The coolest thing about the three versions was retroactively adding it to owners of Gullfoss. Had my credit card ready when I logged in to buy an add-on but then I could just download it for free. A huge green flag for how they do their business.
@@talgy2671 wouldn't say that. They also owned my massive trust because of that, I'd be much more likely to buy anything in the future because I genuinely feel they are good people.
@@talgy2671 really? What’s the working man supposed to do? Steal? There’s nothing worse than paying big money for a product, only to have V2 come out on a black Friday sale and now you’re paying even more while new customers are being taken care of instead of returning customers.
One important thing in Gullfoss is the possibility to select the range where the plugin is active by using the red lines from both side of the analyzer part. You can forbid it to touch the lows and/or the highs this way, and use it to solve problems in the mid area only. Great plugin.
I wouldn't go _solving problems_ by throwing a handful of dice with weird unknown symbols in the air and seeing what the result is as they fall. That is exactly what you're doing if you use Gullfoss to _fix_ things because you have no damn idea what the algorithm does in the background. That is completely wrong way to use this. This is used to _change_, _emphasize_, maybe even to _find some new tones_, which is something that throwing dice is perfectly valid way to do go about them.
@@anteshell yes. And it is also great for problemsolving xD It does not matter if you understand how it does what it does. If you know it to sound good for certain applications you can at least try :D
@@grandmaenjoysmusic "it doesn't sound good" is not a problem. It is the result of one or more problems. You don't fix it by throwing dice. Of course you could make the whole music piece by bashing random button on sequence generators and instrument plugins until it sound good. But is that piece good then? No. It's just a random mess that just so happens to please your ears. Using Gullfoss to fix the problems just shows that you have no idea of what the problem is or what even how to make music for that matter. It's fine, everybody starts at the beginning. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. What I am saying is that resorting to _magical_ sounding plugin to fill the void in your knowledge is very bad thing no matter how you look at it.
@@anteshell I do not think it is magical or throwing dice. Not more magical than 1176 compressor. I know how gullfoss will change the sound and i know how 1167 will. Can you tell exactly what 1176 does that it sound different than other compressors? With gullfoss it is the same. Of course it is kind of ultra-multiband, gain-relative, downward/upward compressor with quick, probably frequency dependant attack and adjustable trashold/frequency curves. And it works. You really should give it a try for deessing, or slightly deresonating basses :) PS. If someone can do good music pushing random buttons - good for them :)
One of my fav plugins of all time. A little goes a long way in my experience. Each version is great for different purposes. A dash of Gullfoss + Soothe2 has made my mixes more polished and adds a bit of 🔥. 100% recommend!! Saves a ton of time.
Soothe2 I love, Gullfoss I own but I'm not that sold on to be honest. I just kept using it on mixes ( sounded great at the time ) and then not liking the results a week or two later. Feels too easy to overcook and not realise.
@@billB101 this may not be the issue, but as other commenters have noted, make sure to adjust the bias and brightness dials to null the meters on both the x and y axis. In my experience once you do this the results are much more natural.
@@justinbraun8003 Yes, I was already doing this. I have gone back to it and started to experiment a little more by reducing the top end but I'm still on the fence with this plugin. My problem really is: does it actually make my tracks sound better, or does it just make them sound different?
I use it in my master bus as my first insert to help identify problems in my mix. I set the recover and tame to 25% - 50% and see what the plugin is saying is out of wack and then go to my individual channels and clean it up or adjust the frequency balance and then I set it to 5% on both on my master just for the unmasking it does. It's amazing and I use it in every session. The same goes for Soothe 2. Amazing teaching tool for new engineers.
@@Solid_Hank I use it on every mix/master I do. I also make sure I only affect a certain range, not the whole frequency spectrum. From like 150hz up unless it needs it and from 18k down. Just use the sliders on the left and right of the plugin. I also use this preset on Soothe 2 called Less mud on the master" or something like that, it's one of the mastering presets and it helps clean things up. I just make sure I don't overdo anything with just one plugin. People think that it's one magic plugin that will fix everything and it's like cooking, you can’t just use salt and pepper and think everything will taste great.
Toto’s work is perfection to the finest detail. Some of the band members also did session work for Steely Dan. This version of Sandstorm is very much Grace Jones inspired.
IMO the one major drawback to Gullfoss is you cannot adjust how much processing is done based on a specified frequency ranges. Soothe 2 uses multiple EQ-style nodes (which I prefer) and SmartEQ 3 gives two bands (but I really don't like how they implemented it). Gullfoss always processes the high frequencies waaaaaaay too much, so I have to set it up in a multiband fashion using more than one instance instance of GullFoss and dial the settings back on the instance dealing with high frequencies. Waves StudioRack makes this process a little easier now, but it would be much better if I could just add an EQ node (like a high shelf) and reduce the processing in the high frequencies or even increase processing in other more problematic areas.
