Softube Epirical Labs TrakPak review and comparison
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2024
- A comparison between the newly released Empirical Pabs TrackPak, including the Lil FrEQ and the Mike-E compressor in a Console 1 friendly combo.
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tap the shift button at the same time you eq and you will get proportions on every knob you use to compress or eq
I have downloaded the trial and have found this one underwhelming.
I to use the british class a for basic broad stroke moves to set the tone for the track. Pro Q3 is for the surgical stuff. For me the class A is the best for getting the so called analogue vibe. With your demo i found the other two sounded very similar with the low end most pronounced around the 70hz mark and the class A around the 50hz to best describe the difference. Also the top end on the other two felt more rolled off with the same settings. The Class A had the typical Neve vibe strong low end nice mids and more air on the top end, plus the drive and character dials work amazingly well.
YES! This is how I feel as well. Having never been able to operate one of these consoles first hand, it's one of the reasons I love the opportunities awarded with the Console 1 or just (good) VSTs in general. There is so much opportunity for people like me, as hobbyists, to be able to critique these high end consoles and actually form a useful opinion about them based on a plugin. It's very cool to be in the DAW world right now. In some ways, I wish I had more of this visibility earlier in life, but I'm glad to have it now because I think I can appreciate it more now than I would have then - just like I think I'd have a better chance of understanding calculus now than when I was a sophomore in college!
Yeah i think the ELI stuff is definitely aimed at more of a heavy sound, and you’re only going to hear that when you do more overdriving aspects of the channel (cranking up the pre, slamming the comp, etc). Adding harmonic distortion is where the ELI stuff shines, that’s its job. Rock or heavy electronic stuff. For those types of music he ELI compressor is just a completely different texture when you, for example, smash a drum bus and then dial it back in parallel at a lower level. If you were to compare that particular smashed sound on a drum bus on these 3 strips, you would definitely hear a huge difference in audio texture. The ELI is just going to be rougher, heavier. It’s made for people who want that more aggressive but still euphonic analog sound.
I'm sure you are right. I'm not into really heavy music and while the ELI stuff might work for not-so-heavy stuff, it probably doesn't excel at it. And when you get to the pushed sound that it is known for/good at, you are getting into territory that I don't particularly like the sound of. So, it's not that it's "Bad", I think it's just not for me. Thanks for watching and for the comment.
hi ,im new to the console 1 , id like to use it live on the master buss I play sitar with backing tracks mostly classical , but i do a set of covers [bob marly , the Beatles , bowie etc,,] I did the backing tracks myself and there all different tempos I'm trying to set the release and attack times as a all round setting what settings would you think maybe fit , I only have the 4000 ,,thanks for the video
It's a really great system. I love it here. Got it with the 4000e like anyone and immediately "got it" and applied it to the first mix I did after that. I watched the video on the Softube channel for "bought her a car" about 100 times and even commented back to "George with Softube" and bought the British Class based on that demo alone. I REALLY like this one. Of course these emulations are available from other companies like Waves and all, but the workflow combined with the good emulations and the fun of playing with the hardware make the Console 1 stuff a really good fit for me. Hope you have good luck with yours.
@@BladesMusic thanks , yes sounds great , can I ask what you would set the release and attack on the compressor for playing backing tracks live ,, thanks
@@yamansitar6153 "playing backing tracks live"....hmmm....I guess if I were to use backing tracks live, I would focus more on the export of what you are using as the backing tracks as right to start with and then you wouldn't really need to compress so much or at all. The main reason for compression, remember, is to raise the quiet stuff and lower the really loud stuff. If your backing tracks are properly produced, they should have that compression built into whatever they were exported at or mastered to. If you don't have that, you probably just want something gentle (slow attack, fast release) with some makeup gain for volume's sake. Ideally, you'd just have your backing tracks sound "right" so that you could just raise the volume vs the live mix stuff rather than compressing for the sake of volume so that you don't mess up the mix of the backing tracks. Does that help?
