I think the test is inappropriate for the Softube one. This plugin gives you so much extra control over tone and harmonics, so naturally on its flat setting it's going to have fairly flat behaviour. Others tend to have harmonics and tone chosen for you. I don't think it's world-beating, but it is really good and it can definitely get much better results than you're getting here. I notice you respond particularly well to the sound of the Acustica and Cytomic, but of which have a lot of "air" frequencies by default, and the Softube one has an whole dial for that (which you didn't have engaged). I'm not saying the test is unfair -- of course, you should do shootouts with plugins on their defaults -- but I just don't think the Softube should have been in there because it's not trying to sell itself on its neutral state. It would be equally wrong to throw Tone Projects Unisum into this kind of shootout, given that this in another plugin whose power is mostly in what you can do with the extended settings. I also think you should have been simply numbering them 1st to 5th favourite, rather than trying to say which brand each one was. The second test seemed a bit pointless when you were hedging your bets so much. Your viewers don't care if you can pick out the brand, they just want to see which ones you liked most. I appreciate that you're ranking them in the end, but it's no longer a blind test by that point; you are to some extent being influenced by what heard mixed with what you know.
Without a doubt this is the best SSL plugin comparison anywhere on the web. Many plugins, good source material and helpful analysis. Thanks! It might be fun to update this every year or so as new SSL plugins come out.
The Glue is really great and so easy to dial in. Nice on many things (love it on bass especially) and nice on the master. Appreciate the blind shoot out! For me Sand and Glue sounded the best every time.
tim p. l bus compressor (nebula from acustica audio is needed), is really really good ! (By the way, I think the hyper engine releases > compressors > also another ball game then the earlier released compressors from AA, also this Sand version..)
Do you still use L-Bus? I’m using V2 and everything is working great on N4 except for the L-Bus Pre. It’s stuttering but only when the pre is added after and I’ve used it for years. Was wondering if it was just me. Finding other N4 users in 2024 is difficult.
The Glue has been my goto for so many years. I use SSL native to pump the kick, because it gives the best top end transient. Sand for all mastering purposes.
Excellent shootout Paul, as always. Request: in the future, could you play the original (raw) first please. Tuning up the ears and knowing what to listen for is a good thing. :-) Thanks for the 'chats'.
Both times I preferred The Glue hands down over the others. It wasn't even a competition in my opinion and I've never heard of that plugin before but now I know what plugin I'll be buying next. Thanks for the comparison!
I think the Glue sounds better than Sand on a your Mix bus....if you run all your Buses through Analog like me, youll look at what plugins sound good on the Mix bus differently because once the Whole Mix is already analog, it comes down to Which one is Behaving the Best over Which one sounds more analog....took me about a year to understand the diffrence in that....as far as what we are hearing on the Mix bus.....Affordable analog Gear along with Nebula while Producing, gives you a "More Radio Ready Mix" to Master in teh First Place then Mastering it, can mean exactly that and NOT trying to make it Sound analog, and Thicker and Mastering at the Same time......
Gain Reduction Meters behave quite differently. Maybe the more Dynamic Examples are just compressed less than the others. Maybe compare via Dynamics Analysis. Acustica does sound quite nice but maybe more excited compared to the others.
@@FoliaSound "that would bean they're badly calibrated" Badly calibrated compared to what? The hardware they were modeled after? Every piece of analog gear is going to vary from another of the same exact model...
I had no expectations but In the blind test the best was The Glue both times. The clear winner of this test. A true analog sound. Made the stereo feel like wider and low end feel rounder. Excatly the analog way.
@@TreyMotes The difference that I liked sounded just like some of the analog vs digital blind tests. First the stereo sounded wider like it has the separate compressors for the left and right. And I recognized the bass sounds in my chest just the way some analog gear would do. Not like it's more louder but "rounder'. That is what I meant
Clearly the “winning” thing to do is to have several of these because different versions may be the winner on different material. I got into “The Glue” back in the 32-bit days over a decade ago, and I was always surprised by how it was beating out the SSL version and the Waves version and ended up on my mix bus almost every time. Honestly, I thought I must be crazy or hearing something wrong.. until I started to hear about it from other users. Sometimes the underdog wins! 😁👊
Very surprising results, thanks for comparing those plugins. Myself I use Softube SSL 4000 channel compression with Console 1. Acoustica definitely sounded the best to my ears....cheers
One of my thoughts that came up was that the SSL and UAD was probably more “by the book” in terms of response and such. Another is that it was designed to be a compressor for the entire mix, not a group or an individual instrument. Finally, it does depend on which unit you are modelling and how much of you want it to be like the “real thing”. In the end, I think we have reached a point where we are incredibly spoiled for choice. Thirty years ago or more, you often worked with what you have and made the most of it. This doesn’t mean you can’t make your own choices, which includes - dare I say - thinking outside of the box. But at a certain point, you just make music. And to be clear, I definitely understood what you were doing here =]
I own almost all bus comp vsts except waves and uad, did same tests many times, i use softube bus processor now in 90% of the time. And the rest 5% Timp L Bus and other 5% fircomp2
IMHO, you're going into these tests with preconceived ideas about what to expect from which plugin. Good job it's a blind test and the results just go to show that preconceived ideas can be wrong (well, I'll grant you the AA Sand one!). Regarding The Glue...It's made by a fellow called Andy Simper who runs Cytomic and is a very, very well regarded audio developer. He's especially good at modelling original hardware circuits and capturing the essence of analog processing but in digital. That's his speciality. The Glue is licensed by Ableton and the SSL compressor that comes with Ableton is a version of it. Comparing against an actual hardware SSL compressor model would be most telling.
