I completely agree with you about the ability to quickly switch filter modes and the filter window covering the spectrum. I would prefer to be able to choose to move it somewhere or minimize it.
My personal opinion is that it's probably better to have both EQ-4 and EQ-Pro separated because in EQ-4 you have far more control over the compression aspect of the filters where as in EQ-Pro you basically have none. EQ-Pro however does have M/S/L/R placement whereas EQ-4 does not. So I think they complement each-other pretty well, but I wouldn't upgrade my EQ-4 license to a Pro license personally.
Aside from a few early version tiny teething problems, this seems like a very capable 'EQ' tool. I was skeptical when I saw the thumbnail...but honestly, I think the thumbnail sentiment was a fair appraisal of this. And there's a world of difference between it's competitors pricing wise, so Toneboosters are really coming into this part of the market aggressively. Fair play to them, it's a crowded field! Nice melody on that tune too, very Beatles :)
The reason that the demo and license button swap places from time to time is probably to prevent people from scripting a button push. Seems fair with such a generous trial approach.
Quite an underrated developer for the quality of the plugins they produce which punches above the weight-class. I have TB EQ4 but the Proximity EQ-like Ambient and Sustain Filters makes me want to get this. Had this been another developer, they would've priced this closer or above 100. At 59 euros, this is quite a stoutly featured EQ. I wish the developer uploaded more tutorials and deep dives.
Over four minutes into this video I get the impression what we can learn here is 'why use a good free plugin when you can use a paid one?" Maybe a general tendency, we prefer hunting and buying over playing? I don't understand why a crowded marketplace would be a reason to buy.
I didn't want to suggest that a crowded marketplace would have anything to do with buying. That category is meant as an explanation why I might not have installed a good free plugin, eventhough it is good. Because I might have too many (free or paid) alternatives so I tend to use others instead. And indeed I have replaced many free plugins with paid ones, I do think than can also be of value to hear for some newer producers, who are trying to figure out where the free options out there are on par with paid ones (or even better) or where they might enjoy purchasing something which might provide mote value to them than some free options. Also I was trying be transparent about "what I have installed", so in some cases even though the free software might be good, I just don't need it anymore.
To me the Martinic Pianet sounds as good as Arturia and Cherry Audio: NOT BAD, but still like a demo, stand-in instrument to pitch an idea for a production, definitely not the final sound. The quick answer is: it won't show in a full mix, and my response is YES IT WILL. Having said that, a few Saturn 2 tricks and you can add a lot of details. Maybe it won't sound 'more real', but it will sound grittier, more complex and better.
All NI's Pianos (except Alicia's Keys) have pedal noise, sympathetic resonance ("overtones" is the option), half pedalling, repedalling, and silent key. Seems like you didn't explore the options or test for those.
Assessing software pianos just by listening without playing them seems difficult to me. What I can say is, that we should not be fooled by the fact, that The Granduer ist so cheap and maybe quite old. I would never play a concert or record tracks with Noir or Alicia Keys or pianotec (what sounds artificial especially in the high range) and many others including Keyscape Piano, VSL, Ravenscroft and so on. The only one that can pass my testing is The Grandeur. Thanks for testing so many that I have never heard of. It's time to try some of those. Update: I now have spent 40€ to get the MeldwayGrand. Too bad, it is crap. Like many others. Compared with the Grandure ridiculous. If anybody has trouble to find out, what plugin is nearest to the feel of playing a real Grand piano it could have several reasons. - you are not a pianist - you never played a big Grand Piano - you don't have a keyboard that is good enough. Most keyboards can not show you the structure of the velocity layers.
What don't you like about the Meldway Grand? My focus in the video was quite heavily on how you can adjust play feel in the different plugins, because my thinking is: if you can adjust the play feel in detail, it should be possible to get a good play feel on pretty much any controller. Of course only really realistic on fully weighted keys though. I honestly don't remember my opinions on all the pianos in detail, but I'd say that I don't have a huge preference of grandeur vs. Meldway in regards to realistic sound and play feel, but I do prefer the medlay for it's flexibility for e.g. mic positions.
