Please be advised that this test was purely to show how everything can be tested to double check what you see in doctor. RX was set to maximum visibility so it relates to everything that can be viewed in doctor but it has no relation to audibility. I wouldn't advise setting RX like this in reality as it will make everything look more audible than it actually is. When viewing all of this pay more attention to the numerical values. For example, anything below -80dbfs I would say is completely inaudible but many would argue below -60dbfs so pay more attention to the level of everything when determining if anything is an issue or audible. What other types of under the hood geeky stuff would you like me to investigate next? 🤓
Hi Paul, maybe a bit off topic but you mentioned in a previous video how many pink strips you could run in one project with your i9. I'm am very interested how Lowe core count would effect the performance. Cores could be turned off to simulate a i3, i5 or i7 and by putting you'd system in power saving power scheme your cores would downclock or in your bios to simulate older generations with a lower IPC. I'm very interested in your findings. In my opinion it's very valuable information in modern music making and info on the net is old. And it's geeky so yeah... Could ya pls?
The different ways to do oversampling. More specifically what type of (lowpass) filters they use internally. Some plugins use standard minimum phase filters, some use linear phase FIR filters and there's even linear phase IIR filters (although probably impossible to tell the linear phase ones apart without seeing the code). You could check if oversampling causes lots of phase shift or maybe some pre-ringing. See what that does to the sound
@@PaulThird I agree, thank you for your work and inspiration. I tweak in a better way my software knobs since I met you [even if I tweak knobs before you born :)].
By far the best video I have seen on this channel, let alone on the topic in general. You support your argument conclusively with converging evidence, fantastic content.
Hey Paul, just wanted to thank you for keeping your videos long format and thorough. Shows how much you care, and for someone like me who cares also.... You get the picture :) Good quality educational and scientific content is rare. Keep it up!
Great video. Ian Shepherd just created a video on how true peaks can also be creating aliasing when people are unaware their mixes are clipping with a true peak while they look safe just using a standard limiter and standard peak limiting.
I have a list of ideas and that's definitely one of them 🤓 possibly take a dev at a time and get their worst aliasing plugins and oversample them if possible
I started my own list, for plugins that I use (and some that I want to use): Eventide doesn't do a lot of harmonics, but seems clean: living up to their name. (Omnipressor, H910 Harmonizer, InstantFlanger, InstantPhaser) Klanghelm: MJUC aliases like an absolute betch. SDRR aliases too. Given their reputation that's a shame. To me personally it felt good to see this, because it kind of "reassured" me that my ears are not crap, since I consistently put them up against other plugins for a while and they always lost. I thought it was because of taste.. now I suspect it might be aliasing. Plugin Alliance: townhouse compressor aliases, but below 100db, so I guess it's okay. mpressor has harmonics, but seems clean. alpha has no harmonics. maag4 has no harmonics (don't use it anymore, still tested it). Blackbox you've (Paul) shown. SPL-Transient Designer: It's a funny funny thing.. absolutely clean if you gainstage.. but don't you dare come in hot, because it will start aliasing like you haven't seen before - and I think that's not good for a transient designer. Sonimus Britson: Channel aliases like a betch, if you drive it.. which is the whole point of the plugin. Am disappointed about that. Because here is my secret: I can't be bothered to use additional plugins in order to oversample a plugin. That means: EQs that cramp, can't do high boosts for me and all plugins with harmonic content simply sound how they sound. Waves: MV2 is clean, RBass has harmonics, but doesn't alias, Scheps Parallel Particles Air aliases a lot (never use it, never liked it), Thick doesn't, Bite aliases reasonably. Softube: I wish I knew. (So if anyone has tests on the Weiss DS1-MK3, Tube-Tech CL 1 B mk II, Chandler Limited Germanium or Mutronics Mutator: I am all ears and eyes!) IKMultimedia fairs a lot better than many people give them credit for... and you don't even need to engage oversampling-buttons. I've seen different approaches. The Clipper and Stealthlimiter seem to be oversampling on their own, the VC670 simply cuts off higher order harmonics, as does their Pultec emulation... and that's their old plugins. Note: If you thoroughly abuse Clipper and Stealthlimiter (drive harder than sounds good) they start aliasing, but newer Plugins like the Comprexxor (Distressor emu) actually solved that problem.. you can abuse it all you want, you won't get aliasing. On the other hand their Space-Delay (which I love) aliases. I wish they would implement the Comprexxor-anti-aliasing-code to all their plugins (and plenty that I don't use will probably aliase like a betch..). Also I wonder what exactly it is that their Tape-Echo (old but gold imo) does.. Harmonics are there, but if the fundamental is 10 k there's like a wide "noisebell" or something through the whole spectrum. Wouldn't call it aliasing by the looks and sound of it, but then again I'm new to this analysing stuff.
Excellent. Well explained and interesting on the demos, understanding "fully" some bits that were maybe a bit hazy before....will now go and play. Then I'm going to find a hardware manufacturer to make me analog gear that aliases like digital cos you know it's going to be the next thing. This is from someone who grew up on analog gear, was glad to see the back of most of it only to find digital versions...... ;)
It's like anything else. The more you understand your tools, the more you'll get out them. Understand the limitations and be the dog wagging the tail 🤓
Paul you have single handedly totally got me interested in all this analysis thing. I've avoided it thinking to myself that I'd leave it to the technicians while I get on with writing and recording music but because you take the time to teach and with demonstrations as you have so well in this video I am now convinced that I want to know about this. area of music production. This was a great video Paul. I've watched it more than once and will come back to it from time to time. Many thanks for your efforts. More like this please if you can.
Yeah! This is truly one of your best videos so far! Everyone with an IQ above 75 should be able to follow and recreate what you did. I use the tone generator with a sine wave that comes with cubase and sweep it manually from 10k to 20k and the aliasing effect becomes pretty obvious. I'm so glad I never used the "analog" mode in many of the waves plugins. Instead I use Fabfilter's Saturn 2 in HQ-Superb mode.
The sweep / rx7 method was a big thing for me to really see how much aliasing is in the actual printed file but I'm definitely going to start listening more to test tones to evaluate how much it masks. I think that's what will get quite a few skeptics. When your 10k tone turns into an ambulance.. You got a problem 😂
Just a quick tip: using a linear 20Hz-20kHz sweep usually gives you a clearer picture of the harmonics and aliasing. When using a logarithmic sweep, the harmonics/aliasing bunch together in the end of sweep in a big mess, especially if their are a ton of harmonic/aliasing.
I think its time to start emailing these companies with a screenshots of plugin doctor and the results of their plugins.. I know what to do this weekend. Thanks Paul!
I very much doubt you'll get a reply. If you do it will most likely be a cop out blaming doctor or going on about cpu balance and how this is something that doesn't get brought to their attention and they have lots of big engineers who have never complained about it etc etc
@@PaulThird I agree, but there are a couple of things that can be done and you have already started with the 1st one, making people aware that this is a problem.. and this will get people like me to start to get active in pushing for developers to build better codes as soon as the demos become available for testing. Anywho, I do personally thank you because your videos have answered so many questions I had and I really appreciate that. All the best to you and your fam!
Thanks for unmasking UAD through Plugin Doctor I was waiting for someone to make a video like this. Those UAD guys should find another argument cause they don't have good modeling technology
Another great video! Thank you so much for this dive on H/A, it has really proven beneficial to my line of thinking and how i'm going to approach this next album. It's already sounding cleaner than anything I've ever produced thanks to your insights about all of this "stuff" lol :) Great stuff mate, thank you so much for your time and effort and your no bullshit approach. Love it!
This was truly excellent. Thank you for putting this together! I only wish you could've put the updated UAD Pultec emulation next to the legacy to compare. I know you've previously endorsed the updated UAD Pultec in an earlier vid as an accurate emulation, but I am curious of how it compares in terms of harmonics and aliasing.
I know it's annoying. That's the problem with demos.. They expire unfortunately haha plus UAD have never reached out to me so it's probs gonna stay that way 😢 I mailed them twice over the course of the year but never got a reply. Guess I'm stuck with what comes with the pcie card
Again a great video where even professionals can learn a lot. What do we learn? Stay away from the plugins with the big marketing budget! : Waves, Plugin Alliance and UAD.
@@TheMonkBeatsOne ?? It's easy: The big three selling (some) products that don't do what they claim to do. The proof is here in this channel and in other channels too (Dan Worral).
@@NikolausBrocke Sorry, Sir. But I would specify 'some products', and you didn't in your first message. And we are talking about analog emulator plugins: other Waves' products are top of the game since 30 years. Same for UAD: they did the best possible for their legacy products. Also, we saw that Helios [for example] could be bad sounding when pushed at its limits, but when used in basic situations it could sound good, same for Waves 550B [I don't use both]. They both have to do better marketing and better plugins now, yes. But what Paul is teaching us is: analyse the stuff you use, possibly before you buy, then use it properly even having a scientific look at the settings you tweak. That's not an easy "big sisters cheat on [some] plugins". Sorry, Sir.
Great video! Keep up the good work. I think you should also make a video testing actual music with aliasing while adjusting the aliasing effect. Not all levels of aliasing are detrimental to a song, it can sometimes lead to a desired outcome. Its very difficult to judge the true outcome when analyzing pure sign waves as no song would be composed of a singular sine wave.