True, my point of start was: Acustica is great. I just talked about Andy a while ago with a friend of mine and learned he was the one behind Serum oscillators :)
@@FoliaSound Serum filters I think. I think they were Andy's earlier work that Steve licensed for Serum. They're just ok'ish. His later filter work in The Drop however is awesome and again, the ones he did for Ableton are great.
Problem is you probsbly like a aa because it has its typical acqua slip through… not a characteristic of the hardware. Also the envelope balancing is all over the place.
Yep, I like it and I don't claim it's close to the original :) That's why I mentioned I don't own the original and I'm interested in comparing just digital products. Great to hear from you, Tim, I feel seriously honored to talk to you :)
Ver 2 was a huge jump over the ver 1... With oversampling option added... It totally blew me away how much better it was..... Maybe an Ago update also... Afterall , supposedly its the same algo from the Duality
haahhahaha I knew from the get go that the Sand gona stand out from the rest, is just too good on everything. And AA nail his compresors and EQ when they Emulate Consoles and Mastering Gear I find that is the most close to analog that we have in the digital domain. Good video thank you! Can you do the Same with Pultecs Eq and Fairtchild Compresors? This series is really nice and interesting.
Hey Paul. I just started the video and am reading the timestamps under info. Did you by any chance also make a null test? Or only blind tests? I always love null tests cause they remove listener error, bias etc. To the Sand plugin. When i hear that it is so much different than the others it makes me wonder if this is a good thing or actually bad if the main objective is to have a specific sound like in this case SSL bus glue compression. So i think „if it sounds sooooo much better than the rest maybe its because its not trying to be SSL but does its own thing.“ . Would be very cool if you had a SSL hardware to use as reference and see which plugin comes in nearest to this sound . I dont understand the objective . Is it „which plugin sounds best“ or „which plugin sounds nearest to an actual SSL compressor“? While writing this Enjoying the video this far
I did, the'y re not in the vid and yes: plugins differ. The vid is about best plugin and I'm stating that I don't own the original and I'm not trying to judge the closiness to the real SSL. The main question of the vid was: do plugins differ from each other? What's the best sounding virtual SSL? I tried to state it clearly and find a clear answer. Cheers!
@@FoliaSound i dont doubt it. I just find it useful in order to pinpoint what the differences are. As in „is Sand adding upper harmonics in general?“ or „what is the actual difference of low end on the Cytomic“ etc. I personally cant wait for the time when Plugins completely catch up with analog in every aspect (like distortion) so the debate analog vs digital gets left behind (at last) and we concentrate on nice music instead of belief internet fights. I estimate 2-3 years and we will be there
@@saardean4481, well, scientific/measurement tests are not really my thing. Why? Because I'm a mixer/producer, not a hardware nor plugin designer. People listening to the music will not measure any components of it, they will just listen. Competent listening is always the basis of my work and I verified it once again, recognizing Sand3 precisely in my blind tests :) Cheers!
It's not really a level test if you are familiar with the Sand, UAD and SSL but have only just downloaded the demos of the Glue and the Softube. You won't know the Glue or Softube because you've not used them before, so how can you pick them out?
You'll find a vid about Waves on my chan. As for PA, I once criticized their product and Dirk Urlich personally orchestrated an attack against me. I consider both companies highly toxic for different reasons. Cheers!