Don't crucify me, I mix into a mastering chain (90% of my color comes from there, my mixes are sterile) and I always use gulfoss on the master. For anyone that's a bit lost: recovery 10-15%, tame 35-50%, brighten 5%, boost 0.5db and just play songs you know into it and you will start to understand what it's doing
Gullfoss is super duper good. I'm using it since it came out. And speaking of dangerous tools: even EQs and compressors are dangerous tools, if you overdo it 😉
Well the math here is kinda strange, as when I try to count what 185 EUR minus 40% is, I just have 111 EUR here on my calculator [it is as simple as 185*0,6 ;].
Gullfoss is unique and unlike anything we've ever seen before... which should prompt an exception to your "not looking at the user guide" 😏 Bias indicator should be adjusted to be as small as possible to start with. As Gullfoss is a psychoacoustic tool, cranking up and down to "hear" what it's doing does not really help as the relationship between Recover and Tame is a moving target... similar to why we don't mix at very low monitoring volumes and expect it to sound the same when it's louder.
One annoying thing about gullfoss is that it really wants to boost to high frequencies no matter what (I can add 3-5db pre-gullfoss on the whole highs and it still tries to boost). The issue is that things sound "clearer" with more highs (like they sound better with gain), so when you by-pass you get the impression it sounds better than it really does. It seems the neutral setting should be around -20% to -30% brighten, that way you can assess the effect on the dynamics and resonance independently from the overall tonal balance change.
Very much addicted to Gullfoss (the normal version) - 5% recover, 30% tame is usually a good setting for bringing my tracks to life and taming anything too resonant going on...
Gullfoss has replaced my voice EQ, used tastefully it can bring clarity without eq artifacts or colouring. I also like what it does on the master, but like you said it’s easy to go wild with it.
@@DaveChips Do You have some favourite presets/settings there on MSpectral Dynamics plug? I just used it for sidechain to avoid freq collisions so far... even though the results are nice, there is kind of big latency there, but I can live with that
@@praashek There are some presets, but honestly I never use em. Always dial in my personal settings. There is an option do draw your own compression curve and affected frequencies... So I dial in a touch of expansion gate and compression all at once. U can also dial in attack and release times per frequency so for bassy sounds u can give in a bit longer times and clip the tops basically. On resonant material u can take a snapshot of spectrum, invert it and proces only resonances. On weaker sounds I like to put all time domains at zero and dial in some lookahead and used it as spectral clipper. To bring dynamics closer together. Thats how I use it on most cases. But yeah if u use it on highest settings, it's gonna add up lot of latency. Check the demo, if u like it it's 50% of for BF... I essentially got it 50% on their weekly sales. And it was worth it.
@@DaveChips Thanks for the reply. I already own it for some time ;] but as I have said, I only used it for sidechaing bass/kick and guitar/synth so far, so I am looking for more use as I can see there is a great potencial in it.
I bought this on sale a couple days ago and it already lives on my master bus. I think it sounds great - and you get three engines for the (discounted) price of one! I like the idea of using it as an analysis tool as well to look for dominant frequencies that i cannot easily hear. When my mixes settle, i am generally using less than 10% on Recover and Gain. Too much is tooooo much.
I have had gullfoss for as long as it has been released. I enjoy using it in live sessions when multiple instruments start to add up and I can't sit down and mix it all. often it can help take the edge of resonances and add a little highend enery that I find pleasing but only if applied subtle. It just helps me to keep going, have fun, and enjoy the process. it's expensive though I guess
I used Gullfoss for a few months over my masterbus, loved the results at the time, don't like them now. The mixes I used it on sound over-bright, kinda fragile and don't translate that well in retrospect. So yeah, it's really easy to overcook. I'm now on the fence about using it. Guess it's not for everyone.
i think for best results you're supposed to watch the little meters on the far centre left and centre bottom and use the bias and brighten / boost, and bring them back to roughly null. If those meters are showing heavy leaning to one side, the results are likely fairly unnatural. When I bias it back to null, i always get the most preferable results.