Already got videos showing the difference in waves plugins being oversampled from 48 to 96k. I could pick the differences out in blind tests 🤓 There is going to be another video showcasing what waves plugins should sound like as they seem to be the worst for it. Only way it'll work is on the plugins that have a relatively flat linear response as oversampling frequencies past their supported sample rate will cause multiplying of frequencies so I need a relatively flat response for it to work but there are enough there. Did one yesterday on Puigtec over a mix and it was actually shocking now much masking the aliasing added. Muddyness, harshness, lack of punch. Night and day when you remove all the aliasing it adds
My top 5 Waves plugins... 1. F6 DynamicEQ, it's just a super handy tool for taming resonances and tightening low end, super great. 2. Abbey Road Plates, this is definitely one of my favourite plate reverbs. 3. L316 Multiband limiter. I don't do a ton of mastering, and I don't go out of my way to make masters excruciatingly loud, but sometimes I do want it LOUD and this plugin goes to 11. 4. Element synthesizer. This is great when I want to quickly dial up some kind of synth patch, it's nothing super fancy, but it works and I can tweak it to sound right pretty quickly. 5. Electric88 virtual Fender Rhodes instrument, it's one of the better sampled Rhodes instruments I've come across so far. No match for the real thing, but still very usable. It almost captures the dirtiness of the real thing.
I know but how many people actually know that? Especially when tons of legacy plugins come with the pcie cards. Honestly you'd be surprised. people would actually argue with me saying that about the legacy plugins unless I showed it 😂
That's why i need to prove everything I say now. Honestly in this community you give an inch somebody will take a mile. You've gotta be pretty careful on YT especially if your starting out
I have the UAD legacy plugins with one the UAD2 pcie card. I pulled the card over a year ago since i never used the plugins. To be honest I never liked them and used them occasionally. I never even understood much about the whole analogue emulation and why a Pultec was supposed to be special. Until I started watching your videos and others on engineering and mastering. The science of music and sound! What do you think about genres of music that intentionally add aliasing like lofi using old sampler emulations ? Its also used in Synthwave. I just picked up the SQ80 plugin from Arturia and to my ears it has all the grainy digital nasties the original had to its sound.
It's all about the understanding. As you said it's a sound for certain genres but you know when it's applicable. That understanding allows you to use it as a tool compared to not knowing at all. Gives you more control as an engineer. I avoid audible aliasing like plague but there may be a time where it just works but I'm in control of the aliasing, not the other way round if that makes sense. I can choose whether it's there or not. I know what plugins cause it and how to control it. If anything it gives you more knowledge about how plugins work which I think gives you a better understanding of your tools which is invaluable in itself 🤓
Can you give an actual musical demonstration. I appreciate the single tone example but how can you recognize in an actual musical composition with multiple instruments playing. Thanks and love the scientific approach.
Great video Paul! It would be great to see how much changing from 44.1 or 48 to 88.2 or 96 makes to the aliasing on some of the examples you showed. I'm guessing moving from 44.1 to 88.2 would reduce it as much as 2X oversampling? Or does it work differently than that when you're oversampling internally in the DAW? Thanks again for your great videos.
Great vid! I forgot about that Access Analog service. Got to try that out. I'm increasingly needing to test plugin emulations (and their often wild claims) for my video reviews. Thanks for this!
Good video. Regarding aliasing and OS, I have to say... OS is not free of issues. I've tried by doing some mixes replacing my plugins with all oversampled ones. Yes, the mix sounded cleaner but... OS may turns the transients weird, smearing those. Like an "unnatural" sound. At the end of the day, the key is finding the balance for me. I guess each company implements the SRC in a certain way, and with some plugins, as least for my ears, some OS sounds weird. However, aliasing is something that must be taken into account, especially with saturation/overdriving/distorsion plugins.
Yeah oversampling is something that I'm thinking about. Trying to find plugins that oversample using different techniques and then see if we can compare any audible differences between them. Or something along those lines
Paul, another cracking video although I've ended up in geek hell. This is the third or fourth time I've tried to understand aliasing but watching your video is the first time that all the pennies dropped. So, I thought I'd test out my plugins to see which were behaving and which weren't and I was surprised to find that most of the ones I use were pretty good. However, things started to go wrong when I loaded up my amp sim, cranked up some marshall type crunch and put a 10k test tone through it. OMG, it was horrific (in terms of aliasing) and that set me off on the road of downloading and trying just about every amp sim available to see if I could get a better result. And I couldn't. Even those with alleged 16x (!) oversampling still had horrific aliasing. However, on further inspection I found that most of the amp sims were okay up to around a 4k test tone but then they started to struggle, although in very different ways. I also found that many of the amp sims worked very well on a test tone which was "exact", i.e. exactly a certain number of Khz. So they coped well with a 5k test tone but went crazy with a 5.01k or 4.99k. Maybe putting a sine wave through an amp sim isn't really very fair but if those aliasing tones are there on a sine wave then they must be there on the guitar parts although that's proving harder to hear. Okay, back to test out some more stuff - thanks for filling my Monday!
I did try to make it as simplified as possible as it really bent my head at the beginning so glad that it helped. In regards to guitar amp sims. It's actually a future video idea as I found the exact same. It's actually led me to the point where I'm thinking that all amp sims are a bit of a lie. Ive not tried it yet but I was going to stick an amp sim though a DI and see if it affected the tuning due to all the unmusical frequencies being added. If that's the case then all amp sims are actually making our records less musical as opposed to recording them through amps and mics. Was Contemplating running a few drive pedals as a hardware insert to compare the difference between the sims aliasing and the pedals true harmonics. Honestly I don't know why everybody isnt talking about it tbh
@@PaulThird, you and Dan Worrall have a way of telling me things that I already know but in a way that makes me finally understand what they actually mean. I've only found your channel recently but you're doing a great job - keep going. I thought I must be doing something wrong with the amp sims because I just couldn't believe what I was seeing in terms of the aliasing. I'd be really interested to hear what you uncover because I've drawn a blank (in technical terms) and just can't understand why the aliasing is so .... egregious! I'm sure you're way ahead of me but in case it's useful I tried out presonus ampire, audio assault blacksun, mercuriall spark, neural dsp fortin nameless and scuffham s-gear. For those that did have optional oversampling I turned it up to full (that's allegedly 16x on the blacksun) and still got horrible aliasing at anything much more than 4k and, as I said, often in the inbetween frequencies. So even when 4k was fine, 3.99k often wasn't. Even more bizarrely, moving to 96khz sample rate didn't seem to help much so maybe those harmonics that are being generated just keep on going?! I'm going to be honest here and say that even though it was very obvious on a test tone, it wasn't night and day obvious on actual guitar tracks. But I only had a cursory listen so I will be very interested in what you find out. It certainly seems that amp sims are "technically" awful with horrible aliasing but I wonder how much difference that makes to the sound.
Great video buddy, great explanation, on the UAD legacy defence, it's noted that those are more DSP friendly due to the removal of the analog harmonics. But the Aliasing on this Helios mic pre 🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️
I think cause many don't test plugins before buying many devs have purely been lazy in many plugs cause they want to maintain the friendly cpu/dsp sales pitch. Shocked at UAD though. Expect a lot better
Great vid mate really enjoyed. If you take printed the 10kHz tone with +30dB and +70dB and bring them back in then you could do a null test with them. This would leave the aliasing right? Maybe needs level matching or transparently compensating for the boost with Q3 to properly null everything but the aliasing
Yeah it's a good idea but it's flawed as you'll also hear the added harmonics in the null as well. However you've gave me an idea to oversample, print and do a null test vs original without oversampling. That would leave you with the aliasing 🤓
@@PaulThird haha yes that would make sense! I was just thinking it would be good to actually hear what different types of aliasing sounds like opposed to seeing it in a parametric eq or the spectrogram and just flat out saying it's gonna be bad. also it would be interesting to hear what the aliasing that bounced back i.e. curved back round such as in the rueletec eg did @10:28 compared to the fucking mess of helios which was more to the left of the base fundamental harmonic @23:09. if that makes any sense!
@@PaulThird what do you make of all the goofiness going on in the kit neve and noiseash neve... i did test with 10k at -18 and there was a bunch of stuff going on below 10k but it wasnt showing up as static harmonics but instead in jumping all over the place....
The irony here is that Paul may be putting even more money into Waves owners’ pockets. “New update version with oversampling! Renew your WUP membership today!” At least they half-heartedly tried to do this in the BB plug-in released recently. Although the higher oversampling options are broken, the 2x works. If one records tracks @ 96k, oversampling @ 192k should work out fine. … at least that’s what I’m telling myself after dropping $25 on it. 🤦♂️
oh man I´ve done a deep dive on your channel today in the studio, although I should really have been working. so do you always prefer maximum oversampling on everything when it comes time for mixdown? any drawbacks?
If my cpu can handle it max oversampling but only if im really driving the plugin hard into saturation where I'd need max oversampling. In most cases x4 should be enough. I do the oversampling in the context of the mix, not just when exporting
The fire cobra oversampling is made by Meldaproduction as far as I know. Melda plugins do the same job in oversampling. Maybe you take a look at these tools.
