Acustica Audio plug ins

Gregmang

Gregmang

Fractal Fanatic
So I’ve been a UAD, Waves, Slate, Plugin Alliance (as well as the usual suspects) user for a long time. But got the itch to try some of Acustica Audios plugs and WOW ! I started out with “Camel” (the names are odd but this is based on Trident and Calrec hardware) and was immediately impressed. Then yesterday I demo’d ”Pink4” (API) and again WOW ! Also “wow“ is the download - it’s like 10 gigs. Now I’m demoing “Sand” (SSL) and holy shit it’s awesome. HUGE download on that as well.

The massive downloads are because they download ”libraries” - I don’t fully understand it but that’s how they’ve modeled the hardware vs algorithms (I think). Luckily I built a new studio computer earlier this year (i9 9900k, 32 gig RAM, all M2’s and SSD’s) because even with that kind of hardware horsepower you can tell these plug-ins take some serious power to work.

Anyone else have experience with these ? BTW - on Cakewalk by Bandlab they work perfectly.
 
I’m hesitant to venture outside of UA and Waves for third party after getting burned by TC Electronics and a couple of others (whose names I can’t recall at the moment) that abruptly quit providing updates. Their expensive plugins became obsolete.

What’s the cost of these Acustica plugins?
 
I tried some a while back and they do sound good, but I could not get into a workflow with their GUI. Very expensive too!
 
AndyOrr said:
I’m hesitant to venture outside of UA and Waves for third party after getting burned by TC Electronics and a couple of others (whose names I can’t recall at the moment) that abruptly quit providing updates. Their expensive plugins became obsolete.

What’s the cost of these Acustica plugins?
Click to expand...


they can be pretty pricy but there have been a lot of sales lately.

Sand (SSL) is on sale now €49

https://www.acustica-audio.com/store/t/acqua/channel-strip/sandfab4
 
Last edited:
SHEPPARD said:
I tried some a while back and they do sound good, but I could not get into a workflow with their GUI. Very expensive too!
Click to expand...

I’ve only purchased channel strips so far and I think the GUI’s are really nice. HUGE downloads though.
 
As a software engineer I struggle to think of anything that would yield 10GB download size. It's probably something retarded, like a huge video or uncompressed graphics, to make you feel like it's worth $200.
 
plexi59 said:
As a software engineer I struggle to think of anything that would yield 10GB download size. It's probably something retarded, like a huge video or uncompressed graphics, to make you feel like it's worth $200.
Click to expand...


something having to do with how they model 🤔
 
Gregmang said:
have you tried them ?
Click to expand...
He's just saying the modeling methodology isn't the reason for the big download, I think.

They were pretty cpu intensive last I looked. Not a problem now?

I've (mostly) sworn off plugin buying these days anyway, just curious. If I can't get it done with the metric ton of em I've accumulated over the years, plugins aren't the problem :)
 
Tried a few times now and I’m a preset guy. I lIke, click on eg. Bass preset, listen on/off, then fiddle with dials, I’m not aware of any support for that.
IMO, They have such a huge variety of plugs popping up constantly, but no real direction, I wish they would show the support for a 1/10th of what they have. A question regarding use from me recently got the “read the manual”. So I just uninstalled after trying to operate like other similar plugs. I have plenty of great sounding plugs that are supported with presets, clear install/uninstall, support and have, like here, asked sometimes the easiest stupid question and had a clear understandable support solution. Can’t comment on quality and my first experience a few years ago I couldn’t really get started with crashes with the base installer and was unable to solve. Then recently, tried again and got installed, but had trouble really dialing anything usable in. Then shot down asking questions. Again I’m not a novice to using plugins, not a pro. But take a page out of Empirical Labs, Zynaptiq, Embertone, Fractal Audio on and on. Having a quality support structure is a huge asset.
 
Last edited:
Ya, the lack of presets threw me at first (although I did run into one that has “AI” presets - no idea how that works.)

I did however port over some of my presets specially for my API stuff (Softube API channel strip > AA Pink channel strip) as starting points.
 
Dave Merrill said:
He's just saying the modeling methodology isn't the reason for the big download, I think.
Click to expand...
Precisely. Unless they're capturing some form of IR for every position of every knob and interpolating between close positions (since you can't capture them continuously). Except of course IR is a linear thing, it doesn't model nonlinear effects inherent to some of these devices. And it's still an extremely dumb way of doing it. It's probably just a gimmick. People go "10GB download, it must be good if it's this huge". Which it may or may not be, people make decisions in the first few minutes on interacting with anything, and then justify it in their mind, not the other way around.
 
Honestly I doubt they're pulling something deceptive. They're quite well known and respected on the merits. People complain about cpu and workflow and latency, all reasons why I don't use their stuff, but sonically they're pretty good, some think very good. They don't need smoke and mirrors.
 
plexi59 said:
Precisely. Unless they're capturing some form of IR for every position of every knob and interpolating between close positions (since you can't capture them continuously). Except of course IR is a linear thing, it doesn't model nonlinear effects inherent to some of these devices. And it's still an extremely dumb way of doing it. It's probably just a gimmick. People go "10GB download, it must be good if it's this huge". Which it may or may not be, people make decisions in the first few minutes on interacting with anything, and then justify it in their mind, not the other way around.
Click to expand...

I did a complete mix using the API and SSL strips (replacing the previous offerings by UAD, Softube and PA) and the AA version sounds sonically better. I can post the two versions for comparison at some point.

i sincerely doubt it’s a gimmick nor am I lulled into thinking that huge downloads equate to better quality.

Have you demo’d any of them ?
 
So since I was last in this thread I am now doing almost all my mixing with AA - and hooray for Audiogridder for making it a hell of a lot easier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom