Ochre (free homebrew eq)

[tumburu]

Bullshit? Really?
Aquamarine is too expensive, isn't useable for tracking, doesn't compress properly, has audio spikes when switching parameters and doesn't sound like any of the Fairchilds I've used. Your only response to any if these issues has been to say, essentially, the only problem is the customers not realising how amazing you are.
The fact that you think it's OK to release a compressor that can't compress for 10x the price of MJUC (which can and sounds awesome) says a lot about the arrogance and confirmation bias which has come to characterise this company.

And lampooning your customers on the company's forums? Saying their complaints are 'bullshit' and 'crying'? Wtf is that all about? Very unprofessional way to conduct yourself as a CEO.
I've spent hundreds of dollars on AA products and, right now, I regret every cent.

Well, I think you're referring to Ultramarine. I wasn't really impressed with the demo either, but nor I am with MJUC. Maybe I don't like the Fairchild sound... Speaking of MJUC, I don't really get why people are into it, to my ears it flattens the sound (looses depth of the image) and even the third algorithm, which is supposed to be the most transparent, is something I wouldn't use on the 2bus. On mono sources it's a different story, and I think it could work on busses (I'm thinking about the 2nd algorithm), but only if you mix 'into' it. The saturation algorithm also leaves me cold, it can't compete with the Nebula 'tube' libraries IMO.

Aquamarine/Murano OTOH is something I am appreciating a lot still, and it's a proper 2bus compressor, which actually adds (depth/width) to the stereo image and doesn't take anything away from the source.

[flipnautold]

can underline every word and i should/must test murano

[Support]

Bullshit? Really?
Aquamarine is too expensive, isn't useable for tracking, doesn't compress properly, has audio spikes when switching parameters and doesn't sound like any of the Fairchilds I've used. Your only response to any if these issues has been to say, essentially, the only problem is the customers not realising how amazing you are.
The fact that you think it's OK to release a compressor that can't compress for 10x the price of MJUC (which can and sounds awesome) says a lot about the arrogance and confirmation bias which has come to characterise this company.

And lampooning your customers on the company's forums? Saying their complaints are 'bullshit' and 'crying'? Wtf is that all about? Very unprofessional way to conduct yourself as a CEO.
I've spent hundreds of dollars on AA products and, right now, I regret every cent.

This is a free homebrew eq topic, if you want to talk about other products use the correct topic.

[giancarlo]

Bullshit? Really?
Aquamarine is too expensive, isn't useable for tracking, doesn't compress properly, has audio spikes when switching parameters and doesn't sound like any of the Fairchilds I've used. Your only response to any if these issues has been to say, essentially, the only problem is the customers not realising how amazing you are.
The fact that you think it's OK to release a compressor that can't compress for 10x the price of MJUC (which can and sounds awesome) says a lot about the arrogance and confirmation bias which has come to characterise this company.

And lampooning your customers on the company's forums? Saying their complaints are 'bullshit' and 'crying'? Wtf is that all about? Very unprofessional way to conduct yourself as a CEO.
I've spent hundreds of dollars on AA products and, right now, I regret every cent.

We could argue in a polite manner about it and I'm fine in discussing
The bullshit is referred to a particular gearslutz user who attacked me and posted 50 angry posts on everything related with acustica and he has about 70 posts total. He posts only on gs. Apparently he never bought acquas.

About mjuc I did not test it, but it seems like someone is impressed about the price more than the sound. Someone is impressed about the sound, but for sure a 300 eur product raises more criticts and comparisons with other products, while a 30 eur product seems a miracle just cause the price.

For example I find comments like "maybe uad is better but this one is cheaper". Even compared with ultramarine I read their compression is even better, but not the tone. So here I'll defend my product: what makes a device expensive is not the compression effect, but the magic sound it creates.

Guys, when you buy an emulation of a 50000 eur device you should evaluate if really the emulation is adding the true "50000 eur magic" on your audio source. It s not a matter of "smooth compression", because many cheap hardware compressors are "smooth". So imho the price we are asking is fair, even if not cheap.
You pay 'that'. And you cannot recreate it simply adding a pre over an other compressor. Maybe the result will be good, but there is no "magic" any more

Said that, I'm happy for him, he is a polite developer, very enthusiast and good. I'll stop here, but it deserved an answer.

This topic is about ochre though.

[giancarlo]

But what is your personnal thought about compression behaviour in Acqua world ? I'm really curious to know.