Dunno.. I tried their msatutator and wasn't near as good as cobra. However msatutator is free so it's a tough one to call. Just tried out Tbpro audio gsatplus.. Now that is a saturation plugin. Free, no aliasing at x4 oversampling and has a random mode where it manipulates mid and side harmonics in real time. Gives it that proper random non linear behaviour. You can choose between odd and even harmonics as well and boost to taste. Honestly why these sorts of plugins aren't more in the social eye is beyond me. All the gearspace guys had a massive say on this plugin so it's been thoroughly vetted. And it's free while the new SSL fusion drive is £200+.. Its like nobody's interested unless it's got an analog face plate 🤷♂️
Great video Paul, keep it up! But also: Just wait twenty years. Everyone will say: let's try and recreate the sound of the 2020s. If you truly want to emulate it you will need: aliasing. People in the past tried so hard to make everything as clean as possible. Now we're looking for the dirt and wrongness :). Just look at all the tape and console plugins. All I'm saying is: Aliasing is a sound! Just try and enjoy it :P
I agree with Paul here. Aliasing is all that is bad about plugins. Noise and randomness in curves is relative. @Paul Third said in a comment in last video that or even in the video maybe that they capture hardware at their peak performance. And that is amazing. If we wouldn't have aliasing all the hardware emulations would sound better than the hardware.
any harmonic exciters or additive equalization of high frequencies, I try to use outboard analog gear. I figured everything else like subtractive EQ, or even low frequency boosts are OK. any important elements like vocals I will also use outboard compression.
Great video! I find out that using a filter 15khz in the very end of an oversampled instrument actually help the output result... In cons the sound lose a little bit of energy but nothing that cannot be recovered with a simple transient plugin.. what you think 🤔 about it?
@@PaulThird i generally set up the channel with what I need ex pre + ddfm (lbuss x 4) and in ultimate instance i put a pro q 3 with the "ideal filter" which is a brickwall filter using Max linerar phase.. i generally left some space between the start and the finish of recordings because i notice that ddfm cause some delay especially in high oversampling and i cannot work in real time with it.. so i have to print and realign the track unfortunately
@@AlexLapugean correct me if I'm wrong but a filter on the air band would prevent to the extra Harmonics generated to bounce back in the audible signal? Or not?
@@AftertuneMusic Only if you oversample and apply that filter before converting back to the original sample rate. Otherwise, by the time that filter is applied, the frequencies are already reflected to lower ones which are no longer affected by the filter. But that is what oversampling does in any case. For example, if you oversample a plugin with DDMF Metaplugin, you won't need to add a filter, that plugin does that automatically.
Paul, you're my new hero! Thanx for a great video. I've got a question. Could I get rid of (some) of the aliasing rendering my projects at 96k? If so, what about downsampling it back to 48k? Thank you.
Nope has to be done on the track itself. Rendering the project at a higher sample rate purely upsamples the master channel and has no effect on the tracks
Could've been so nice if you uploaded a link for the sweep and the 10k sine tone. That's been really helpful. I'll have to go through my plugins checking what's up now. Btw, do you think the very same method should be applied to plugins that don't emulate analog gear?
I'm pretty sure every daw has a sine tone generator. That's what I do in protools. Highlight a section on the time line, audio suite and then generate a sine tone
@@PaulThird Thanks for your reply! I thought of it actually. I use ableton so I'll try to make one with a stock synth. What about the sweep? Should it be an automated Sine getting pitched or something?
i remember doing a test comparing daws when bouncing audio , back in 2012 the winner was logic pro 9 and the worst was pro tools it adds too much aliasing when bouncing audio
That was raj (or 'nae bad' as we say even further north than you are)! As an ageing guitarist who'se developed an interest in sound recording, this is all new to me, but very much appreciated. So would you recommend analog rather than plugins, if one can afford it?
In regards to heavy saturation you need a plugin with lots of high quality oversampling. Melda has one of the best OS algorithms and their amp sims and distortion based plugins make aliasing not a problem as they can go very high without completely ruining the phase. But for really really high gain stuff, amps and pedals will always be best id say. But analog pedals, not digital pedals which you can find here and there
Thanks for the video! What is it when there's a ton of harmonics like at 6:20 above the fundamental? So many of them they just look like a lot of noise, can't be good, right? Also, why do you think a lot of Acustica Audio plugs have that high noise floor? Those that I checked in Plugin Doctor did anyway. In your opinion, is it just inevitable with the convolution technique? But then again, I thought high end hardware was usually less noisy.
What you see there is 192khz sample rate. You'd never actually hear any of the information you see there. Technically speaking there is around 172khz of inaudible harmonics and noise haha In terms of noise and convolution I suppose it's what happens when you sample gear. Id assume that's also captured in the frequency response. It also depends on the level of the noise. Most noise you see in PD may look a lot but if you look at the dB scale it's actually still under -100db. You'll find that nearly all noise in plugins is kept well below the audible threshold. Some gear is like that too. Just depends on the gear
What a great video.... You really taught me a lot about this topic. But im a little confused about the uad Helios. Lets say i want to use it as a mic preamp for my Apollo and use it as unison to record a singer. Does this mean if i go over 30db i will record all the aliasing? Or does is behave different because im not hiting it with a line level but with a mic level?
I would need to check and see if the unison version is any different which I'll be able to do soon But the way it looks is if it's on the mic and it goes beyond a certain gain level then you will record the aliasing and it'll be on the recording and you won't be able to get it off.. Unless you use it just as an insert in console and use it for monitoring and not recording so the singer can hear the processing but it's not on the recording
@@PaulThird wow that would be awesome. I was thinking about recording a 999hz tone with speakers and a mic and see what happens. But i don't know if this is any useful. I have compared the uad neve73 which has awful much of aliasing regardless how much gain, with noiseash need 73 pre. That thing is perfectly clean. The arturia 73 is very clean too, but it doesn't have harmonics above 10k.
Remember a big factor is his how hard you go into them. Run a -18dbfs 10k tone and you'll have a good idea of whether it's aliasing but always remember to check the level of the aliasing as if it's inaudible then you are worrying about nothing. Id say -80dbfs is arguably audible but others would say more -70/6dbfs Also remember to compensate the output as well cause the aliasing will look louder purely cause the signal is louder
@@PaulThird well with the uad neve73, if i crank up that mic gain to 40db, i need to put the sinus tone (999hz) from plugindoktor to -40db, otherwise the neve plugin is completely overdriven. Then i watch with a vu to be around -18 again to enter plugindoktor. I would say the aliasing is around -100db then. But its everywhere and close the real harmonics. With arturia 73 and need 73 there is no aliasing whatso ever.
i cant get analog matrix to connect in plugin doctor.. it loads but when i press connect it connects and show all the hardware on the left of the screen and then it disappears... Have you been able to use AM inside of PD??? :-)
Yeah. Ive done it in other videos with waves plugins 🤓 you've just got to be careful that you don't exceed the plugins supported sample rate so if you oversample too much it'll start shifting the frequencies up. For example most waves is supported up to 96k with some exceptions at 192k. If you boost past its supported sample rate then a 100hz boost will be 200, 5k boost will be 10k etc etc and it'll multiply again with every oversample
I record with the Helios UAD emulation quite a bit and learning how much aliasing is in it is shocking, I have been DESTROYING my recordings :/ thanks for the knowledge fr
Regarding your final comment about aliasing not existing in the analog domain: That's technically not true as you can hear aliasing in bucket-brigade delays pushed to long delay times, and it can even be a cool sound if used deliberately. But of course these delay chips are essentially "half digital" already - discrete in time and continuous in amplitude. Great video!
Yeah I remember reading about digital pedals and finding out that they had sample rates just like daws, normally 44.1, which caused them all to alias when pushed into distortion. Anything that requires a sample rate to reproduce an audio signal is using digital processing. Dunno what you'd class some of those pedals as.. Hybrid? Haha
@@PaulThird I guess it's semantics, but most people would consider something like a Deluxe Memory Man an "analog" delay... Even though the bucked brigade circuit has a sample rate and a clock, so it's essentially a very early form of digital processing. I think they marketed it as "solid state" at the time, in contrast to tape delays. Modern digital pedals with a proper converter and processor are a different story. Looking forward to a potential future video on amp sims. I love my Helix modeler, but technically it probably aliases like hell. Does that mean my ears are broken? Or did they manage to control the aliasing artifacts in a way that in the end is registered by listeners more as uniform noise and not un-musical?
Hi Paul, new to your channel. Your video's are really quite shocking ! If what you say is right then we're being conned into buyng expensive plugins that don't do what they should do. I'd be interested to see how some of the highly regarded free plugins from for instance Analog Obsession compare. And of course how amp sims fare with respect to aliasing. I record all my electrics with amp sims because it is so much easier and more flexible........
With guitar amp sims and digital guitar effects aliasing is just something that you have to accept. However neural dsp so x4 PA and Sgear do X8 do they are working on it but most cheap amp sims you'll find are riddled with aliasing due to the amount of distortion created. Amp sims is something I plan on looking at in more detail
Love your videos Paul.. amazing content. Just out of curiosity what version of waves 550B is that? I've just run v.12 in plugin doctor and there seem to be 4 harmonics on top of the fundamental, but they only appear when the analogue mode switch is on - using the eq without....it is as clean as a whistle even with the boost on the output as you do to get your first order harmonic. V.12 still aliases like a beeatch though ;-p ;-)
Hmmm.. Looks like they have upgraded it then. I think my api 550b may be v9 or 10. If they have upgraded it then it just makes me angrier at the waves update plan as all upgrades should be free like every other developer. They just don't do anything right do they 😂
Really great episode! You really know your stuff! Who have taught you all of that stuff?? Thank you so much for sharing! I wonder how many of audio gear reviewers actually knows this level of examining gear.. I belive.. very very few.. You could be a consultant for serious reviews.. if anyone would be interested!
