• Welcome to the General Discussion forum for UAD users!

    Please note that this forum is user-run, although we're thrilled to have so much contribution from Drew, Will, and other UA folks!

    Feel free to discuss both UAD and non-UAD related subjects!

    1) Please do not post technical issues here. Please use our UAD Support Forums instead.

    2) Please do not post complaints here. Use the Unrest Forum instead. They have no place in the the General Discussion forum.

    Threads posted in the wrong forum will be moved, so if you don't see your thread here anymore, please look in the correct forum.

    Lastly, please be respectful.

1073 Over Pultec - Better Up/Down Sampling?

Arys Chien

Active Member
I've experimented for a couple of times. To my ear the highs (all the way to the super highs) of the 1073 plug-in sounds better than the Pultec (Pro).

(\"Better\" = smoother and more clarity here.)

In my experience it sounds like a better up-sampling/ processing it/ then down-sampling back procedure. I noticed that when I first tried out different method of up/down sampling the same file with Samplitude.

And since the 1073 plug-in came out much later than the Pultec (Pro), it's reasonable to assume that UA had found a better up/down-sampling method.

But that's my guess. Maybe it's just that you can boost more highs with the 1073 than the Pultec....
 

Dan Duskin

Established Member
i thought the same thing!

but sinse i have no proof that they changed their resampling aglorithm, i didn't mention it.

i wonder if they improved on it when they developed the precision eq...

however... sometimes the \"hi-frequency smoothing\" caused by the resampling in the pultec sounds nice when mastering a sterile recording (such as a recording done witn cheap converters and cheap eq plugins).
 

Mark Edmonds

Active Member
A question gents: how can you deduce that the up-sampling and (down-sampling let's not forget) algorithms are the cause of the sonic differences you are hearing?

You can only pin-point the SRC as the cause if the EQ filters are identical which they aren't.

Mark
 

Giles117 DP

Active Member
DO the highs on an analogue Pultec sound better or worse than the highs on an analogue 1073?????

Ever think that maybe you are hearing the differences in GEAR.

and not a up/downsampling alg.....??????

If the higs on the Pultec sounded like the higs on a1073, what would we need the 1073 for?????
 

Arys Chien

Active Member
To Mark,

I don't. That's why the title of my post ends with a question mark. :wink:

As for what led me to my guess? Well we've all heard a lot of \"difference in sound\" caused by different things. We remembered that, and when we hear something later we say, \"ah, this guy uses a bad AD/DA converter\" or \"this guy use cheap eq plug-ins.\"

In this case, the voice in my head said, \"ah, the 1073 plug-in uses a better up/down-sampling aglorithm than the Pultec plug-in.\"

But this is not my field, so I don't know. I listen, but can't caculate. That's why I asked this question and wanted to see how you guys think.

To Giles117 DP,

I only care about the things that I have. For now I have a 1073 hardware, the 1073 plug-in and the Pultec plug-in, so I only compare the plug-ins.
 

Eric Dahlberg

Purveyor of musical dreams fullfilled.
Giles117 DP said:
If the higs on the Pultec sounded like the higs on a1073, what would we need the 1073 for?????
Could we use a Massive Passive as any sort of reference since it's loosely based on the Pultec? The Massive Passive's highs have a lot more air than the Pultec plug-in's.
 

Suntower

Established Member
Gentlemen. FWIW:

I don't see how one can factor the sound of the gizmo from it's implementation. It may be that the coding is equally good.

I just think the 1073 has a nicer/more pleasing/more useful sound than the Pultec. And by that I mean that the -Neve- has a more pleasing sound than the Pultec---not that the -programming- is any better.

---JC
 

F5D

Active Member
The 1073 SE also sounds alot smoother than pultec and the SE doesn't have any upsampling I guess?
 

Giles117 DP

Active Member
To my respondans. I have used the neve and the pultec analogs and they dont sound alike. Matter of fact the Pultec is a touch darker then the 1073...

Thats why I asked my question the way I did. You say plugins. I see each plug in as the gear they modeled. They shouldnt sound the same. THEY ARE DIFFERENT.

Now if you could compare the identical item with older software vs newer software perhaps you would have a valid Question. Based on real Apples to apples comparisons.

You inherently are comparig the code for one device vs the code for a totally different animal. Tubes vs Transistors.....and their modeling :)
 

Giles117 DP

Active Member
Eric Dahlberg said:
[quote="Giles117 DP":2k31r09k]If the higs on the Pultec sounded like the higs on a1073, what would we need the 1073 for?????
Could we use a Massive Passive as any sort of reference since it's loosely based on the Pultec? The Massive Passive's highs have a lot more air than the Pultec plug-in's.[/quote:2k31r09k]

Eric, the problem is what you just indicated.. Loosely... Just like their single rack tube pultec copy. It never sounded like a GREEN FACED 3 rackspace pultec to me (or was it 4 Racskpaces. been a while. Plug ins have spoiled me..) Tube tech was closer to the pultec sound IMO, but even it was TOOO CLEAN....

The manley gear was copied and made "better" and we all know how subjective that is. If I want a little dirt in my chain, dont model the gear and "clean it up." Keep it true to the original or as close as you can get.

The transformers were different, etc.....