@@FoliaSound he should be exposed, the Digital neo nazi, he sold plugin alliance to a investment company last year and tried pushing the subscription model at the same time with waves, but kirk pulled away from it after accused of uploading cracks of competitors with guys from acustica, soundtoys and softube, al, of them are hackers and acustica just had all their apps cracked and the hackers embarrassingly shrunk made their plugs 1 tenth the size…now we have apps that can capture not just irs for amp sims but gear..and everything is becoming ai so add the two and ask plugins exactly what you want to produce a record, api eq, ssl comp, neve mic pre, any chain you want all this is here now and just the begining
Would love to see what you think of this new technique I have not seen anyone else use. I started bus compressing with a delta solo aux. I delta solo a aux with a bus compressor and then send any track that I want to glue to that aux. This lets me exclude tracks that might not need gluing as much. It also gives me pertrack glue amounts on the mixer and a global glue amount with the aux track fader. I use Melda compressors for this becuase they have Diff button which makes delta soloing easy but its possible to do this with any plugin inside a host of if use Reaper which has built in Delta solo. Thoughts?
@@FoliaSound Thanks! This works with any effect that you want to use as if it’s on the master channel but not. Stereo widening, sidechain pumping, spectral resonance suppression and even de-essing. Delta Soloing is super powerful!
@@lawinter1949 Hi, not quite sure what youi mean here? You mean have a compressor with delta solo on an AUX channel? Then send what you want to that channel? mixing back in only the delta right?
@@TeeDubz Yes, what happens is that the signal coming out of the delta soloed compressor, gets subtracted from the combined signals of whatever you have sent to the aux track when everything is playing at once. Beauty is that you can control how much compression is happening in two ways at the same time. By adjusting the send amount per track and by the delta soloed aux track fader. Giving you individual per track AND global mix amounts of one compressor. Or whatever you put on the aux track.
@@TeeDubz Yes that is correct. The delta compression signal once mixed in with the tracks will "compress" as if you summed the tracks and put the compressor on it. One use would be if you have a huge mix with lots of layers of kicks and bass and you want to glue kick to bass together, you dont need to sum their output and then add a compressor. You can send them to a delta compression track. It lets you excude anything that you dont want compressed. Also if you forgot to add a layer you don't need to change its out put to glue compress it.
It doesn't matter which one you choose as long as you mix into it so your choices on eq, saturation etc. will be influenced directly by it and they all will get you almost same result in the end. It's more matter of what you like and your mixing style (if you have a tendency to mix too much or to little bass etc.). So it's a good idea to choose the one that compensates for your usual mixing mistakes. Nice vid!
Hey. Maybe SSL is actually super close to original just Cytomics and Sand sounds better than original SSL G Bus? Anyway all plugins should be judged blindly. Our brains are so bias most of the times.
I don’t know what your have done with the UAD version. I use it for years now and it always brings in that distinct snap in the transients and an overall openness other plugins (also their legacy version) i checked where missing in comparison. I didn‘t recognized it here … strange.
I want to get away from the topic of comparisons and say this. For mix engineers who work on a track, there may be a difference, but for the average listener who gets the result of the work in the end, it doesn't matter which plugin was used for processing. And it's such a minor difference that you can use any compressor, even the stock ones that come with daw, and get good results. Just as long as the music was good. All these comparisons are essentially meaningless - you just have to work with what works, and finding the best compressor might just be a waste of time :) I like The Glue the most by the way.
Hi! I still believe it's good to choose best tools available, because sometimes this 1 or 2 percent of technical quality can make your track immortal. It's very much about getting close to perfection in what you do and it applies to every part of creative process: songwriting, mixing, playing an instrument, also to your rig. It's all about being better every day and I believe it's not meaningless :) Cheers and thanks for a comment!
Cześć mam Softube SSL oraz tych 2 firm które pomijasz i powiem że zależnie od materiału spisują się lepiej naprzemiennie i musisz dopasować . Zaintrygowała mnie Acustica ponownie …… nigdy nie miałem z nimi nic wspólnego a myślę że może się to zmieni choć mam tyle tego że raczej zostanę Szkoda że niektóre materiały nie były publikowane wcześniej przez ciebie bo bym miał dużo pieniędzy na inne około studyjne tematy a tak wszystko się przesuwa w wektorze czasu
Artur, koniecznie spróbuj Acustica Audio - nie pożałujesz :) Niestety, nie mogę opublikować wszystkiego na raz, sam się po kolei w czasie różnych rzeczy dowiaduję ;) Pozdrowienia!
No Nebula libraries in general. Don't worry - I treat them too good for the company in this vid, they deserve a separate vid, which will come one day :) My fav is AlexB, but TimP rocks, too!
Frankly, I don't think I'll ever find enough time for this and I don't believe my public would watch this painfully detailed vid. I'm not an audio scientist, not an audio tester, I have a regular studio job and I'm very time spent cs result achieved oriented. Thanks for a suggestion anyway!
@@FoliaSound the moment you use blind testing you're a.... wait for it.... tester!! Do the test properly instead of what's convenient. otherwise your test results are meaningless. you might also want to look into the definition of confirmation bias. Declaring you expect Sand 3 to win before the test is a text book example.