Mainly Tim Petherick but a few other clever engineers as well. I have a good network 🤓 All I do is annoy them with questions haha Theres still loads more to understand though. What I do is I learn so much, share it with others and use others to teach me stuff whether it be from the comments or even people stating I'm wrong. I learn from that that and then repeat the cycle. That's how I work and learn in my own strange way haha trust me there are a lot very well educated guys out there. Maybe not on youtube but they would have me tied up in knots within a few minutes haha I just bleed them dry.. But in very small doses.. I am nowhere near done with them and unfortunately for them they can see more questions around the corner 😂
@@PaulThird That's the key to any success. Throw yourself out there and learn from the best. You are the best at what you do that I know on UA-cam and that is not nothing. Keep up the great work 👑
@@PaulThird there are plenty on the ignore list these days. The usual first day release influencers. Funny you never see them using the software that they always claim are "game changers"
Yeah there is a lot of that going on. I was pleased with myself as I was looking over my new single as its nearly finished. Was very pleased to see the transparency haha Sonimus Britson routing throughout, sonible smart eq, cola comp, camel pre, TimP Lbus2 & Opto 32, London acoustics telge & uad 1176 as rear bus, titanium and bettermaker combo on mixbus, neold big AL, hg2 black box, titanium cl1b, spiff, magenta pre, arturia 33609.. Blond, soothe and fabfilter in premixing, Probably a few more as well I'm forgetting but mostly everything I've said I like I use haha
@@PaulThird nice one, i took a large chunk of time this morning testing based on your methodology. The results for some plugins didn't really surprise me, except for one company, TBProAudio. The implementation of oversampling was really good on his free GSatPlus. The 4x oversample got rid of all the inharmonics. Analog Obsession wasn't that great oversampled, still some audible inharmonics. A few demos from another manufacturer that i tried also showed positive results but at the expense of serious amounts of CPU.
Been watching your videos for a while, and been nodding along to aliasing, but never fully understanding it. However, this video really cleared things up for me. So thanks alot! Looking at jumping to UAD very soon, with my first purchase being the Helios. Can UAD plugins be oversampled in Metaplugin/PatchWork, just as you would with non-DSP plugins? Would be nice to know if there's a way of working around the aliasing it produces above 40 db. They do refer to it as a "custom-made, feedback-style, 70 dB input section." What do you suppose the "feedback-style" means?
Very good video, I tried to do the test but I can't get RX to show me the same image that is seen in your video,... I printed the audio of a sinusoidal signal at 10,000. Hz, if you can help me I appreciate it. I am an amateur, and I am very interested in these videos, I think there is a lot of plugin garbage going around and, worse, that the industry is endorsing them at the expense of sound quality, add to that the poor quality of streaming and mixing It's fatal,
Awesome educational video...although...man, that's a lot of money we have waste in plugins emulations kind of useless. Lots to the garbage :/ 2021 I said bye to waves, got rid of a whole bunch of p.A, sticking to softube, some of UAD and really really starting to get Acustica Audio technology. There's something quite unique there. Cheers!
@@CraigScottFrost Not a all, what i meant is there are lots of very bad plugins out there from several companies, but the market them very well, at the end is not really what they say the are, PA has quite good unique plugs, they do, but others through time i just stop using them, did not stand out.
Very well put together video with excellent demonstrations. A great demonstration of the theory. If I could offer some constructive feedback...what I found missing was any realistic demonstration of how this sounds on actual tracks, busses or program material. You say "Imagine what this would sound like on...". Why are you leaving it up to our imagination? Theoretically, aliasing is bad and noticeable, sure. But nowhere in a real mix is a plugin going to be put on a pure sinewave test tone. I realize this was already a long video with a lot of ground to cover, and you did it well. That said, showing us real world examples of this theory in practice would have been more valuable than all the visual analysis and sine sweeps. We don't listen to music with our eyes. Perhaps you've already done this, so feel free to link in a video if you've covered it elsewhere.
@@PaulThird I think about classic and common usage. For instance, plugin EQ like Pultec, API, Neve, Compressors like SSL, 1176, Neve stuffs. Actually: The "no-aliasing" and nice tone plugins *starter pack* for Mixing ...and mastering why not! :) Cause you demonstrated that the major brands of plugins are not really synonymous of Professional tools. I'm thinking about Analog Access, but the costs could be high regarding the duration of a full album production.
Hey Paul! Great vid, thanks man! Just wanted to tip you off. They are about to come out with RX 9. If you buy 8 now you get 9 for free. Or maybe it's if you pre-order you get 8 for free. Not sure but it's one of them. May be worth the upgrade for you. :)
UA-cams really funny with links. It's too expensive for me. I'd love to have rx9 but I'll probs just get in contact and see if I can wangle an NFR from izotope haha I have no shame in asking for plugins now 😂
@@PaulThird Nor should you! I'm sure they will. I write my plugins off on my taxes but I'm not sure how that works on your side of the pond lol. I get it! I'm working like crazy right now but broke, billlllllssssssssssssss........
Please be advised that this test was purely to show how everything can be tested to double check what you see in doctor. RX was set to maximum visibility so it relates to everything that can be viewed in doctor but it has no relation to audibility. I wouldn't advise setting RX like this in reality as it will make everything look more audible than it actually is.
When viewing all of this pay more attention to the numerical values. For example, anything below -80dbfs I would say is completely inaudible but many would argue below -60dbfs so pay more attention to the level of everything when determining if anything is an issue or audible.
What other types of under the hood geeky stuff would you like me to investigate next? 🤓
Hi Paul, maybe a bit off topic but you mentioned in a previous video how many pink strips you could run in one project with your i9. I'm am very interested how Lowe core count would effect the performance. Cores could be turned off to simulate a i3, i5 or i7 and by putting you'd system in power saving power scheme your cores would downclock or in your bios to simulate older generations with a lower IPC. I'm very interested in your findings. In my opinion it's very valuable information in modern music making and info on the net is old. And it's geeky so yeah... Could ya pls?
I'd need to ask guys in the know. When it comes to computer tech I have very limited knowledge. Suppose I can ask stefan who built my pc
@@PaulThird That would be awesome ❤️
The different ways to do oversampling. More specifically what type of (lowpass) filters they use internally. Some plugins use standard minimum phase filters, some use linear phase FIR filters and there's even linear phase IIR filters (although probably impossible to tell the linear phase ones apart without seeing the code). You could check if oversampling causes lots of phase shift or maybe some pre-ringing. See what that does to the sound
@@mathyoooo2 ooh +1
This is the best general explanation of what nyquist and aliasing are. I've always been confused by definitions online previously. THANKS!!!
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I'm wearing open backs and when you played that tone my dog started barking going nuts at 40. Keep up the amazing detective work!
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"today I am going to teach you how to catch aliasing by yourself!" so nobody will bore you about every plugin, great move Sir Paul Thug Harmonics.
And there I go asking him about Softube-Plugins every other video.
The more knowledge we have the more we can influence change. That's how I see it 🤓
@@PaulThird I agree, thank you for your work and inspiration. I tweak in a better way my software knobs since I met you [even if I tweak knobs before you born :)].
By far the best video I have seen on this channel, let alone on the topic in general. You support your argument conclusively with converging evidence, fantastic content.
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Hey Paul, just wanted to thank you for keeping your videos long format and thorough. Shows how much you care, and for someone like me who cares also.... You get the picture :) Good quality educational and scientific content is rare. Keep it up!
Took a long time to edit and set up so always thankful for the appreciation 🤓
Great video. Ian Shepherd just created a video on how true peaks can also be creating aliasing when people are unaware their mixes are clipping with a true peak while they look safe just using a standard limiter and standard peak limiting.
Man Paul... your channel has been quickly becoming one of my favorites! You're a great teacher who knows their stuff.
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Great video Paul. Thanks 🙏🏼
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you should do a show with a list: of plugins without/;with aliasing ! that would be great
I have a list of ideas and that's definitely one of them 🤓 possibly take a dev at a time and get their worst aliasing plugins and oversample them if possible
I started my own list, for plugins that I use (and some that I want to use):
Eventide doesn't do a lot of harmonics, but seems clean: living up to their name. (Omnipressor, H910 Harmonizer, InstantFlanger, InstantPhaser)
Klanghelm: MJUC aliases like an absolute betch. SDRR aliases too. Given their reputation that's a shame. To me personally it felt good to see this, because it kind of "reassured" me that my ears are not crap, since I consistently put them up against other plugins for a while and they always lost. I thought it was because of taste.. now I suspect it might be aliasing.
Plugin Alliance: townhouse compressor aliases, but below 100db, so I guess it's okay. mpressor has harmonics, but seems clean. alpha has no harmonics. maag4 has no harmonics (don't use it anymore, still tested it). Blackbox you've (Paul) shown. SPL-Transient Designer: It's a funny funny thing.. absolutely clean if you gainstage.. but don't you dare come in hot, because it will start aliasing like you haven't seen before - and I think that's not good for a transient designer.
