Nebula presets emulation list

I get requests once in a while about which hardware was sampled in my online shop. For those wishing to get their heads around what I sampled for Acustica Audio’s Nebula download the PDF list below check it out.

http://www.henryolonga.net/Nebula/Nebulapresets_Emulation_preset_list_04-10-12.pdf

Best wishes
Henry

New website launched

If you have ever downloaded my nebula presets, you may have heard that I have become a third party developer for Acustica Nebula.  This is a fantastic opportunity. I have just launched my new website and it is called http://www.nebulapresets.com

Go on over and have a look. Upgrade your audio experience. All the best

Henry

Free Mastering tools for Q-clone


PLEASE NOTE THAT I NOW HAVE A NEW SHOP FOR ALL MY PRESETS AND ANY OLD POSTS REFERRING TO MY OLD SHOP ARE NOW DEFUNCTAll my presets are now here

Been busy again and added a few free Q-clone presets for your professional use all for FREEEEEEEE!!!!! These are mainly good for adding presence in the high end to tracks. Some do subtle things like add ‘zip’ or ‘fizz’ as I call it while some tighten things a little. Most are easy to hear so experiment with diferent sources. These are really aimed at full mixes as if you add too many in your mix it can get a little too hard – if you have dull stuff then go for it!!!!

Get the package here – Henry_Olonga _Mastering_tools.zip

Also Check out my free Nebula Distortion presets that add that analog glow to tracks to help get rid of ‘digititus’.

Power Distortion

Henry Olonga’s Commercial libraries for Q-clone

Have fun!!!

Realtime mixing experiences of a Nebula lover …..

PLEASE NOTE THAT I NOW HAVE A NEW SHOP FOR ALL MY PRESETS AND ANY OLD POSTS REFERRING TO MY OLD SHOP ARE NOW DEFUNCTAll my presets are now here

This is a small diary of someone who loves using Nebula but hates that it is a CPU hog.

One of the most frustrating experiences with mixing in Nebula is trying to get a real time workflow. My setup comprises a powerful server and workstation. Both identical beasts from 2007 but not prepared to upgrade just for the sake of a plugin. They are choking with full resolution mixing.

The question I ask is this. What value is there to turning down the kernels in Nebula’s master page? The setting is normally at 10 and there is the option to turn that down to clean. Both machines would be set this way prior to mixing. The theory would be that I would be able to then get higher instances with much lower cpu usage. At render time I would then turn kernels up all the way to max. The idea comes about because in Sony Vegas for video – what most folks do edit in a lower resolution but render with full quality settings. Mixing or editing anything at full quality in realtime is always a strain for most programs of this kind – audio and video – especially if heavy compute-intensive plugins are employed.

I understand that mixing is intuitive and that you mix into what you get out of the monitors but the sound with the clean kernels vs the distortion version should quite similar right? Won’t we be just missing a little bit of distortion here and there due to the harmonics? Perhaps not enough to drastically shift the mix? That is what I propose.

This plugin is too good not to use but it modifies my workflow too much to simply enjoy it. By that I mean bouncing tracks all the time to just get the project to keep playing. For me, the last hurdle I have to traverse is getting nebula to play as nice as my other VST plugins without constantly dragging my system to its knees.

I did a quick subjective test here at home clean vs full and the differences existed but were not enough to stop me working. Will keep on trying to go this route over the next few days with reflections and thoughts – it shows promise but still quite a way to go yet. I tell you what it would be good to hear of possible compromises from the experts who use Nebula often. Kind regards. H

Edit – Friday session. With an Alexb console with all kernels enabled on my server one of my eights cores has 35 % usage( Alex’s libraries usually are very high quality sampled at 96 khz.) And I was using FX-teleport by the way. Now by going clean – my one core uses only 14 % . Blimey, but if I may say so myself, that is quite a power saving. Now if it translates to smooth editing then then it may be worth it to avoid the usual start stop nature of Nebula rendering. Again the idea is to edit this way and then the Kernels to full for final render. Testing continues.