@@xantux I think we pianists have just two things, it's timing and dynamic. We can't do anything after hitting the key. So dynamic truth should really fit inside the software. And of course the Masterkeyboard. The piano of my perception provides a quite bright sound appearance at the top end of the velocity scale. This is what a Steinway does really well, including a certain shimmer, like this it is lively , you can express yourself very good with this. For me this is a ver important aspect, in contrast to half pedaling for example. Very few software pianos offer his bright thing, for example Noir does not a good job under this aspect. I know that the owner of this piano (Nils Frahm) did never play the software version. Maybe if he would, he would not allow to sell it. Meldway sounds strange and the keys are far away from consistency. They all should behave the same way from 1 to 128 and from lowest to highest key. In Meldway is chaos. We can't say if the real piano was not in a good shape, or if it just the sampling process was not precise enough, or something else. Keyscape is bright in upper velocity range ,but it is only a short Yamaha and does not sound as noble and big as The Grandure. Some plugins have way too much reverb on even the closest mics. And so on... To the Grandure channelstrip I add a Studer 800 plugin from UAD, tweak the high EQ a bit, what gives it the final touch. What I need concerning different mic positions is just the closest stereo thing. Other positions don't matter. Also with recording my real grand piano.
@@angelvoicemusic hmm nice comment! I'll have to take another look at the consistency with the velocity layers in meldway... a good criteria to add to the list 🤔
as a plugin designer, this helps a lot. Definitely a lot of ugly plugins that are starting to make me angry now. Im motivated and 1 year in the future my guis should be a lot sexier...
lmfaoooo really good thoughts on ux and ui. thanks for checking out my plugins 😁 make sure u protect those llamas cause if i join the server again... 🔥🏠🗡🦙
It was good she was outside of the producer/ musician community it made this interesting. I did agree what she said on many things. I didn't expecting she to worry about the usability of the plugins. You should definately make the part 2, maybe with several people on the jury.
I understand you, but I don't feel that way because we all are together in the same music making culture. They make ladybugs not bombs. I think Waves is also from Israel i bet they watch Dan Worral and Sanjay C like the rest of us.
@@narukera8965Ok Barbie stay in your "magical music making culture" world, but here, in the reality innocents pay an heavy price to just live in their land. And Safari didn't communicate on social media about this war cime
There is no way Manta is looking better than Pro-Q xD but thx.. that was kinda cool! Gotta say though, for a valid UI/UX test you should not just show screenshots. Plugins like Pro-Q look much better when you can feel how different elements respond to the input audio. Then she also probably would have never focussed so much on the output meter. And she would have seen that the reason for why the 2 boxes of modulators in NEL have different colours, is because their colours depend on the Mods Mix parameter, which I added after someone told me the function of that parameter was not clear to them. NEL is a few years old now and I've been using my plugin a lot since then so I'm pretty confident that the plugin has a great workflow if you actually know what you can do with it. A lot of people don't dare learning it though and that's probably because of the wild layout and mixed-size fonts and stuff. If I redesigned the plugin right now I'd also probably remove 1 of the modulators, because most of the time I use NEL I only use one of the modulators at a time and you can stack NELs in your effect chain anyway if you need multiple vibratos. It would make the plugin look easier to use as well. But I'm also happy that I kept it at this level of complexity. The 4 parameter macros would be massively overkill with just one modulator.
I do think it's a bit of an abstract exercise we tried to do here. With ProQ I think nobody can really argue against it's UI, because it's definitely designed really well. But through it's flexibility it could also be perceived as a somewhat neutral tool and I see how someone could rather hang a Manta Print over a Q3 print on their wall. And that's kind of what we were rating here - for better or worse 😅 And the colours of the mod boxes in NEL are probably fine to be there according to *the expert*, we actually talked for a while about NEL and I tried to cut it down into something that made sense, but it might have lost some nuance or clairity. The point with the colors Carol tried to make (I think) was: the font captures a lot of the eye's attention, that's why a strong visual element (e.g. also in white) to devide up the elements (comparable to how vital does it) might make the UI less intimidating (for new users and people who like ✨️pretty✨️ plugins). And I think NEL is definitely fine to keep existing as it is, but thoughts like this might still be valuable for some new designers or new plugins 🫶
I haven't try out NEL but i think it looks visually good, like in a t-shirt it would be a cool print. But it looks too difficult to use. Even she was worried about the usability of NEL. Manta (or what ?) looks very cool. Much better looking than the "Sporty" lookin proQ-3. I think that definition was on point !!
@@narukera8965 don't be scared of NEL :o it's really easy, I promise! look it's just a fancy modulated delay. modulating with a sine wave gives that typical vibrato sound and I just added a lot more kinds of modulators that sound like vibrato. That's the whole basic idea. Everything else, like macro mods, oversampling, lookahead, is there just in case you have a very special idea
Realizing the point of UJAM is simplicity I have to say the cure for nasty hats, indeed for all cymbals if you're looking for a vintage vibe with modern hats is a high pass filter. Years ago when all of our sampler libraries came with good, bad and often unusable thick hats and cymbals HPF was the cure. Rarely does anyone master with the mids cranked. The "beef" in hats has to go or they get pushed too far back. It's good you're honest, though. But if a tool does the job with one iffy bit, solo it out and tweak it even if it's more work.
