As someone who has most of the contenders in this category of processors, I think it’s a mistake to try to compare them based on what they “do”. They all do more or less the same thing, which is push the audio toward a curve adaptively, most frequently pink noise but some are based on white, brown, or a learned target.
The big difference is the workflow and how they sound. Each of these has a tone to it, derived from different processing techniques.
A nice comparison is with compressors, which there are many which all do the same thing, but yet a vari-mu, opto, and fet all sound different in their own way.
I’m most curious about how they are being used by pros day to day and what uses they are finding for this type of processing. I’ve seen an engineer who has credits on all sorts of A list projects using them quite liberally on all sorts of sources gently just to provide some evening of the sound and save time, sort of like how a comp would be used in a chain. Lately I’ve been using the waves factory one a lot as a way to bring certain instruments forward in a mix. Seems counter intuitive but I was recommended this use case by the developer in a back and forth and I think it does work. The processed tone is just more appealing to the ear and is noticed more in my experience.
The big difference is the workflow and how they sound. Each of these has a tone to it, derived from different processing techniques.
A nice comparison is with compressors, which there are many which all do the same thing, but yet a vari-mu, opto, and fet all sound different in their own way.
I’m most curious about how they are being used by pros day to day and what uses they are finding for this type of processing. I’ve seen an engineer who has credits on all sorts of A list projects using them quite liberally on all sorts of sources gently just to provide some evening of the sound and save time, sort of like how a comp would be used in a chain. Lately I’ve been using the waves factory one a lot as a way to bring certain instruments forward in a mix. Seems counter intuitive but I was recommended this use case by the developer in a back and forth and I think it does work. The processed tone is just more appealing to the ear and is noticed more in my experience.
Statistics: Posted by motomotomoto — Tue Oct 01, 2024 11:42 pm