UAD 1176ln "all buttons" vs PARIS compressor [message #107978] |
Sun, 17 November 2013 06:57 |
mikeaudet
Messages: 477 Registered: February 2009 Location: Canada
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Senior Member |
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Hi All,
I just did a little test, comparing the original UAD 1176LN "All Buttons" mode to the PARIS compressor.
I opened the mix-downs up and normalized them in Adobe Audition and saved them as FLACs. The PARIS compressor doesn't flatten the waves as much, so it ends up sounding quieter. What astounds me is the similarity in the tone. It's not exactly the same, but I'm not sure which one I prefer.
The UAD plugin is set to the shortest attack and release possible, all buttons mode.
The PARIS compressor is set to attack: 0, release: 0005, lookahead: 0001, ratio 100:1.
The recording is a Les Paul 1991 Studio Lite into a Grace Design m101 into the 24 bit 8 in card. There are no effects other than the compressors.
I've also been listening to YouTube Videos of the new UAD 1176 collection, and I find the reviewer will rave about the sound when the plugin is enabled and the compressor bypassed, but I can barely hear a difference - if I can hear one at all.
What do you guys think?
All the best!
Mike
What do you guys think?
[Updated on: Sun, 17 November 2013 07:12] Report message to a moderator
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Re: UAD 1176ln "all buttons" vs PARIS compressor [message #107980 is a reply to message #107979] |
Mon, 25 November 2013 10:12 |
mikeaudet
Messages: 477 Registered: February 2009 Location: Canada
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Senior Member |
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Hi Ted,
I think I remember the look ahead in PARIS shifts the entire envelope applied to the audio by the time selected. So, the attack and release are shifted by the selected amount.
The interesting thing for me about the strong similarity between the PARIS compressor and the UAD 1176 is that the UAD product is supposed to be a magical modeling of a storied analog gem. Yet, by knowing what the 1176 does, I was able to get very close in the PARIS stock compressor.
I've bought a lot of plugins from UAD over the years, and I think it was all a waste of money. If I had just known what that old gear did, I could dial in the settings in PARIS.
Another example is the UAD Neve 1073. I never found it did much of anything. So, I ran some tests through it. It adds no harmonic distortion at all. The EQ sounds the same as the stock PARIS EQ. The only difference is that it adds a gentle downward slope to the audio frequencies. If you set all four bands of a PARIS EQ to high shelf, say at 500Hz, 1Khz, 5khz, and 10khz, and then put a .5 dB cut on each of them, you get the entire effect of the UAD Neve 1073 plugin. For that I paid $300.
The only plug in that I really like from them is the DBX 160 VU, but with all the money I spent on the cards and effects, I could have bought a real one, maybe two.
I suppose this is top of mind because they are shutting down the activation servers for the UAD1 cards. I won't be upgrading.
Just my 2 cents.
Mike
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