Sonimus Britson: Channel aliases like a betch, if you drive it.. which is the whole point of the plugin. Am disappointed about that. Because here is my secret: I can't be bothered to use additional plugins in order to oversample a plugin. That means: EQs that cramp, can't do high boosts for me and all plugins with harmonic content simply sound how they sound.
Waves: MV2 is clean, RBass has harmonics, but doesn't alias, Scheps Parallel Particles Air aliases a lot (never use it, never liked it), Thick doesn't, Bite aliases reasonably.
Softube: I wish I knew. (So if anyone has tests on the Weiss DS1-MK3, Tube-Tech CL 1 B mk II, Chandler Limited Germanium or Mutronics Mutator: I am all ears and eyes!)
IKMultimedia fairs a lot better than many people give them credit for... and you don't even need to engage oversampling-buttons. I've seen different approaches. The Clipper and Stealthlimiter seem to be oversampling on their own, the VC670 simply cuts off higher order harmonics, as does their Pultec emulation... and that's their old plugins. Note: If you thoroughly abuse Clipper and Stealthlimiter (drive harder than sounds good) they start aliasing, but newer Plugins like the Comprexxor (Distressor emu) actually solved that problem.. you can abuse it all you want, you won't get aliasing. On the other hand their Space-Delay (which I love) aliases. I wish they would implement the Comprexxor-anti-aliasing-code to all their plugins (and plenty that I don't use will probably aliase like a betch..). Also I wonder what exactly it is that their Tape-Echo (old but gold imo) does.. Harmonics are there, but if the fundamental is 10 k there's like a wide "noisebell" or something through the whole spectrum. Wouldn't call it aliasing by the looks and sound of it, but then again I'm new to this analysing stuff.
Btw, there's a thread on Gearspace called "Testing Aliasing of Plugins (meassurements)" which has quite a few plugins tested, if you're interested.
thank you! you're all about the facts and sifting through the Bull. Appreciated it!
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Excellent.
Well explained and interesting on the demos, understanding "fully" some bits that were maybe a bit hazy before....will now go and play.
Then I'm going to find a hardware manufacturer to make me analog gear that aliases like digital cos you know it's going to be the next thing.
This is from someone who grew up on analog gear, was glad to see the back of most of it only to find digital versions...... ;)
It's like anything else. The more you understand your tools, the more you'll get out them. Understand the limitations and be the dog wagging the tail 🤓
Paul you have single handedly totally got me interested in all this analysis thing. I've avoided it thinking to myself that I'd leave it to the technicians while I get on with writing and recording music but because you take the time to teach and with demonstrations as you have so well in this video I am now convinced that I want to know about this. area of music production. This was a great video Paul. I've watched it more than once and will come back to it from time to time. Many thanks for your efforts. More like this please if you can.
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I was just about to blow big money on a UAD suite. Now I have a real conundrum on my hands. Thank you Paul.
Sorry haha
No way!! I've been waiting a long time for this. Thank you Paul!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Yeah! This is truly one of your best videos so far! Everyone with an IQ above 75 should be able to follow and recreate what you did. I use the tone generator with a sine wave that comes with cubase and sweep it manually from 10k to 20k and the aliasing effect becomes pretty obvious. I'm so glad I never used the "analog" mode in many of the waves plugins. Instead I use Fabfilter's Saturn 2 in HQ-Superb mode.
The sweep / rx7 method was a big thing for me to really see how much aliasing is in the actual printed file but I'm definitely going to start listening more to test tones to evaluate how much it masks.
I think that's what will get quite a few skeptics. When your 10k tone turns into an ambulance.. You got a problem 😂
Thanks a million for this video. I finally understand aliasing. THANKS!
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Just a quick tip: using a linear 20Hz-20kHz sweep usually gives you a clearer picture of the harmonics and aliasing. When using a logarithmic sweep, the harmonics/aliasing bunch together in the end of sweep in a big mess, especially if their are a ton of harmonic/aliasing.
Hmmm.. Maybe should have used the longer sweep for the UAD then? Tim Petherick gave me a fast sweep and a long sweep. I used the fast sweep
I think its time to start emailing these companies with a screenshots of plugin doctor and the results of their plugins.. I know what to do this weekend. Thanks Paul!
I very much doubt you'll get a reply. If you do it will most likely be a cop out blaming doctor or going on about cpu balance and how this is something that doesn't get brought to their attention and they have lots of big engineers who have never complained about it etc etc
@@PaulThird I agree, but there are a couple of things that can be done and you have already started with the 1st one, making people aware that this is a problem.. and this will get people like me to start to get active in pushing for developers to build better codes as soon as the demos become available for testing. Anywho, I do personally thank you because your videos have answered so many questions I had and I really appreciate that. All the best to you and your fam!
Thanks for unmasking UAD through Plugin Doctor I was waiting for someone to make a video like this. Those UAD guys should find another argument cause they don't have good modeling technology
Paul this one is a terrific one. Seriously it helps a lot!!!! So I will say say and without any kind of aliasing doubt: THANK YOU!
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Thanks so much Paul - Those audio samples of aliasing really helped me understand the mess I was creating by using certain un-named plugins.
Glad I can help 🤓
Same here. I immediately removed it from my setup.
Excellent, as usual. I did learn something....Thank you Paul ;)...Was a joy to watch ;)
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Another great video! Thank you so much for this dive on H/A, it has really proven beneficial to my line of thinking and how i'm going to approach this next album. It's already sounding cleaner than anything I've ever produced thanks to your insights about all of this "stuff" lol :) Great stuff mate, thank you so much for your time and effort and your no bullshit approach. Love it!
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This was truly excellent. Thank you for putting this together! I only wish you could've put the updated UAD Pultec emulation next to the legacy to compare. I know you've previously endorsed the updated UAD Pultec in an earlier vid as an accurate emulation, but I am curious of how it compares in terms of harmonics and aliasing.
I know it's annoying. That's the problem with demos.. They expire unfortunately haha plus UAD have never reached out to me so it's probs gonna stay that way 😢 I mailed them twice over the course of the year but never got a reply. Guess I'm stuck with what comes with the pcie card
You can contact UA about a demo reset.
I'll try again but I got bumped the last 2 times 😢
Great explanations,Paul. Thanks!
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Fantastic explanation of aliasing. Thank you so much.
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such an informative video, will be coming back to this one, very interesting
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Again a great video where even professionals can learn a lot. What do we learn? Stay away from the plugins with the big marketing budget! : Waves, Plugin Alliance and UAD.
honestly I didnt get this message, which is just a semplification.
@@TheMonkBeatsOne ?? It's easy: The big three selling (some) products that don't do what they claim to do. The proof is here in this channel and in other channels too (Dan Worral).
@@NikolausBrocke Sorry, Sir. But I would specify 'some products', and you didn't in your first message. And we are talking about analog emulator plugins: other Waves' products are top of the game since 30 years. Same for UAD: they did the best possible for their legacy products. Also, we saw that Helios [for example] could be bad sounding when pushed at its limits, but when used in basic situations it could sound good, same for Waves 550B [I don't use both]. They both have to do better marketing and better plugins now, yes. But what Paul is teaching us is: analyse the stuff you use, possibly before you buy, then use it properly even having a scientific look at the settings you tweak. That's not an easy "big sisters cheat on [some] plugins". Sorry, Sir.
very good video 🙏 the ending really helped me
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You demystified a lot of things for me in this video thank you 👍
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Really important stuff, IMO, mate! Good on you for the video! Thanks for covering it.
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Thanks for all the work you put into thus video. So well explained, thank you Paul.
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Great video! Keep up the good work. I think you should also make a video testing actual music with aliasing while adjusting the aliasing effect. Not all levels of aliasing are detrimental to a song, it can sometimes lead to a desired outcome. Its very difficult to judge the true outcome when analyzing pure sign waves as no song would be composed of a singular sine wave.
Already got videos showing the difference in waves plugins being oversampled from 48 to 96k. I could pick the differences out in blind tests 🤓
There is going to be another video showcasing what waves plugins should sound like as they seem to be the worst for it. Only way it'll work is on the plugins that have a relatively flat linear response as oversampling frequencies past their supported sample rate will cause multiplying of frequencies so I need a relatively flat response for it to work but there are enough there.
Did one yesterday on Puigtec over a mix and it was actually shocking now much masking the aliasing added. Muddyness, harshness, lack of punch. Night and day when you remove all the aliasing it adds
My top 5 Waves plugins...
1. F6 DynamicEQ, it's just a super handy tool for taming resonances and tightening low end, super great.
2. Abbey Road Plates, this is definitely one of my favourite plate reverbs.
3. L316 Multiband limiter. I don't do a ton of mastering, and I don't go out of my way to make masters excruciatingly loud, but sometimes I do want it LOUD and this plugin goes to 11.
4. Element synthesizer. This is great when I want to quickly dial up some kind of synth patch, it's nothing super fancy, but it works and I can tweak it to sound right pretty quickly.
5. Electric88 virtual Fender Rhodes instrument, it's one of the better sampled Rhodes instruments I've come across so far. No match for the real thing, but still very usable. It almost captures the dirtiness of the real thing.
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Thanks Paul for a very informative presentation.Job weldone.