Yup I do the same, but it’s mostly using the brighten control. By default, it will generally brighten things, which gives it a bit of a “Pepsi challenge” effect- once you null that center meter, it’s a way more subtle effect. By default brighten position is like -15
Amazing plugin! People however seem to often misunderstand its purpose. It is not a replacement for an eq, it cannot do what an eq does, so for example, using it as the first insert to "ballance the sound" is wrong (in the sense that most of the time, it will not sound great if you attempt to do that), and it also cannot fix a bad mix. What I found is that the best use is, after you used proper mixing to ballance the overall sound and then some eq-ing on the 2 bus, then you can add gulfoss to add some subtle character/3D-ness to the sound that you cannort really get in any other way.
This is one plug-in I have to say is a game changer, just like when (on a different audio department) fabfilter released their first Q, and then Q2. Gullfoss now has killed it. Hands down. A must have plugin for absolutely everyone
Gotta be really careful with gulfoss. It will always brighten things no matter how bright it is unfortunately. I’ll put it in bluecat mb7 and don’t let it touch the high end.
Gullfoss is really about experience (in my experience) I seldom use it because I am kind of afraid of it, afraid that it eats data away... or add things... but the thing is every time I use it or try it out something happens... something good happens, it really sounds better but I actually don't know why... I think it does things you are not able to do with automation, or with any eq... I had this harp which had a real nasty resonance, I was able to filter it out with any eq, but with gulffoss it happened automatically better then any eq or multi compressor... could do, as if gulffoss is following and reacting in real time to any tiny little difference. And that was just for one instrument... It works on a mix too... and it makes sound pleasant, and perhaps that is the problem. Pleasant is not always pleasant. Or is it...
Nail on head. This tool should be used as a means to help in identifying where there is too much or too little build up in the mix. Then, instead of treating it in Gullfoss, you can just go back to the mix and fix it there until Gullfoss stops giving you significant treatment.
Love Gullfoss use it on every mix and master. I wish Soundtheory would try their hand at something new though too. Lots of clones of Gullfoss, so it isn’t as unique as it once was.
Gullfoss is still quite unique, as far as I know... The only "clones" I can think of are Soothe2, Smooth Operator, etc., but those are built specifically as "resonance suppressors," to tame harsh frequency buildup in a mix; they're meant to be focused on particular points of the frequency spectrum. Gullfoss is less of a resonance suppressor per sé, and more of a pinpoint tonal rebalancer, geared towards making a whole mix (or individual tracks) sound overall more pleasant to the ear. That's my perception at least.
Can you also get a musicstore link? I sometimes buy from there too and I'd like to support you in anyway I can. Lover your channel, thank you so much ❤️
i see the values, i see the squirmy EQ curve but I'm not hearing much difference if any??? Im not a pro mixer, but cant really hear what this plugin is doing even on my own system (not youtube).
🧙🏻♂ Where they can go forward now is offload processing to the gpu & hopefully integrated gpus. I don't want to have to get a 4090 just to off-load processing.
Bias is for resolving the frequencies that gulfoss doesnt know whether to recover pr tame. If you don't like the way it deals with highs or want to effect only a restricted part of the frequency spectrum use the high and low sliders, dragging them to restrict breadth of application. You can also use negative brighten setting.
I’m pretty sure he’s well aware of that but just prefers not to use the bias. I also tend to not use it because in my mind, if it’s not sure if it should recover or tame then maybe it’s better to neither. And if I want it to do more or less of either one I just tweak them to taste. And like you said, you could just choose a specific range and leave the rest unaltered. I also tend to not go negative with brighten although I’m very subtle with it in general. Also, weeks go by without using Gullfoss in general but in some specific cases I love to grab it.
Just wanted to say you calculated wrong :D 40 % off from 185 are 111. And thats what it cost now ! ;) (maybe u mentioned it that u corrected yourself and i missed it :P)
@@sincstuff I like it... Was running great on vst2 platform... But now I switched to vst3 recently... Every single plugin works fine except sonible stuff. Until that point,Entropy was my most used plugin.
@@DaveChips Hey thanks for that dave!. I haven't been using it as much as I should be - I got sidetracked by other plugins. I'm going to deep dive with it on my next track. Looking forward to checking out the Entropy component.
id love to see you review "HarBal". its like super old but my go to plugin when im done mastering. it works magic, like insanely. its best use is to make your song sound exactly the same no matter what system. I dont know how it does it, but it really hits the mark. Its generally like an EQ, sort of like how fabfilter Q3 freeze function.. but its really.. its quirky and quick. No affiliation with them but thought id mention. happy almost December
Harbal is the og but there are far better plugins now from mastering the mix, dsm v3, izotope which are way more refined and usable, starting with the ability to use as plugin (harbal is standalone). I told the harbal team they had a gamechamger on their hands but that it would be held back by being standalone and need better UI but they were stubborn and basically told me i was wrong. Its sad becuase they could have been rich.
