Waves is driving me crazy. Every week new weekend deals. So what you guys think about the Waves NLS ? I use myself the Slate VCC and i’m happy. But now there is the Waves NLS weekend deal. What you think, is it worth to take it or would you say there is no difference to Slate VCC.
Thx and greets
One of my favorites for gain with just a little color or drive underneath.
And the Buss is great before reverbs or before sends, to boost the level going into.
It takes quite awhile to learn the nuances of NLS, very source/level/frequency dependent.
Never used Slate products. Always been curious, but I don’t do Pace.
Hi mpayne0 ,
thx for your answer. In the meantime i got the NLS. And i can say, i´m happy with this. It´s like you say, it brings nice color/drive to the mix, exactly what i need. The difference between the Slate and the NLS is not so great in my opinion. Both Plugs add a little color und drive. What i think is, that the NLS is a little bit rougher than the VCC. The Coloring Effect is a little stronger and more directly as in the NLS Plug. The Slate driving seems more finer and not so directly. But that is only my personal feeling. Both Plugs are very good for that, so i can use both in the future.
I’ve got them both & use them both according to what the project seems to sound better on.
It’s like a lot of the analogue emulations - what works on project A is not necessarily going tpo work properly on the next one & so on. The API in the VCC is so good on drums it’s not funny and I also really like the trident.
Personal favourite is the Neve, and on the VCC it’s an 8048 whereas on the NLS it’s a 5116 so different sounding console.
However, if you really want colour & console style control, give the Sknote “strip/Buss” combo.
http://www.sknote.it/StripBus.htm
Awesome fun.
Oh that Sknote strip looks good!
Adding to my research list!
You will not regret it - Quinto makes some wonderful plugins & I am sorely tempted to try his hardware units because of they have half as much attention to detail they will be awesome.
His Strip/BUS tool has a steep learning curve - it allows stuff neither Slate nor Waves offer and that is a true emulation of a console complete with all the drawbacks as well if enabled. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Slate tool - it is so simple to use there is no good reason not to use it and the cumulative effect is quite something (I hear very little difference on a per channel basis, but to give a test try setting all drum tracks as follows:
1 - Select all drum tracks, hit Q-Link (if using Cubase/Nuendo)
2 - Insert the VCC on each track as second insert
3 - Set to Neve mode, disable Q-Link and create your drum mix (use a subgroup to sum the tracks if you wish - I generally set up 2 groups, one straight & the other for parallel drum compression).
4 - When happy, re-enable Q-Link and play the drum mix, switching between Neve & API modes on any track - Q-Link will (or should) switch the rest at the same time.
I selected those consoles because the difference is very obvious but experiment with others.
The Waves NLS is also very good at what it does & is a little more flexible in VCA routing and often works well on mixes where the VCC doesn’t quite sit right, probably because it models different boards as does the Sknote one.
I like all 3 very much.
Oh - when checking out Sknote, don’t forget to try these as well:
http://www.sknote.it/C165a.htm - a great model of one of the fastest compressors ever built, and
http://www.sknote.it/GTS-39.htm - colourful as all hell, and a lot of fun. Just don’t expect clean output!
Neil,
it just turns out that I have currently been digging deep into research on Stripbuss.
The only skepticism is in update information, seems all over the place as to what’s going on, and I don’t want to add any more variables to my system.
Things like ‘don’t boost the low frequency, turn the output down to control distortion’ or ‘be careful how you bypass when using crosstalk’, are things that I’m dumb enough to muck up in my creative zone.
For the price, I don’t mind some niggles though, at this point, I just want to make sure I don’t add any sort of complications. I like the simplicity of Satson, Britson and NLS.
Understood completely.
The Slate VCC and the Waves NLS (I cannot speak for Stetson as I do not own it) are designed for ease of use and fast results whereas Strip/Bus is for those who want to get into the depths as well as get up & running quickly.
Also potentially misleading is the use of words like “distortion” as although this is exactly correct (what we like from analogue desks turns out to be the distortions (and odd/even harmonics) & nonlinearities that get added to an audio signal as it passes through discrete electronic components like valves, FET’s etc and the EQ distortions added by the classic Neve 1073 etc but it is all pleasing noise unlike digital distortion which is anything but.
Watching crosstalk when bypassing also makes sense too, although neither VCC or NLS actually have inter-channel crosstalk at all - never mind an adjustable one and it is there for those who really want to mess around - I would leave it off unless the interaction is wanted for some reason.
Don’t let that put you off though, as this is all customizable & can be turned off if not wanted.