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This was extremely helpful.
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FYI, UA are pretty transparent about the fact that their Legacy versions have no THD, so absolutely no surprise on the Pultec Legacy section.
I know but how many people actually know that? Especially when tons of legacy plugins come with the pcie cards. Honestly you'd be surprised. people would actually argue with me saying that about the legacy plugins unless I showed it 😂
@@PaulThird haha people are amazing aren't they. Straight from the horses mouth/website and they don't believe it.
That's why i need to prove everything I say now. Honestly in this community you give an inch somebody will take a mile. You've gotta be pretty careful on YT especially if your starting out
I have the UAD legacy plugins with one the UAD2 pcie card. I pulled the card over a year ago since i never used the plugins. To be honest I never liked them and used them occasionally. I never even understood much about the whole analogue emulation and why a Pultec was supposed to be special. Until I started watching your videos and others on engineering and mastering. The science of music and sound! What do you think about genres of music that intentionally add aliasing like lofi using old sampler emulations ? Its also used in Synthwave. I just picked up the SQ80 plugin from Arturia and to my ears it has all the grainy digital nasties the original had to its sound.
It's all about the understanding. As you said it's a sound for certain genres but you know when it's applicable. That understanding allows you to use it as a tool compared to not knowing at all. Gives you more control as an engineer. I avoid audible aliasing like plague but there may be a time where it just works but I'm in control of the aliasing, not the other way round if that makes sense. I can choose whether it's there or not. I know what plugins cause it and how to control it.
If anything it gives you more knowledge about how plugins work which I think gives you a better understanding of your tools which is invaluable in itself 🤓
Very useful video, thank you so much 🙏🤙
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Absolutely brilliant. Thank for making these videos, you're a legend. Thank you
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Very cool to compare it to real gear! Good job on this!
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Brilliant video! So informative! Would love to see soundtoys plugins in these tests!
Tbh Ive got a list as long as my arm haha maybe one day but they have been done to death on YT
Can you give an actual musical demonstration. I appreciate the single tone example but how can you recognize in an actual musical composition with multiple instruments playing. Thanks and love the scientific approach.
ua-cam.com/video/Ako1EUTw6Ag/v-deo.html
That's a good example
That was quite useful and well presented!
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This was incredible. Thank you!
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Well explained & tested, thanks for that, very informative indeed!
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Great video Paul! It would be great to see how much changing from 44.1 or 48 to 88.2 or 96 makes to the aliasing on some of the examples you showed. I'm guessing moving from 44.1 to 88.2 would reduce it as much as 2X oversampling? Or does it work differently than that when you're oversampling internally in the DAW? Thanks again for your great videos.
Same thing. Oversampling a plugin x2 at 48k is equivalent to loading the plugin in a 96k session
@@PaulThird Cheers
very comprehensive, thanks
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I learned a lot. Thank you!
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Great vid! I forgot about that Access Analog service. Got to try that out. I'm increasingly needing to test plugin emulations (and their often wild claims) for my video reviews. Thanks for this!
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@@PaulThird Have you kept the Access Analog service? Do you / did you use it often?
Not used it in well over a year. I don't get any benefit from analog
@@PaulThird Right! Good to know. Was sure handy for comparison tests though. Thanks for the replies. great vids.
Good video. Regarding aliasing and OS, I have to say... OS is not free of issues. I've tried by doing some mixes replacing my plugins with all oversampled ones. Yes, the mix sounded cleaner but... OS may turns the transients weird, smearing those. Like an "unnatural" sound. At the end of the day, the key is finding the balance for me. I guess each company implements the SRC in a certain way, and with some plugins, as least for my ears, some OS sounds weird. However, aliasing is something that must be taken into account, especially with saturation/overdriving/distorsion plugins.
Yeah oversampling is something that I'm thinking about. Trying to find plugins that oversample using different techniques and then see if we can compare any audible differences between them. Or something along those lines
Paul, another cracking video although I've ended up in geek hell. This is the third or fourth time I've tried to understand aliasing but watching your video is the first time that all the pennies dropped. So, I thought I'd test out my plugins to see which were behaving and which weren't and I was surprised to find that most of the ones I use were pretty good.
However, things started to go wrong when I loaded up my amp sim, cranked up some marshall type crunch and put a 10k test tone through it. OMG, it was horrific (in terms of aliasing) and that set me off on the road of downloading and trying just about every amp sim available to see if I could get a better result. And I couldn't. Even those with alleged 16x (!) oversampling still had horrific aliasing. However, on further inspection I found that most of the amp sims were okay up to around a 4k test tone but then they started to struggle, although in very different ways. I also found that many of the amp sims worked very well on a test tone which was "exact", i.e. exactly a certain number of Khz. So they coped well with a 5k test tone but went crazy with a 5.01k or 4.99k.
Maybe putting a sine wave through an amp sim isn't really very fair but if those aliasing tones are there on a sine wave then they must be there on the guitar parts although that's proving harder to hear.
Okay, back to test out some more stuff - thanks for filling my Monday!
I did try to make it as simplified as possible as it really bent my head at the beginning so glad that it helped.
In regards to guitar amp sims. It's actually a future video idea as I found the exact same. It's actually led me to the point where I'm thinking that all amp sims are a bit of a lie.
Ive not tried it yet but I was going to stick an amp sim though a DI and see if it affected the tuning due to all the unmusical frequencies being added.
If that's the case then all amp sims are actually making our records less musical as opposed to recording them through amps and mics.
Was Contemplating running a few drive pedals as a hardware insert to compare the difference between the sims aliasing and the pedals true harmonics.
Honestly I don't know why everybody isnt talking about it tbh
@@PaulThird, you and Dan Worrall have a way of telling me things that I already know but in a way that makes me finally understand what they actually mean. I've only found your channel recently but you're doing a great job - keep going.
I thought I must be doing something wrong with the amp sims because I just couldn't believe what I was seeing in terms of the aliasing. I'd be really interested to hear what you uncover because I've drawn a blank (in technical terms) and just can't understand why the aliasing is so .... egregious! I'm sure you're way ahead of me but in case it's useful I tried out presonus ampire, audio assault blacksun, mercuriall spark, neural dsp fortin nameless and scuffham s-gear. For those that did have optional oversampling I turned it up to full (that's allegedly 16x on the blacksun) and still got horrible aliasing at anything much more than 4k and, as I said, often in the inbetween frequencies. So even when 4k was fine, 3.99k often wasn't.
Even more bizarrely, moving to 96khz sample rate didn't seem to help much so maybe those harmonics that are being generated just keep on going?!
I'm going to be honest here and say that even though it was very obvious on a test tone, it wasn't night and day obvious on actual guitar tracks. But I only had a cursory listen so I will be very interested in what you find out. It certainly seems that amp sims are "technically" awful with horrible aliasing but I wonder how much difference that makes to the sound.
Great video Paul!
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Nerdy enough for me, thank you!
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Great Video Paul, thank you very much!
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Great video buddy, great explanation, on the UAD legacy defence, it's noted that those are more DSP friendly due to the removal of the analog harmonics. But the Aliasing on this Helios mic pre 🤦🏾♂️🤦🏾♂️
I think cause many don't test plugins before buying many devs have purely been lazy in many plugs cause they want to maintain the friendly cpu/dsp sales pitch.
Shocked at UAD though. Expect a lot better
Great vid mate really enjoyed. If you take printed the 10kHz tone with +30dB and +70dB and bring them back in then you could do a null test with them. This would leave the aliasing right? Maybe needs level matching or transparently compensating for the boost with Q3 to properly null everything but the aliasing
Yeah it's a good idea but it's flawed as you'll also hear the added harmonics in the null as well. However you've gave me an idea to oversample, print and do a null test vs original without oversampling. That would leave you with the aliasing 🤓
@@PaulThird haha yes that would make sense! I was just thinking it would be good to actually hear what different types of aliasing sounds like opposed to seeing it in a parametric eq or the spectrogram and just flat out saying it's gonna be bad.
also it would be interesting to hear what the aliasing that bounced back i.e. curved back round such as in the rueletec eg did @10:28 compared to the fucking mess of helios which was more to the left of the base fundamental harmonic @23:09. if that makes any sense!
I'm thinking a test per developer where I pick their worst ones and show the difference when you oversample. Something like that
your best video by far...
Thank you. I did put a lot of work into it 🤓
@@PaulThird what do you make of all the goofiness going on in the kit neve and noiseash neve... i did test with 10k at -18 and there was a bunch of stuff going on below 10k but it wasnt showing up as static harmonics but instead in jumping all over the place....
Super good video, Paul! Keep up the great work! 👍 Maybe the guys at Waves and UAD should watch your channel so they finally learn something ;-)
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The irony here is that Paul may be putting even more money into Waves owners’ pockets. “New update version with oversampling! Renew your WUP membership today!”
At least they half-heartedly tried to do this in the BB plug-in released recently. Although the higher oversampling options are broken, the 2x works. If one records tracks @ 96k, oversampling @ 192k should work out fine.
… at least that’s what I’m telling myself after dropping $25 on it. 🤦♂️
oh man I´ve done a deep dive on your channel today in the studio, although I should really have been working. so do you always prefer maximum oversampling on everything when it comes time for mixdown? any drawbacks?