Edit – Saturday. Been working on a mix today that I have had in mind to do for a few months. Not really complex at all – Piano, drums, bass, Vocals and a few instruments. And so far so goo. For the first time in my life I can mix in realtime in Sonar X1 using Nebula without having to bounce. More in depth details coming soon. Anyway – for those who are really curious – this is my current computer setup.

I need to mention that all of my work is at 96 khz by the way so I am really pushing the limits of my studio.

DAW -Sonar X1c build 319
Running on Windows 7 64 bit versions
I have two self built tower 3 Ghz intel Xeon workstations running on TYAN motherboards. These are very stable and made for servers and have server memory with error correction as well. These take Dual CPUs(Cloverton CPU) so this gives me 16 cores in total with server. The total power of two computers networked together this way is actually comparable to the top of the line very expensive Dual CPU Intel Xeon server today if one can access all the power available. That is the challenge. The server linked together give similar power to servers costing many thousands. I built my server for £ 800. An i7 based computer makes this a clever way to go. Better to have two or three cheap computers networked than one behemoth that costs an arm and a leg wisdom suggests.
The servers are networked together with 3 Gigabit Ethernet lan cables ( 3 ports teamed together by using Link Aggregation through an HP procurve 1810G-8 – this gives me more bandwith )
Both machines have 16 GBs of RAM each
Installed as well are 4 TC Electronic powercore cards – Two powercore express cards and two PCI-X. This produces a very, very stable setup. I own and still posses the fire wire but it was a waste of time for me. Badly written drivers and too many blue screens of death. I think that with Vienna ensemble pro with all its delay compensation then these DSP solutions may become very useful again.

I am using the server version of Nebula on this occasion. All 3 versions of Nebula are set to Clean in the master page i.e there are no harmonics set. ( As I alluded, I will change this setting once I have finished mixing to full and then do the final bounce ). What in essence this actually does is turn nebula into a plugin like my much loved Q-clone. You will get the curve but not the distortion – so yes you can make a decent mix with decisions that remain more or less in keeping with your decisions. I would need to do repeat this in the three plugin DLLs I use. The local reverb, the local compressor version ( I use this to run eqs and other non long tail libraries ) and finally the server version – you need to leave simple mode and enter guru mode to adjust the server settings locally)

Edit – Saturday afternoon and I am finally finished going through various settings of optimizing the system. I had to go back to basics and check my Nebula xmls to make sure all was well.. 😀 . Hallelujah!!!!! So far so good!!!! I think this may be the way to go for me. I can finally do this thing without bouncing. It means I can get a little more than double the instances with this setup on the server.

I am mixing with other cpu hungry plugins as well which helps with the core balancing such as Q-clone, VSL Panner, Valhalla stuff, Waves, Lexicon and many powercore plugins.

The TC Electronic powercore stuff is invaluable as the quality is excellent with very little cpu strain. I know that they are not being developed for anymore but they are incredible value for mixing now in a hybrid way even though everything is moving towards native CPU processing. Ebay sees some cards going for like just over a hundred bucks now and some have nice plugin licenses too boot. I saw one go unsold for 80 bucks recently. Too bad I have all my slots filled up. This does actually allow me to balance my mixes without relying too heavily on Nebula for everything which is an important consideration. It also allows more cpu to be allocated to Nebula if you get my drift as less is being used on other non essential things. For example the filters of the Sonnox eq are on lots of stuff and the reverbs are high quality too.