I think they could be "better", anyway we are bringing on the table something which is apparently missing in almost all other compressor plugins. It is the tone, but not just the tone you could reach merging a nebula preamp and a good digital compressor. It is a dynamic tone caused by compression!


When someone brings something different or missing there is a perfect reason of being on the market, even if the product is not perfect on every point of view, I mean if other products are better on the pure compression action (ie they reach a better rms, they level all peaks and so on)
There is space for "improvements", but "as is" they do a valuable job, and here we are pretty unique.

[lubomba]

I really hope you can improve the compression behaviour. The opto section on murano is basically useless to me other than minimal gr... If I want to smoothly compress a dynamic vocal for example it reacts way to fast and heavy on dynamic changes but when I back up the threshold it doesn't grap at all.

Have you checked timp's comps? Even with the older tech something like the sum100comp behaves really nice and smooth... I know there are technical differences and sure an acquacomp is far more complex but still... His stuff simply works.

I'm trying to push you a little! There is room for improvement! And it would be very welcome!!!

[giancarlo]

they are different units though, and the opto section is a very "particular" one.
Our models are constantly improving. From what I know tim compressors have a slow program rate - they are way slower than acquas, like 10 times more.
This kind of limitation helps in "smoothing", but I'm here for pushing boundaries. The tech should work perfectly at sample rate period or even at higher rates. This is my point, I will not put my head under the sand

[theheliosequence]

Not to continue off topic remarks. But the S***** ***** mastering compressor isn't the type of compressor you run a vocal through. Read up on the real unit... a lot of people don't like the compression action or describe it as finicky, difficult to dial in just right. It doesn't always work on a mix, but when it does it's really wonderful.

I sat in on a session with Greg Calbi and he used it on our master and said that it sounded best to him when the meters weren't moving or barely moving. I'm sure Murano isn't as good as the real thing in terms of the compression action, but I find it's best used on the 2-bus, master or even an individual track with maximum 1-2db max reduction on the vca and the opto only hitting on the occasional peaks. If you want it on a vocal, setup your EQ and compression and then use Murano as the final shape/tone/vibe plugin. Anywho... just wanted to defend Murano since I think it's a great plugin and one of my favorites this year.

I also want better compression action from Acustica... don't get me wrong. I know they'll keep pushing themselves!

Anywho... cary on! Curious and excited to hear Ochre and Scarlet!
b

[giancarlo]

Not to continue off topic remarks. But the S***** ***** mastering compressor isn't the type of compressor you run a vocal through. Read up on the real unit... a lot of people don't like the compression action or describe it as finicky, difficult to dial in just right. It doesn't always work on a mix, but when it does it's really wonderful.

I sat in on a session with Greg Calbi and he used it on our master and said that it sounded best to him when the meters weren't moving or barely moving. I'm sure Murano isn't as good as the real thing in terms of the compression action, but I find it's best used on the 2-bus, master or even an individual track with maximum 1-2db max reduction on the vca and the opto only hitting on the occasional peaks. If you want it on a vocal, setup your EQ and compression and then use Murano as the final shape/tone/vibe plugin. Anywho... just wanted to defend Murano since I think it's a great plugin and one of my favorites this year.

I also want better compression action from Acustica... don't get me wrong. I know they'll keep pushing themselves!

Anywho... cary on! Curious and excited to hear Ochre and Scarlet!
b

quoted every single word, I agree on this description.
There was a beta (I think mercadonegro) not satisfied at all about it (also bmanic if I remember correctly).

There are two things to remark imho:
- even on the real gear meters should not move at all to get a good "effect". I had the same feelings as theheliosequence.
- on our software the situation is even worse since our meters are slow, so when you see "compression" you are already in a dangerous zone. We'll try to improve meters on this side aswell.


Let's consider also our unit is a software recreation so it is not meant to be a "clone" of a particular gear. You could love it or hate it. This kind of unit is magic on masters if you use more as a "tone" unit. For proper compression I prefer it on individual tracks, for example I like the discrete comp on vocals quite a lot.

[Mercado_Negro]

Not to continue off topic remarks. But the S***** ***** mastering compressor isn't the type of compressor you run a vocal through. Read up on the real unit... a lot of people don't like the compression action or describe it as finicky, difficult to dial in just right. It doesn't always work on a mix, but when it does it's really wonderful.

I sat in on a session with Greg Calbi and he used it on our master and said that it sounded best to him when the meters weren't moving or barely moving. I'm sure Murano isn't as good as the real thing in terms of the compression action, but I find it's best used on the 2-bus, master or even an individual track with maximum 1-2db max reduction on the vca and the opto only hitting on the occasional peaks. If you want it on a vocal, setup your EQ and compression and then use Murano as the final shape/tone/vibe plugin. Anywho... just wanted to defend Murano since I think it's a great plugin and one of my favorites this year.