If my cpu can handle it max oversampling but only if im really driving the plugin hard into saturation where I'd need max oversampling. In most cases x4 should be enough. I do the oversampling in the context of the mix, not just when exporting
brilliant as always
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The fire cobra oversampling is made by Meldaproduction as far as I know. Melda plugins do the same job in oversampling. Maybe you take a look at these tools.
Dunno.. I tried their msatutator and wasn't near as good as cobra. However msatutator is free so it's a tough one to call.
Just tried out Tbpro audio gsatplus.. Now that is a saturation plugin. Free, no aliasing at x4 oversampling and has a random mode where it manipulates mid and side harmonics in real time. Gives it that proper random non linear behaviour.
You can choose between odd and even harmonics as well and boost to taste.
Honestly why these sorts of plugins aren't more in the social eye is beyond me. All the gearspace guys had a massive say on this plugin so it's been thoroughly vetted.
And it's free while the new SSL fusion drive is £200+.. Its like nobody's interested unless it's got an analog face plate 🤷♂️
Hi there can i know how you setup the rx 7 to view the aliasing effect
Just imported the printed sweep from the daw into the desktop version of RX7.
Hey Paul, thanks for doing this tutorial.
what do you mean when you say bounced back , like at 5:34.
The harmonics essentially hit the end of the frequency range and bounce back as aliasing
@@PaulThird Thank you very much for the prompt reply!
Great video Paul, keep it up!
But also: Just wait twenty years. Everyone will say: let's try and recreate the sound of the 2020s. If you truly want to emulate it you will need: aliasing.
People in the past tried so hard to make everything as clean as possible. Now we're looking for the dirt and wrongness :). Just look at all the tape and console plugins.
All I'm saying is: Aliasing is a sound! Just try and enjoy it :P
I'll never enjoy aliasing.. I REFUSE!! 😂
I agree with Paul here. Aliasing is all that is bad about plugins. Noise and randomness in curves is relative. @Paul Third said in a comment in last video that or even in the video maybe that they capture hardware at their peak performance. And that is amazing. If we wouldn't have aliasing all the hardware emulations would sound better than the hardware.
Aliasing isn't even a good way to get a nice nasty digital distortion if that's what you're after..... Nobody is going to miss it off it goes away.
I mean aliasing can work for special effect type sound design, but in general it just makes things sound muddy imo.
The frequencies of aliasing have nothing to do with the frequencies of the music - so totally unmusical. Nobody wants that.
any harmonic exciters or additive equalization of high frequencies, I try to use outboard analog gear. I figured everything else like subtractive EQ, or even low frequency boosts are OK. any important elements like vocals I will also use outboard compression.
Thanks Paul ! Do Acustica plugins perform better?
On the most part yeah as they are mostly pretty clean
Great video! I find out that using a filter 15khz in the very end of an oversampled instrument actually help the output result... In cons the sound lose a little bit of energy but nothing that cannot be recovered with a simple transient plugin.. what you think 🤔 about it?
Kinda what airwindows ultrasonic does but I've not got it to work yet for me but I may have the routing wrong
It might help in different ways, but it does nothing with regards to aliasing - if that is what you are suggesting.
@@PaulThird i generally set up the channel with what I need ex pre + ddfm (lbuss x 4) and in ultimate instance i put a pro q 3 with the "ideal filter" which is a brickwall filter using Max linerar phase.. i generally left some space between the start and the finish of recordings because i notice that ddfm cause some delay especially in high oversampling and i cannot work in real time with it.. so i have to print and realign the track unfortunately
@@AlexLapugean correct me if I'm wrong but a filter on the air band would prevent to the extra Harmonics generated to bounce back in the audible signal? Or not?
@@AftertuneMusic Only if you oversample and apply that filter before converting back to the original sample rate. Otherwise, by the time that filter is applied, the frequencies are already reflected to lower ones which are no longer affected by the filter. But that is what oversampling does in any case. For example, if you oversample a plugin with DDMF Metaplugin, you won't need to add a filter, that plugin does that automatically.
Just awesome my dude!! How do u go about makin those sweep thingamabobs?
www.dropbox.com/s/8b8ttdshnyaxsp6/testtones.zip?dl=0 you can download them from Tim Pethericks website 👌
Paul, you're my new hero! Thanx for a great video. I've got a question. Could I get rid of (some) of the aliasing rendering my projects at 96k? If so, what about downsampling it back to 48k?
Thank you.
Nope has to be done on the track itself. Rendering the project at a higher sample rate purely upsamples the master channel and has no effect on the tracks
Great video! thats Paul. Can you please show us about the Fab Filter Saturn 2 and aliasing?
That's got oversampling has it not?
Thank you, fantastic video.
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Could've been so nice if you uploaded a link for the sweep and the 10k sine tone.
That's been really helpful. I'll have to go through my plugins checking what's up now.
Btw, do you think the very same method should be applied to plugins that don't emulate analog gear?
I'm pretty sure every daw has a sine tone generator. That's what I do in protools. Highlight a section on the time line, audio suite and then generate a sine tone
@@PaulThird Thanks for your reply!
I thought of it actually. I use ableton so I'll try to make one with a stock synth.
What about the sweep? Should it be an automated Sine getting pitched or something?
Great video
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Thanks for the info bro!
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i remember doing a test comparing daws when bouncing audio , back in 2012 the winner was logic pro 9 and the worst was pro tools it adds too much aliasing when bouncing audio
That was raj (or 'nae bad' as we say even further north than you are)! As an ageing guitarist who'se developed an interest in sound recording, this is all new to me, but very much appreciated. So would you recommend analog rather than plugins, if one can afford it?
In regards to heavy saturation you need a plugin with lots of high quality oversampling. Melda has one of the best OS algorithms and their amp sims and distortion based plugins make aliasing not a problem as they can go very high without completely ruining the phase. But for really really high gain stuff, amps and pedals will always be best id say. But analog pedals, not digital pedals which you can find here and there
Thanks for the video! What is it when there's a ton of harmonics like at 6:20 above the fundamental? So many of them they just look like a lot of noise, can't be good, right? Also, why do you think a lot of Acustica Audio plugs have that high noise floor? Those that I checked in Plugin Doctor did anyway. In your opinion, is it just inevitable with the convolution technique? But then again, I thought high end hardware was usually less noisy.
What you see there is 192khz sample rate. You'd never actually hear any of the information you see there. Technically speaking there is around 172khz of inaudible harmonics and noise haha In terms of noise and convolution I suppose it's what happens when you sample gear. Id assume that's also captured in the frequency response. It also depends on the level of the noise. Most noise you see in PD may look a lot but if you look at the dB scale it's actually still under -100db. You'll find that nearly all noise in plugins is kept well below the audible threshold. Some gear is like that too. Just depends on the gear
@@PaulThird Cheers, that's very helpful for me. Wishing you a good weekend and sending a hello from Russia :)
thank you for your service
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Great video, thanks!
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What a great video.... You really taught me a lot about this topic.
But im a little confused about the uad Helios. Lets say i want to use it as a mic preamp for my Apollo and use it as unison to record a singer. Does this mean if i go over 30db i will record all the aliasing? Or does is behave different because im not hiting it with a line level but with a mic level?
I would need to check and see if the unison version is any different which I'll be able to do soon
But the way it looks is if it's on the mic and it goes beyond a certain gain level then you will record the aliasing and it'll be on the recording and you won't be able to get it off.. Unless you use it just as an insert in console and use it for monitoring and not recording so the singer can hear the processing but it's not on the recording
@@PaulThird wow that would be awesome. I was thinking about recording a 999hz tone with speakers and a mic and see what happens. But i don't know if this is any useful.
I have compared the uad neve73 which has awful much of aliasing regardless how much gain, with noiseash need 73 pre. That thing is perfectly clean. The arturia 73 is very clean too, but it doesn't have harmonics above 10k.
Remember a big factor is his how hard you go into them. Run a -18dbfs 10k tone and you'll have a good idea of whether it's aliasing but always remember to check the level of the aliasing as if it's inaudible then you are worrying about nothing. Id say -80dbfs is arguably audible but others would say more -70/6dbfs
Also remember to compensate the output as well cause the aliasing will look louder purely cause the signal is louder
@@PaulThird well with the uad neve73, if i crank up that mic gain to 40db, i need to put the sinus tone (999hz) from plugindoktor to -40db, otherwise the neve plugin is completely overdriven. Then i watch with a vu to be around -18 again to enter plugindoktor. I would say the aliasing is around -100db then. But its everywhere and close the real harmonics. With arturia 73 and need 73 there is no aliasing whatso ever.
-100db is nothing close to worry about. Pretty normal actually for a lot of saturation
i cant get analog matrix to connect in plugin doctor.. it loads but when i press connect it connects and show all the hardware on the left of the screen and then it disappears... Have you been able to use AM inside of PD??? :-)
Nope that's why i use bertom in combination with AM in the daw for looking at frequency responses
Cakewalk by Bandlab has built-in plugin oversampling up to 384k. This is plugin oversampling, independent of the project sample rate.
Reaper DAW has this per plugin oversampling as well
Could you use Metaplugin’s over sampling to help mitigate the aliasing in the plugins you already own that do alias?
Yeah. Ive done it in other videos with waves plugins 🤓 you've just got to be careful that you don't exceed the plugins supported sample rate so if you oversample too much it'll start shifting the frequencies up.
