Do I need the NEVE 1081?

[eyes:everywhere]

I have all the UAD EQs bar the 1081 and the 1073. I have the 88RS though. I write deep house sometimes jazzy (ie lots of electric piano), sometimes more techy and synth led.

So, to repeat, what would the 1081 bring to my arsenal? At the moment the Helios and Sonalskis EQ are my go to eqs (precision eq on the master buss of course!) and I'm not sure if it's worth forking £100 for another eq I may not actually need??

Cheers for any advice.

 

[BTLG]

No - the 1081 is not the magic plug-in that will magically make all of your mixes work.

That said - if you feel like you want another EQ because your current EQ's aren't doing what you want, the 1081 is a really great EQ to have. If your current setup works for you - then use that setup to make another $200 instead of spending $200.

Matt

 

[SoniA]

I have used Neve 1081 on electric piano into my deep-chillhouse production with great silky sound, less caracter then 1073 but very musical.
It'ss not essential but useful :wink:

 

[LFranco]

Co-Sign Everything that's been said. It's not like you HAVE TO have it, but it's nice to have.

 

[bob humid]

I have all the UAD EQs bar the 1081 and the 1073. I have the 88RS though. I write deep house sometimes jazzy (ie lots of electric piano), sometimes more techy and synth led.

So, to repeat, what would the 1081 bring to my arsenal? At the moment the Helios and Sonalskis EQ are my go to eqs (precision eq on the master buss of course!) and I'm not sure if it's worth forking £100 for another eq I may not actually need??

Cheers for any advice.

it works very nicely on thin, "in-the-box"-productions that are bounced down out from the stereo-busses of REASON or ABLETON LIVE .. both sequencers don't do very nice summing math..

try all this little tweaks on such digitus tracks:

- a slight touch of 10 or 15 KHz hishelving EQ
+ a small dip in the 6.9 KHz area
+ a light boost at 100 Hz for some kick presence
+ HP at 27 Hz ...

switch it off and ... miss it ,-)

robert

p.s.
doesn't work on fat prodcutions )))

 

[Paul Woodlock]

[quote="eyes:everywhere":373mjlgj]I have all the UAD EQs bar the 1081 and the 1073. I have the 88RS though. I write deep house sometimes jazzy (ie lots of electric piano), sometimes more techy and synth led.

So, to repeat, what would the 1081 bring to my arsenal? At the moment the Helios and Sonalskis EQ are my go to eqs (precision eq on the master buss of course!) and I'm not sure if it's worth forking £100 for another eq I may not actually need??

Cheers for any advice.

it works very nicely on thin, "in-the-box"-productions that are bounced down out from the stereo-busses of REASON or ABLETON LIVE .. both sequencers don't do very nice summing math.. [/quote:373mjlgj]


What's wrong with their 'summing math' ? Does it change the EQ??

 

[bob humid]

[quote="bob humid":kr2w648k][quote="eyes:everywhere":kr2w648k]I have all the UAD EQs bar the 1081 and the 1073. I have the 88RS though. I write deep house sometimes jazzy (ie lots of electric piano), sometimes more techy and synth led.

So, to repeat, what would the 1081 bring to my arsenal? At the moment the Helios and Sonalskis EQ are my go to eqs (precision eq on the master buss of course!) and I'm not sure if it's worth forking £100 for another eq I may not actually need??

Cheers for any advice.

it works very nicely on thin, "in-the-box"-productions that are bounced down out from the stereo-busses of REASON or ABLETON LIVE .. both sequencers don't do very nice summing math.. [/quote:kr2w648k]

What's wrong with their 'summing math' ? Does it change the EQ??[/quote:kr2w648k]

sometimes it gives the impression, but I don't think its just the frequency range alone. must be more complicated then that but I simply can't tell you since I am not a audio software programmer... I am always puzzled that it makes a difference. its VERY hard to get silky highs out of reason for example. part of this problem must be also due to poor EQs in reason.

don't get me wrong: there is nothing bad in using Reason or Live in daily production.. this progs are superb for workflow and creativity (NOTHING beats reason in terms of speed and workflow for composition work! n-o-t-h-i-n-g). but exporting audio out of the aforementioned hosts, in order to make it sound "BIG", is quite a challenge.

also, I met about a dozen of ppl on live situations (electronic live-jams / acts in the club context) that used ableton live for its great realtime performance (Ableton Live is THE standard for live electronica) and I remember that every each of them suffered of what I would call "a plastique / artificial sounding hifi-nesh". the mixes sounded "ok" but lacked grip, depth and presence and had an extremely similar sonic texture that made all of them sound like similar to each other...