@@BladesMusic yes a big help thanks ,,, the backing tracks sound good ,and I sing on one track and play sitar on another and a stereo backing track , I like to use a small bit of compression just to blend them all together , ill give it a try tomorrow , thanks
Great video! If you make 4k video the audio will be much more usable for the listener though :)
It's interesting and unfortunate that some of my videos end up being
After deep test here, comparison between 4000, 9000, American ClassA , Summit and Trak Pak on full song, each stem, changing all stems at once via grouping, electronic music, compressor 4:1 in the middle , slow attack, quick release, all tracks. Boosting a bit the lows, removing the mud around 200 and adding a bit of top ; drive at 5.4 result :
- 4000 :the most transparent, if the song is sounding great without, this one will boost,clean but not change the character.
- 9000: the most sweet (taming harsh frequencies) also reduces overall volume level so had to compensate
- American Class A: big deception, the most flat.. still don’t have usage for this one, came with my volume 4 collection, if someone can tell me their usage for this one ?
- Summit Grand Channel : the most colorful, barely use it, requires much more time to tweak, was included in my volume 4 pack too.
- Track Pak: the most 3D sounding. Great surprise. Compressor is a beast (but so are 4000 and 9000)The shape section is a plus, didn’t use it for the test as this section is very different for each one, but great for taming and compete with 9000
Don’t have British or other ones, tested British a while ago but was sounding too bright for me, tested also Chandler, but sounds harsh for me , I guess it must be good for rock. Weiss is .. I don’t know what to think about this one, eq is great but I don’t use Console 1 for this as mentioned in the video, not worth it for me. And mastering I don’t use console 1.
Conclusion : Trak Pak is a great addition in my music genre. Electronic, urban. Will use it for drums and buses, with 9000 or 4000 on synths and pads.
P.s didn’t do tests on vocals.
Thanks Carlos, good observations. I might have to take a look at the 9000. I have been a little reluctant to spend the time to demo that one because it was described as so clean and pristine and I thought that basically meant transparent and "basic" like I'd describe the non-colorful built in stuff like the ProEQ in Studio One and other DAW-included stuff. Maybe part of what I don't really care for about the TrakPak is it doesn't fit what my favorite genres sound like. I'm into Power Pop, Rock, Classic stuff - not so much Electronic, Urban, or metal (which seems a bit to what this would work well for). I'm going to try to give it some more time before my trial runs out. Thanks for the watch and the comment.
@@BladesMusic also expected the 9000 to be more transparent , but I feel it sweetens everything, good for this purpose, but not for all genres, 4000 fits everything. I guess that’s why it’s the one included with Console 1. This basic feel I had it with the Weiss. Like you I prefer when it adds color. Thanks for the video!
Considering American Class A, i don't like EQ and Compression there as well. But preamp is really good. Drive it hard (to around 6-7, definitely past 5 setting) for that classic Foo Fighters american rock sound. Listen to "One by One" album to hear what it can sound like. For electronic music it obviously not as useful. But to be honest even for rock music this sound is a little bit dated, it's not too old-school to sound as cool as overdrived Neve for example. But i still like it sometimes.
@@alexeytereshonok I am going to have to take a other listen. I think what I do falls more into british pop rock than american Rock like foo fighters, but still, powerful is the way I have heard the apo termed and I don't know that I really have it a lot of time when I looked at it before.
Oh, one more thing! If you read the manual for American Class A, character knob should be set to maximum value of 10 to be as close to hardware as possible. It's not brightening the saturation as SSL and Neve emulations, it's making the saturation full bandwidth. I don't know why they decided to make it like this, it's quite frustrating.
Hmmm.... interesting take on this one my friend.
A number of thoughts, but I’ll need to process.
However quickly, you should really try the Summit strip and see how you like it against the Neve for that roundness.
The Distressor when it came out was like an Analog Emulation of an 1176, an LA2A, and a Valley People (not the Dynamite) compressor, all in one box. It was pretty much an instant classic. Later came the Lil-frEQ, with unprecedented control in the analog realm, and then Mike-E, which is a super-clean preamp combined with essentially a Distressor in one rack unit. They each were well received and are pretty highly regarded. ELI started selling the two units together as the Trak-Pak which together made an amazing and complete channel strip with a ton of flexibility and control. I know a guy that has a pair of each and consider them his desert island pieces.
