics caused by some combo filtering...
It's a first order shelf, i.e. 6dB/oct slope, i.e. it's broad band filter and boost a little the high mid too.

[mmarra]

How is the Sontec's parallel eq circuitry modelled and represented if we are using only on band instance or even multiple instances of the SoundTec?