everyone of them played out of their stereobusses in their host while I was using a hardwaresampler mixed through an analogue linemixer. none of them tried summing their live-busses onto analogue mixer or external DSP-mixers (RME, Motu u name it) for example. makes you ask yourself whats wrong there...

but to be totally sure we would have to do a phase comparison ..

well, to come back to the topic: the NEVE1081 just adss grip and impact on such productions, especially on mediocre Reason-exports.... the NEVE1081 is not neutral at all, it is one of the most colouring plugs I have heared and it is capable of giving ITB-mixes a "touch" of outboard easily. not so dramatical as a NEVE33609 Comp does, but its clearly there... especially if you dial in the highs... phases are smeared in a nice way (upsampling?) introducing more richt texture and complexity.

I never managed to get the same sonic structure out of the Cambridge though since its more neutral...

so, hows your day coming?

robert

 

[Macc]

I met about a dozen of ppl on live situations (electronic live-jams / acts in the club context) that used ableton live for its great realtime performance (Ableton Live is THE standard for live electronica) and I remember that every each of them suffered of what I would call "a plastique / artificial sounding hifi-nesh". the mixes sounded "ok" but lacked grip, depth and presence and had an extremely similar sonic texture that made all of them sound like similar to each other...

I know exactly what you mean and agree about that 100%, entirely, completely. Couldn't agree more - I've sat through evenings like that myself.

But surely it is much more to do with the tools being used to make the tunes rather than the summing... I mean, a load of tracks all mixed through plasticky built-in Ableton/Reason eqs/compressors will sound that way no matter how you sum it. Putting said plasticky tracks and summing them OTB won't magically make those tunes/sounds/compressors etc suddenly have bags of character...

 

[Cabbage]

both sequencers don't do very nice summing math..

So does rewiring into a different host (such as Cubase), and doing the summing there, improve matters?

Petter

 

[Paul Woodlock]

I met about a dozen of ppl on live situations (electronic live-jams / acts in the club context) that used ableton live for its great realtime performance (Ableton Live is THE standard for live electronica) and I remember that every each of them suffered of what I would call "a plastique / artificial sounding hifi-nesh". the mixes sounded "ok" but lacked grip, depth and presence and had an extremely similar sonic texture that made all of them sound like similar to each other...

I know exactly what you mean and agree about that 100%, entirely, completely. Couldn't agree more - I've sat through evenings like that myself.

But surely it is much more to do with the tools being used to make the tunes rather than the summing... I mean, a load of tracks all mixed through plasticky built-in Ableton/Reason eqs/compressors will sound that way no matter how you sum it. Putting said plasticky tracks and summing them OTB won't magically make those tunes/sounds/compressors etc suddenly have bags of character...

That's what I would expect. Unless there's a fault ( bug ) then summing is just adding the sample values together. In cubase/Nuendo this is done with 80bit precision. There's no reason why a Reason or Ableton programmer would empoy a method that would degrade the sound.

 

[olafmol]

[quote="bob humid":3qd2h7tm]I met about a dozen of ppl on live situations (electronic live-jams / acts in the club context) that used ableton live for its great realtime performance (Ableton Live is THE standard for live electronica) and I remember that every each of them suffered of what I would call "a plastique / artificial sounding hifi-nesh". the mixes sounded "ok" but lacked grip, depth and presence and had an extremely similar sonic texture that made all of them sound like similar to each other...

I know exactly what you mean and agree about that 100%, entirely, completely. Couldn't agree more - I've sat through evenings like that myself.

But surely it is much more to do with the tools being used to make the tunes rather than the summing... I mean, a load of tracks all mixed through plasticky built-in Ableton/Reason eqs/compressors will sound that way no matter how you sum it. Putting said plasticky tracks and summing them OTB won't magically make those tunes/sounds/compressors etc suddenly have bags of character...

That's what I would expect. Unless there's a fault ( bug ) then summing is just adding the sample values together. In cubase/Nuendo this is done with 80bit precision. There's no reason why a Reason or Ableton programmer would empoy a method that would degrade the sound.[/quote:3qd2h7tm]

it's most often because they indeed use the same sound sources and fx..... i've heard some slamming stuff coming directly from a laptop, and almost always it begins with custom created samples, patches and fx...