@@Newerasamearea that funny story, because I wrote them years ago about getting better tutorials. they released some new features and I had no idea how to use them. they wrote back and were kinda snotty about it. telling me "this is a technical application for engineers and if you cant figure it out maybe you shouldn't use it"... I was actually shocked. I use ozone a lot but to me it more of an "all in one" reshaper, adding compressor models and EQs, etc. harbal just does one thing for me and balances it well. not looking to shape the tone, just need an overall frequency balance. maybe Im not using ozone correctly, I dunno.
don't go to 50 or 60 (%) setting, 9 % max on Master edition. Just a bit. If you need more, go back to your mix. If you use on instruments, Piano, Acoustic Guitar, Choir, etc, then you can do more, and REALLY get great creative results. Master edition is for advanced users, as you really have to listen for the change, and then decide if you actually prefer that. Keep in mind that the listening brain doesn't always work in a linear fashion. It sometimes even wants things slightly masked, and not so easy to find and in other times doesn't. Except if I sing background vox- you definitely want to mask that.
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Funny I watched your few years old snake oil review about gullfoss one hour ago^^
Side question: with all those intelligent/AI/sci-fi eqs and that excellent monitoring seen in another one of your videos, how it is that nothing can be done about the frustratingly wild, exaggerated sibilance from that huge, obtrusive mic that is in the (promo) foreground all the time?!?
not quite, there's enough changes going on under the hood to justify three separate plugins. For example, GF Live omits quick signal changes (transients) in order to achieve lower latency. To my knowledge, we don't use IIR or FIR, but I'd have to check with the developers to be sure.
Thank you for all your informational videos. Would like to see some videos about the cradle apps called the " spirit " and " the god particle ", that would be very nice to see 🙂
I do prefer soothe 2. but actualy, the live version of gulffoss on a live rig with some pro Q 3 literally blast every console I use in the past 4 years. this is the future, hope for some more adds like maybe a master percent of gulffoss ...
It would be great to see some bypassing on the effect so we can hear the difference and some comments on what you are hearing vs the bypass if anything. I understand the tool is way ahead of where it was when first released
Maybe a dumb question, but is Gullfoss comparable to the Sonible Smart EQ? If so, which one would be better/more worth it functionality wise? Thanks to anyone who can help me out in advance!
As far as I know Gullfoss reacts dynamically and constantly whereas Smart EQ will apply a fixed curve (with adjustable intensity/freq range) after analyzing your music. So not really comparable and I end up using Gullfoss at very modest settings and mainly on busses in every mix while using SmartEQ only in very complex and tricky mixes. Personally I'd recommend Gullfoss and save the money for other great products from Sonible like smart:comp or frei:raum which I use in every mix.
I'm curious... does Frei:raum do a similar thing? which of the two is better? I already own Freraum and haven't played with it much but was always thinking... i should have gone Gullfoss...
@@GTSongwriter OMG thanks man. I was just about to send him a message. I was like... WTF? I never win anything... lol - thanks for saving me the headache. First time I ALMOST won anything on youtube ;) Maybe next time... Hey Wytse, you should put a stop to this guy.
It's nice and if you have everything and know everything and still are looking for that extra 1-2%, buying it makes sense. However, I think for >90% of your viewers, my humble self included, this is not a priority on the "to buy"-list. On the other hand: Probably >90% of the plugins we already bought aren't a priority neither. Well.. you get my point. It doesn't make or break a track.
Also really like DSEQ3. I think it maybe takes a tiny bit more work than Gullfoss and can be pushed to some extremes, but really good plugin. Would love to see a review! It's cheaper at 80 euros, and has a load of cool features.
Finally, someone who uses some real music and not some crappy hip-hop modern sheet. :) Thank you. :) Tell me please what do you think about the mic you were using for this video? I am thinking about purchasing a mic from some of the former AKG engineers, so Lewitt or Austrian Audio, but the former seems very harsh in the highs, also watching RU-vid reviews does not help as English is not very sibilant, and all reviewers only speak into it and whisper, no one sings really loud like we on the old continent do. :)
Gullfoss Live sounds like clear analog FM radio... Gullfoss Master sounds clear and full analog-digital hybrid audio... Gullfoss regular sounds like a quick prestaged fix to the other versions methinks.
@@quakeplusplus it has better than recover/tame. It has multiple settings that they explain (in the manual) and don’t keep a mystery. You can control it’s strength, it’s curve, it’s speed, how tight the bands are, how many bands you want, even mid-side and surround modes… there are a lot of ways to use it, yet, pretty simple to learn.