For the first time in a LOOOOOOOOOng time while editing, I am not pulling my hair out over the joys of using nebula. It can be a bitter sweat pill to use this plugin. It sounds like no other plugin, emulating the sounds of classic, modern analog and digital hardware with aplomb. I have have observed a bit of a bug with regards to poor core balancing of the Acustica server. One core loads more than the others and when it is near its limits this leads to crackling way before the system is heavily taxed. I have even set the dspbuffer size to full as suggested by Giancarlo but this issue remained. Will watch that as the mix builds up. Also not really happy with the local CPU usage when using the server version either. I am supposed to be saving power and it seems a minimal saving. On previous excursions I have found that FX teleport uses so much less power locally so perhaps some more optimization of the server version can happen. Love the fact that the GUI is local however. Great job on that Gaincarlo. 😉

Assuming this works, why hasn’t someone thought of this before? After all this it may be that the Econo mode on the front page is the same as what I am doing. Not sure what it is for to be honest.

Edit – Saturday evening . Using the server version of Nebula. Problems. We have lots of intermittent dropouts piling up once I add more than five Server plugs. Not a deal breaker so far as I still have plenty of power on the main machine but this is not ideal. Decided that I will use the server machine for all buss work. Seems to hit my local CPU the most if I put one one the master out for example..

Edit Sunday morning – late at night. Well guys I am pleased to say that in spite of the issues this little experiment worked. I was able to get from the start of my mix to its conclusion without dealing with the usual issues surrounding needing a little more power. The mix sounds stellar and I am absolutely over the moon!!!!:D

I am of course working at 24 bit 96 khz with the server running at 20% CPU and the main machine running at 54 % beautifully balanced on the cores. In Soanr by the way and yes it also has the CPU core bug thing going on. It has had it for as long as I can remember. Task manager says that the cores are beautifully balanced but Sonar X1 insists that one core is working harder than the rest. And yes you bet – if that core gets close to max – forget having access to the rest of your ubher expensive CPU power. The system splutters, spits and grinds to a halt eventually. I still cannot believe they haven’t sorted this out after so many years. On a few non-nebula projects this issue is none existent but once I use Nebula – forget it.

4 Nebulas are on the server – doing all the buss work – as stated before – five is a no go. Tape booster, R2R and some drums presets.20 % Total CPU used.

4 Powercore cards that are almost fully loaded. Out of 4 cards 1 is free.

7 Nebulas Non-reverb on main machine doing eq and console duties.

So not a lot going on but I had previously bounced down most of the instruments via Nebula already. 29 Channels in total and managed to even run in realtime as a trial.

I certainly haven’t reached the limits yet but it seems I may not be not be far off and I am annoyed that although I have more power available I cannot access it. I am sure mixing at full res would have been tricky all the same. As an overall observation, it was so much more responsive with the kernel master setting on clean.

So what was the difference if any? Well with all the kernels initiated the whole song just gelled a whole lot more and was obviously warmer and deeper. My Mix decisions were intact however and I would not hesitate to mix this way.

Will try Monday with Reaper and FX teleport which uses up more of my server cpu without the core issue.

One of the first benefits of Reaper is that it allows the parameters of the remote FX of FX teleport to be adjusted locally. Yes it is just sliders but this is atounding. I never knew this was possible. Justin – you are a true programmer. This is such a useful feature as it means that once you have loaded a plugin you can control it locally with your local mouse.

Monday evening update. Finally migrated my project across to Reaper and guess what – it is soooooooooo much better with Nebula. 24 tracks going here at 96 Khz. I am using it with FX teleport and my server has 13 Nebulas loaded. Total CPU is twenty percent and the cores are balanced beautifully. Powercores have 9 DSP chips free. Local CPU is 30 % and there is not a glitch.

In theory I could run 60 instances of Nebula with my server alone in clean mode. WOW. Practice may prove a little less but WOW, WOW, WOW!!!!!!!

Here is a screen shot of my server while using reaper. The Local screen shot is similar but at 30%. ZERO GLITCHES!!!!

Goodbye Sonar. Never again when it comes to final mixing. Smooth editing and boy is Reaper snappy.

Okay I am done testing now. Conclusions. If you have to have realtime performance with Nebula while editing, then these are my suggestions. Don’t try and mix at full resolution in realtime unless you have a super computer with SSDs, the fastest CPU available and oodles of RAM.