Olaf

 

[bob humid]

[quote="bob humid":2z5qeaxw]I met about a dozen of ppl on live situations (electronic live-jams / acts in the club context) that used ableton live for its great realtime performance (Ableton Live is THE standard for live electronica) and I remember that every each of them suffered of what I would call "a plastique / artificial sounding hifi-nesh". the mixes sounded "ok" but lacked grip, depth and presence and had an extremely similar sonic texture that made all of them sound like similar to each other...

I know exactly what you mean and agree about that 100%, entirely, completely. Couldn't agree more - I've sat through evenings like that myself.

But surely it is much more to do with the tools being used to make the tunes rather than the summing... I mean, a load of tracks all mixed through plasticky built-in Ableton/Reason eqs/compressors will sound that way no matter how you sum it. Putting said plasticky tracks and summing them OTB won't magically make those tunes/sounds/compressors etc suddenly have bags of character...

That's what I would expect. Unless there's a fault ( bug ) then summing is just adding the sample values together. In cubase/Nuendo this is done with 80bit precision. There's no reason why a Reason or Ableton programmer would empoy a method that would degrade the sound.[/quote:2z5qeaxw]

hmm. correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds a bit through that you are not familiar with the sonic artefacts that are produced by reason and live ...

one thing is confusing: even if I don't touch any compressor and EQ in reason or live, the mentioned sonic textures are there... try it for yourself.

therefore and for such purpose adding some pseudo "analog-path"-circuitry with the NEVE1081 does work wonders most of the time!.. while it doesnt't sound so incredible on productions that have been nicely fattened up on a good production station..

my studio mate, who is a real classy sound-designer and producer, loves to work in reason since its so fast and creative and at the end of the day I have to beef up his tunes with a nice NEVE-loaded stem-master...

its just like that... we learned to a accept that fact..

robert

 

[kleinholgi]

Maybe you don´t need both Neve EQs.
Having 1081 and the 1073 as well, it is really luxurous.

But at least one of them is a great enrichment, because no other UAD EQ can give you this kind of silky and smooth sound.

It is not to everyones taste, therefore try and listen yourself - but hurry up...the promotion is nearly over.

If 1073 or 1081 is the better one - hard to decide. 1081 offers a wider flexibility, but the 1073 is the straighter option and easier to handle, usually giving results faster.

If you listen to the demo and you are not blown away after 15 minutes - forget it and save the money.

But I like them both. GUI and workflow are also nice.

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

one thing is confusing: even if I don't touch any compressor and EQ in reason or live, the mentioned sonic textures are there... try it for yourself.

Agreed. I don't have extensive experience with Reason but it was immediately apparent to me that rewiring Reason through Nuendo makes a huge difference. Even their sample playback instrument Redrum sounds better when doing this. Reason is awful software.

Regarding the Neve 1081, I'd go for the 1073 first since you're getting the versatility you need out of the 88RS.

 

[BTLG]

A former reason user myself, I stopped using it because I don't like the idea of a sequencing/sampling program that I have to put work in to make it 'sound good'.

Bottom line - Reason is a great idea with poor execution.

Matt

 

[Paul Woodlock]

[quote="Paul Woodlock":38wdnhtj]

[quote="bob humid":38wdnhtj]I met about a dozen of ppl on live situations (electronic live-jams / acts in the club context) that used ableton live for its great realtime performance (Ableton Live is THE standard for live electronica) and I remember that every each of them suffered of what I would call "a plastique / artificial sounding hifi-nesh". the mixes sounded "ok" but lacked grip, depth and presence and had an extremely similar sonic texture that made all of them sound like similar to each other...

I know exactly what you mean and agree about that 100%, entirely, completely. Couldn't agree more - I've sat through evenings like that myself.

But surely it is much more to do with the tools being used to make the tunes rather than the summing... I mean, a load of tracks all mixed through plasticky built-in Ableton/Reason eqs/compressors will sound that way no matter how you sum it. Putting said plasticky tracks and summing them OTB won't magically make those tunes/sounds/compressors etc suddenly have bags of character...

That's what I would expect. Unless there's a fault ( bug ) then summing is just adding the sample values together. In cubase/Nuendo this is done with 80bit precision. There's no reason why a Reason or Ableton programmer would empoy a method that would degrade the sound.[/quote:38wdnhtj]

hmm. correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds a bit through that you are not familiar with the sonic artefacts that are produced by reason and live ...
....[/quote:38wdnhtj]

That's exactly my point. There's obviously something wrong with it if it's not summing properly ( Unless someone has intentionally introduced some summing anomolies that they think sounds good but no one else does - unlikely I guess )