For example most waves is supported up to 96k with some exceptions at 192k. If you boost past its supported sample rate then a 100hz boost will be 200, 5k boost will be 10k etc etc and it'll multiply again with every oversample
@@PaulThird huh, I didn’t know that. That’s super cool (and interesting) haha. Love your channel btw. Cheers!
I use Neutron 4 Exciter a lot, is it only the harmonics below the fundamental that is aliasing or above as well?
Great explanation
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I record with the Helios UAD emulation quite a bit and learning how much aliasing is in it is shocking, I have been DESTROYING my recordings :/ thanks for the knowledge fr
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Regarding your final comment about aliasing not existing in the analog domain: That's technically not true as you can hear aliasing in bucket-brigade delays pushed to long delay times, and it can even be a cool sound if used deliberately. But of course these delay chips are essentially "half digital" already - discrete in time and continuous in amplitude.
Great video!
Yeah I remember reading about digital pedals and finding out that they had sample rates just like daws, normally 44.1, which caused them all to alias when pushed into distortion.
Anything that requires a sample rate to reproduce an audio signal is using digital processing. Dunno what you'd class some of those pedals as.. Hybrid? Haha
@@PaulThird I guess it's semantics, but most people would consider something like a Deluxe Memory Man an "analog" delay... Even though the bucked brigade circuit has a sample rate and a clock, so it's essentially a very early form of digital processing. I think they marketed it as "solid state" at the time, in contrast to tape delays.
Modern digital pedals with a proper converter and processor are a different story. Looking forward to a potential future video on amp sims. I love my Helix modeler, but technically it probably aliases like hell. Does that mean my ears are broken? Or did they manage to control the aliasing artifacts in a way that in the end is registered by listeners more as uniform noise and not un-musical?
Hi Paul, new to your channel. Your video's are really quite shocking ! If what you say is right then we're being conned into buyng expensive plugins that don't do what they should do. I'd be interested to see how some of the highly regarded free plugins from for instance Analog Obsession compare.
And of course how amp sims fare with respect to aliasing. I record all my electrics with amp sims because it is so much easier and more flexible........
With guitar amp sims and digital guitar effects aliasing is just something that you have to accept. However neural dsp so x4 PA and Sgear do X8 do they are working on it but most cheap amp sims you'll find are riddled with aliasing due to the amount of distortion created.
Amp sims is something I plan on looking at in more detail
Love your videos Paul.. amazing content. Just out of curiosity what version of waves 550B is that? I've just run v.12 in plugin doctor and there seem to be 4 harmonics on top of the fundamental, but they only appear when the analogue mode switch is on - using the eq without....it is as clean as a whistle even with the boost on the output as you do to get your first order harmonic. V.12 still aliases like a beeatch though ;-p ;-)
Hmmm.. Looks like they have upgraded it then. I think my api 550b may be v9 or 10. If they have upgraded it then it just makes me angrier at the waves update plan as all upgrades should be free like every other developer. They just don't do anything right do they 😂
Really great episode! You really know your stuff! Who have taught you all of that stuff?? Thank you so much for sharing!
I wonder how many of audio gear reviewers actually knows this level of examining gear.. I belive.. very very few.. You could be a consultant for serious reviews.. if anyone would be interested!
Mainly Tim Petherick but a few other clever engineers as well. I have a good network 🤓 All I do is annoy them with questions haha
Theres still loads more to understand though. What I do is I learn so much, share it with others and use others to teach me stuff whether it be from the comments or even people stating I'm wrong.
I learn from that that and then repeat the cycle. That's how I work and learn in my own strange way haha trust me there are a lot very well educated guys out there. Maybe not on youtube but they would have me tied up in knots within a few minutes haha I just bleed them dry.. But in very small doses.. I am nowhere near done with them and unfortunately for them they can see more questions around the corner 😂
@@PaulThird That's the key to any success. Throw yourself out there and learn from the best. You are the best at what you do that I know on UA-cam and that is not nothing. Keep up the great work 👑
@@PaulThird there are plenty on the ignore list these days. The usual first day release influencers. Funny you never see them using the software that they always claim are "game changers"
Yeah there is a lot of that going on. I was pleased with myself as I was looking over my new single as its nearly finished. Was very pleased to see the transparency haha
Sonimus Britson routing throughout, sonible smart eq, cola comp, camel pre, TimP Lbus2 & Opto 32, London acoustics telge & uad 1176 as rear bus, titanium and bettermaker combo on mixbus, neold big AL, hg2 black box, titanium cl1b, spiff, magenta pre, arturia 33609.. Blond, soothe and fabfilter in premixing, Probably a few more as well I'm forgetting but mostly everything I've said I like I use haha
@@PaulThird nice one, i took a large chunk of time this morning testing based on your methodology. The results for some plugins didn't really surprise me, except for one company, TBProAudio. The implementation of oversampling was really good on his free GSatPlus. The 4x oversample got rid of all the inharmonics. Analog Obsession wasn't that great oversampled, still some audible inharmonics. A few demos from another manufacturer that i tried also showed positive results but at the expense of serious amounts of CPU.
Been watching your videos for a while, and been nodding along to aliasing, but never fully understanding it.
However, this video really cleared things up for me. So thanks alot!
Looking at jumping to UAD very soon, with my first purchase being the Helios. Can UAD plugins be oversampled in Metaplugin/PatchWork, just as you would with non-DSP plugins?
Would be nice to know if there's a way of working around the aliasing it produces above 40 db.
They do refer to it as a "custom-made, feedback-style, 70 dB input section." What do you suppose the "feedback-style" means?
So... it's a mirror at the end that reflects back to the pool... Interesting.
Ay, and the UA plugins were more like Dorian Gray's mirror
Very nice analogy 🤓
Very good video, I tried to do the test but I can't get RX to show me the same image that is seen in your video,... I printed the audio of a sinusoidal signal at 10,000. Hz, if you can help me I appreciate it. I am an amateur, and I am very interested in these videos, I think there is a lot of plugin garbage going around and, worse, that the industry is endorsing them at the expense of sound quality, add to that the poor quality of streaming and mixing It's fatal,
You need a full sweep. 20hz to 20khz.
you are great, thank you very much for your answer
Awesome educational video...although...man, that's a lot of money we have waste in plugins emulations kind of useless. Lots to the garbage :/ 2021 I said bye to waves, got rid of a whole bunch of p.A, sticking to softube, some of UAD and really really starting to get Acustica Audio technology. There's something quite unique there. Cheers!
Can't remember the last time I bought a plugin haha but yeah I've wasted a lot of money over the years 🤓
@@CraigScottFrost Not a all, what i meant is there are lots of very bad plugins out there from several companies, but the market them very well, at the end is not really what they say the are, PA has quite good unique plugs, they do, but others through time i just stop using them, did not stand out.
Very well put together video with excellent demonstrations. A great demonstration of the theory. If I could offer some constructive feedback...what I found missing was any realistic demonstration of how this sounds on actual tracks, busses or program material. You say "Imagine what this would sound like on...". Why are you leaving it up to our imagination? Theoretically, aliasing is bad and noticeable, sure. But nowhere in a real mix is a plugin going to be put on a pure sinewave test tone. I realize this was already a long video with a lot of ground to cover, and you did it well. That said, showing us real world examples of this theory in practice would have been more valuable than all the visual analysis and sine sweeps. We don't listen to music with our eyes. Perhaps you've already done this, so feel free to link in a video if you've covered it elsewhere.
ua-cam.com/video/Ako1EUTw6Ag/v-deo.html
Done a few more videos with examples of aliasing as well but that was a pretty good one if I recall
Thanks a lot, facts only facts :)
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@@PaulThird Do you have a list of plugins that you advise maybe? (Without Aliasing). I read the next comment below, very interesting feedback as well.
Depends on what you are looking for really.
@@PaulThird I think about classic and common usage. For instance, plugin EQ like Pultec, API, Neve, Compressors like SSL, 1176, Neve stuffs. Actually: The "no-aliasing" and nice tone plugins *starter pack* for Mixing ...and mastering why not! :) Cause you demonstrated that the major brands of plugins are not really synonymous of Professional tools. I'm thinking about Analog Access, but the costs could be high regarding the duration of a full album production.
Depends on whether you want realistically modelled or plugins that can offer you the workflow but loosely modelled.
Hey Paul! Great vid, thanks man! Just wanted to tip you off. They are about to come out with RX 9. If you buy 8 now you get 9 for free. Or maybe it's if you pre-order you get 8 for free. Not sure but it's one of them. May be worth the upgrade for you. :)
Ok, just checked. You get 9 for free if you buy 8 now.
How much is 8?
UA-cams really funny with links. It's too expensive for me. I'd love to have rx9 but I'll probs just get in contact and see if I can wangle an NFR from izotope haha I have no shame in asking for plugins now 😂
@@PaulThird Nor should you! I'm sure they will. I write my plugins off on my taxes but I'm not sure how that works on your side of the pond lol. I get it! I'm working like crazy right now but broke, billlllllssssssssssssss........
Wouldnt the curve be dynamic as well? Would the curves match with a different frequency or amplitude sample signal
The new "MS" version of the Black Box plugin (the one shown in this video) is massively better than the old (non-MS) version in terms of aliasing
Yeah I was thinking that. I recall the aliasing of the original being commented on a lot