I also want better compression action from Acustica... don't get me wrong. I know they'll keep pushing themselves!

Anywho... cary on! Curious and excited to hear Ochre and Scarlet!
b

quoted every single word, I agree on this description.
There was a beta (I think mercadonegro) not satisfied at all about it (also bmanic if I remember correctly).

There are two things to remark imho:
- even on the real gear meters should not move at all to get a good "effect". I had the same feelings as theheliosequence.
- on our software the situation is even worse since our meters are slow, so when you see "compression" you are already in a dangerous zone. We'll try to improve meters on this side aswell.


Let's consider also our unit is a software recreation so it is not meant to be a "clone" of a particular gear. You could love it or hate it. This kind of unit is magic on masters if you use more as a "tone" unit. For proper compression I prefer it on individual tracks, for example I like the discrete comp on vocals quite a lot.

Yes, it was me

I still don't like it but at this point I think it's just me who doesn't get along with its sound/behavior. Ultramarine is a different story, though. The compression behavior is not what I would expect from it (a couple of YT videos will tell you that) but the tone is marvelous.

[flipnautold]

well i think it is quite normal: There are always plugins which will work in a specific project... sometimes they work and sometimes not...

For example i figured out that i do not like magenta on most of my rock guitar tracks: On master it has too much colour in the highs.

Because i figured out that i like different colours on every buss to get a nice open mix. So for me magenta is now perhaps sometimes a plugin which i could use on a drum buss or on guitars. But there i often just use a nebula console library or i use plenty more honey...

So i now know that i am more a guy who would prefer a very clean mastering eq on summing - this job handles ivory very well. But that eq is not cheap so i wait and home that i like green more or something from the homebrew line...

i think ultramarine is a plugin which you could use on a master but very very slightly so that the needles do not move or just go -1 or -0.5 GR in front of a limiter. There it does something but not obvious. That is just my experiance.

And i must say that g. is right with his thoughts about mjuc. Lot of peolple like it because it is cheap... but that was it. The tone is not there and i found it very useless. I tried it heavy on drum rooms... but no... thx

[lubomba]

Ok maybe the limitations on aquamarine reflect the restrictions of the real unit somehow. I really love aquamarine on the master with little gain reduction. Adds a lot of size,depth,and widens the stereo image. That's pretty cool. Also on parralel I think it's great.

But still, watching some videos about the real unit you can see the opto behaving pretty "normal" to dynamic changes while the aqm cannot do that. So maybe a midway between your superfast action and Tim's "trickery" could be the ticket!? Just for opto comps... I have this feeling since the beginning that it does compress way to fast and unpredictable and somehow fighting against the material in a not so musical way...

Anyway I'm confident that you will keep on improving stuff and we'll see more and more amazing stuff from you!

And sorry for the off topic, but I saw some movement in here, so I thought I post here

[Mercado_Negro]

And i must say that g. is right with his thoughts about mjuc. Lot of peolple like it because it is cheap... but that was it. The tone is not there and i found it very useless. I tried it heavy on drum rooms... but no... thx

The price helped a lot. Almost anyone have the chance to use it in their projects because it's very cheap. Now, if it wasn't that good I bet you'd see many people saying they wasted their money.

You say it is useless. I say they're the most analog sounding compressors there are (all three). Even the behavior is spot on. Opinions, we gotta love them

[davidgary73]

Totally agree with Mercado. Good price helps thousands to get their hands on it and as of now, MJUC is making great head-waves and many are using in their productions.

MJUC is not useless at all and for certain, there will not be an overwhelming response from various forums if MJUC does not produce any analog vibe and sound like any other compressors. It will be criticizes/burnt if MJUC is totally useless..hahaha.

Would really like to see Acqua compressors top every plugin compressors out there

Cheers

[tkrizic]

since it is on the menu here, i do have mjuc and it is good, but fairly i do not use it at all, i prefer tim nebula compressors, really love them.

regarding ultramarine i find it useless for 300 euros, if it was less then 100 i might find some stuff to add its saturation but to buy 300 euro saturation is way over my head, and murano i like a lot but again more as to add color, saturation and punch then i expect it to really compress...

i am really looking forward to sontec, forgot your official name, but that one i really can't wait to get my hands/mouse pointer on must admit that i can't wait for M*****c compressor to come too, hope that one will fulfill my expectations