How could you properly copy the old Pultec sound and not take into effect the Power circuit. Those old Iron Core trannies had such a nice effect on sound.

Soeakig of TubeTech.. Hey UA.. Model some of their gear... and again I ask for the original 80's dbx 160 and while we are at it, the 160A. I love the grain that comp puts on a sound.....

And the roundness the 160 put on a kick at just a mere 2db or redux....

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. LOL.

These are the missing pcs that make me crave outboard DBX. Harmon should work a deal with UA.....
 

Arys Chien

Active Member
Sorry I didn't answer the \"hardware Pultec v.s. 1073\" question properly in my previous post.

What I wanted to say is that, the \"sound characters\" of the real Pultec and the real 1073 are different (no A/B test though, just from memory). The same with the plug-in version of both.

Yet the \"difference\" I'm talking about in this post is not the difference in character, but a more \"good eq plug-in v.s. better\" thing. To make it simpler, there's less digital processing artifacts in the 1073 plug-ins then the Pultec, IMHO.

That's why I said I didn't want to compare the hardware version, for that's not my point.

But I'd like to thank F5D for pointing out something I haven't thought about: the 1073SE. I'll take some time and compare. If I hear the same smoothness out of the 1073SE too, then it's the sound character; if not, then it's the plug-in programming thing.
 

JuergenW

Active Member
Why don´t someone just compare Pultec and 1073 in 192 KHz...

Then the question of different SRC quailty is answered :wink:
 

bmanic

Member
I rarely see a benefit of posting links to KvR threads but this is such an occasion. Please read trough the thread and listen to all the various EQ examples, especially Christian Buddes (coder of Electri-Q/posihfopit, he is a genious). He nearly perfectly mimiced some of my examples which are taken from a very high end EQ (unfortunately I can not disclose what it is).

What he basically showed is that the shape and phase of the EQ is 98% of the sound. It is EXTREMELY difficult to hear any differences after one has matched the shape and phase response of a filter. I am a self titled \"a-b comparison master\" and it took me many tries to hear the difference (it's about as hard as comparing different dithering algorithms on pop music!).

Here is the url: KvR's \"How do you judge an EQ?\" thread.

Cheers!
bManic

EDIT: lost of good info in the whole thread but the main audio examples are on pages 9 and 10.
 

Mark Edmonds

Active Member
JuergenW said:
Why don´t someone just compare Pultec and 1073 in 192 KHz...

Then the question of different SRC quailty is answered :wink:
No it isn't!

Actually, it is impossible to compare the SRC algorithms directly and with all due respect to everyone concerned, any deduction that suggests the difference in sound is due to the sample rate conversion process alone is completely bogus.

Mark
 

Eric Dahlberg

Purveyor of musical dreams fullfilled.
Mark Edmonds said:
Actually, it is impossible to compare the SRC algorithms directly and with all due respect to everyone concerned, any deduction that suggests the difference in sound is due to the sample rate conversion process alone is completely bogus.
I think his point is that SRC isn't a part of the equation when working at 192kHz so we can hear the true differences between the EQ's themselves.
 

Dan Duskin

Established Member
Here's how you can test the SRC...

A) check both plugins with all settings set to zero and listen for to how the highs are affected.

B) apply a high shelf boost, and listen for aliasing (yes, I know what it sounds like, it's sounds like fixed frequency peaks in the high end, and/or a digital graininess in the high end... fixed frequency because they are divisions of the sapmerate). If it's a good SRC algo, you WON'T hear it! I can't hear the aliasing in the 1073 or PreEQ, but I can definately hear it in Cambridge, and some kind of high-end digital graininess in the Pultec. Like I said before, I think they switched to a better SRC algorithm when they developed the precision eq.

C) compare the plugin at 44.1kHz and 192kHz.













 

Arys Chien

Active Member
Maybe I raised a question that I'm too dumb to discuss.... I don't follow lots of things mentioned here.

Time to read more books!

Tech aside, what Dan describes fits my impression. Smoother (less artifacts) in the highs with Precision EQ and 1073 over Pultec and Cambridge.
 
Dan Duskin said:
...I can't hear the aliasing in the 1073 or PreEQ, but I can't definately hear it in Cambridge, and some kind of high-end digital graininess in the Pultec...
Shouldn't one of the two statements say "I can hear..."?
 

Dan Duskin

Established Member
bröselmind said:
[quote="Dan Duskin":27ztate3]...I can't hear the aliasing in the 1073 or PreEQ, but I can definately hear it in Cambridge, and some kind of high-end digital graininess in the Pultec...
Shouldn't one of the two statements say "I can hear..."?[/quote:27ztate3]

Yeah... typo... fixed.
 

Mark Edmonds

Active Member
Eric Dahlberg said:
[quote="Mark Edmonds":3ilekh8q]Actually, it is impossible to compare the SRC algorithms directly and with all due respect to everyone concerned, any deduction that suggests the difference in sound is due to the sample rate conversion process alone is completely bogus.
I think his point is that SRC isn't a part of the equation when working at 192kHz so we can hear the true differences between the EQ's themselves.[/quote:3ilekh8q]

Yes! Good point! I take that back :)

Mark
 
UAD Bundle Month
Top