Try using Reaper – the snappy editing and the core balancing with glitch free playback makes other daws seem rubbish. To increase the available DSP power for nebula us FX teleport, reamote, VSL Ensemble pro or the server version from Acustica. Add one instance of the server plugin and set it to Clean only in the master page ( Kernels ). Do the same for any local plugins. Restart project. You can find your own middle ground for this. Some may get away with mixing with three kernels for example.YMMV based on how powerful your computer is. Mix in Realtime to your hearts content. Trust me – you probably won’t run out of power any time soon if your server is as powerful as your main computer.

Once finished mixing, Set one instance of the server plugin and any local plugins to Full Resolution in the master page of all your Nebula versions – Kernels setting is 10 ( 9th harmonic ) when at full res. Restart the project and render. Figure out if you are happy – bear in mind that the render with harmonics will sound somewhat smoother, fuller and more 3D depending on your emulations etc so when making mix buss plugin decisions bear that in mind.

Job done. See ya 😀

By the way I have been hesitating to make this move to Reaper myself. Having used Sonar since 1999 I have become somewhat used to using it for most audio editing but the workflow changes they put into Sonar X1 meant I was almost learning a new DAW. So I have just concluded I may as well learn Reaper. Had a licensed copy for a few years and upgraded every time but never had the incentive for the big move. Now that I have seen the power – there is no going back. For mixing I mean. Sonar is still easier for me when it comes to editing midi.

Mammoth EQ from ANALOG IN THE BOX!!!

Well guys – it is finally here. The most anticipated release of 2010 in the nebula community is here – it is called the Mammoth EQ and it is released by Analog in the box. This EQ is the nuts and it is the sweetest thin I have ever heard in the box if I may so. I have been beta testing it and it is the best emulation/sampling bar none that I have ever heard of this make of eq. Never harsh and always respectful of the audio.
If you own nebula and are a mastering/mix engineer who works ITB – this is a no brainer – in fact – at 15 Euros, it’s a steal.

Long live Nebula!!!!!! What are you waiting for go and buy it…… you won’t regret it.

http://analoginthebox.com/mammoth_eq.php

Smooth Eq Q-clone expansion pack by Henry Olonga

20060103211715441

All my presets are now here

‘Smooth eq – expansion pack for Waves Q-clone’. The smooth mix….

Demo of samples

Get the DEMO here

I am very excited to offer the second expansion pack of this nature available anywhere to my knowledge.

This package is modelled on an EQ that has true NEVE pedigree. The man himself made this one in other words. It can be described as well – smooth and sweet perhaps – never harsh and never really shrill it has a pillowy sound that works well when you do not want a hard sound. This release works well in tandem with my first release Superlative EQ . Superlative Eq is a slightly harder sound, glassy perhaps or diamond topped as they say.
This package took me five days to put together so I hope you will appreciate the time and effort put into making this a tool for your super fast mixing.