So this package coming from Softube is pretty exciting, for those of us who never bought the hardware. However, I noticed that much of what makes the lil-frEQ amazing in analog form, namely its many independent modules or bands, doesn’t translate to Console 1 very well. And your point, that we have endless “corrective” EQs in the box already does make me wonder. No doubt, these tools have sonic benefits and additional utilities beyond that corrective function they so well provide in analog, but when you then add a cost to it....
Then I have to note, that Empirical Labs themselves sell the Arousor plug-in, and the Big-frEQ plug-in. And both are expansions beyond their Distressor and Lil-frEQ analog counterparts, and both are less expensive than these new Softube emulations.
So this will take a bit more thought and experimentation before automatically pulling the trigger than I initially thought. However, Personally I likely will regardless being that this is the eight Console 1 emulation, and part of the point for me is being able to quick switch between an SSL4000 and 9000 desk which are quite different from each other but still quite SSL, but then switch to an API or NEVE which are vastly different from each other and the SSLs. Then there’s the Summit, the Chandler, the Weiss, and now the Empirical Labs, each of which never existed as an actual Console, yet all theoretically have a totally unique character.
Is any of this necessary? Of course not.
So the question for me is whether the enjoyment justifies the expense.
Well, so far I’ve been able to justify to myself the cost of these plugins against the cost of the Actual hardware it emulates.
I will definitely check out the Summit. I was also looking to try the others I don't have. It's all for fun for me and a lot of that is experimenting with these things/toys and for the fairly small investment, especially compared to the hardware I could never have, it's a no brainer.
For this one, for me and my music types, I think I'll likely pass it over - at least for now in favor of something else (or nothing else). But I still have about 17 days left on my trial activation and this video was really just scratching the surface on one drum bus. I could still change my mind about the thing. Thanks for the view and the comment.
@@BladesMusic Agreed. And you preempted my suggestion: while you have the demo, it looked to me like you were mainly focused on the EQ section. Take a good listen to the character and drive vis-a-vis your other strips, but really the Nuke Compressor, Derr-esser, and High Freq Limiter in the Shape section look like the truly unique features of the Empirical Labs.
But keep the videos coming Brotha!
Oh, and the word Softube is using is Punchy! Sharp makes sense to me as well, and API is almost universally known for being Punchy so I'm curious how they compare.
Again though, of the multiple channel strips I have, after I set a static mix, with C1 on every channel I crank the Drive and switch between strips to see what each desk brings to the song. So far each has won the shootout on one song or another in terms of overall tone. Then, I dial it back and like you use it as an additive tool.
A few things.... I think maybe you should've have gotten closer with you frequency centers. The bump on BCA was at higher frequencies than the other two. Trak Pak compressor was being smashed compared to the other two. Also output volumes were not consistent. BCA was substantially hotter than the others. I think that makes it difficult to make any real judgement here. Having said that, appreciate your effort. I have the 4000, ACA, and BCA. Probably will get Trak Pak as it gives me what I feel is missing in the others. Gotta love flavors! Thanks again.
Yeah. It is really hard to get 1 to 1 comparisons on these things and figure out exactly what is the sound of the emulation and what is the setting. Even just the SSL and the BCA sound different when flat because the BCA has some stuff built into it's default curve. You are right that the levels weren't exact either with the BCA at least sounding louder, even if only because the eq boosts were greater. I did also notice the compression meter definitely being more active on the TrakPak than the others. Thanks for watching and for your comments!
Looking off screen all the time is a little creepy
The irony of you pointing out that I'm looking "off screen" when in reality I'm looking AT the screen or "on screen" if you will is not lost on me :) If you watch from 1:22 on, you will see what I'm actually looking at is the Console 1 Interface that is on my screen in order to describe it. I suppose if I didn't make my camera image large to begin with, you'd have never noticed that. I'll try to keep that in mind for my future videos. Or maybe you just think someone is over your left shoulder watching what you are doing and I can see them? :-O Thanks for the watch and the comment!