This set of presets is sampled to the highest specifications such that the difference between the sampled hardware and the sample you use is in the magnitude of negligible. This is truly analog sound in the box with no compromises. This set is sampled using Orpheus by Prismsound and is considered by some to be among some of the best convertors in the world. I have used short DIY gold tipped cables to connect the hardware to the box so there is virtually no loss in quality.
Don’t settle for emulations costing far more and sounding inferior. Get great quality presets from my blog in the coming months.
Welcome to a new way of mixing. Basically I have taken the hard work out of your hands by spending hours studying recordings to find settings on my hardware that are generic enough to be used by a wide range of people on a wide range of instruments. But you might say – what if I don’t like your mixing decisions……don’t worry – I have given you plenty of wiggle room as each folder has numerous presets with subtle and also vast differences.
Next unzip the package and place the folder anywhere but in the Q-clone folder as it slows down the loading and the menu system is not that intuitive. I suggest you place them anywhere and use the load dialogue. On windows set the open dialogue explorer window to ‘list’ so that all the presets are visible without the need to scroll. The way to do this is to right click – go to view – and choose list. Not sure of a Mac.
The package contains 862 presets. They are grouped by instrument but please note that some instruments
from the same family differ so much in timbre that no preset is perfect every time. However because there are so many you will find that some presets overlap in their usability. A preset made for a piano may well suit electric guitars and those made for kick drum may well work on bass. There are no effective rules so please just go ahead and experiment with what sounds work for you.
At this point perhaps you may want to download my other free offering that compliments this library perfectly from my blog http://www.henryolonga.net/Blog/?p=266 . This package you want to unzip- and place in your q-clone presets folder which is in the Waves folder in program files. This is because you want to have this available to you in the preset menu. This will come in handy when you like a preset but wished it had an adjustment somewhere such as less bass : in that case you could use the high end tracking eqs low shelf to remedy this or use the other eqs in Q-clone. Simply use the add feature in q-clone to add the adjustment using this high end tracking eq. And it also allows you to mix just with that particular eq and avoid my decisions altogether – but what’s the fun in that hey…..
You may also want my other presets library ‘colour mix’ which adds even more flexibility to mixing.
http://www.henryolonga.net/Blog/?p=478 . Some eye opening stuff there. Again – probably best not to place it in your q-clone presets as it is a vast library.
Once you have unzipped the ‘Superlative eq expansion pack for Waves Q-clone’ and placed it in a convenient location such as the audio drive you use, you will want to take this package for a test run………..q-clone is so simple that even a novice could mix with it………just click load, chose a preset and off you go.If you like it ….great – if you don’t, try another until you smile……..
I suggest you use these first in your chain on a track. Obviously the buss stuff is exempt but I find that with the tight kits for example – if I compress after the Q-clone preset with a good compressor like CL 1B or Sonnox dynamics, it sounds crazy good. The full mix and drum folders may help lift your mixes to give them a more polished sound. You may want to use these sparingly as the polished sound of the eq may begin to build up and you can go way OTT quickly and it becomes a harsh brittle mix quickly. So use if you have material that is dull or flat. But on the right material these can be incredible. Once in a while there is a bizarre bug in the plugin that may either make the volume 12 Dbs or – 48 Dbs. So if you get your head blown off or hear nothing – check the level meter. All of the presets were sampled at unity gain so simply get things back to zero and re-save the preset.
Also because of this please make sure you trim your track input by maybe 15 – 20 Dbs. In Cakewalk Sonar I just go all the way to minus 18.This is good audio gain staging anyway. There are also some really loud presets so please take care when loading them. Never run the plugin into the RED – it does not saturate so clipping is hard digital clipping that is very unpleasant. Please leave a comment on my blog if you enjoy the use of these samples and if you really dig them it will be of great encouragement to me to sample more stuff.

http://www.henryolonga.net/Blog/?tag=q-clone-impulses

The other thing you could consider is sampling your own gear and sharing that too…..
Good luck mixing with this, it is my first Preset packaged eq for Q-clone and I hope it gives you absolutely first class results.
Best wishes.
Henry

Happy new year and more q-clone magic

henry_sampling

All my presets are now here


NB: THIS POST WAS FOR A PROMO PERIOD THAT RAN OUT MANY MONTHS AGO. There are still some free samples to demo here.

Happy new year everyone and to start the year on a good note I thought I would surprise you with six new q-clone packages.About 2400 odd audio snapshots in total.
Enhance your investment with q-clone by adding these presets to your colour palette.The links are near the pictures at the bottom of the page.

Check out my first commercial release here for £10 in this post.

ALL PAYPAL purchases go here

Check out the Free High end tracking eq blog post

Demo of samples

The first is my colour suite.I have sampled lots of stuff in my studio and a studio I visited to make these babies.There is some Crazy good stuff here.Most of this is application driven whereas the rest are just settings snapshots with the odd application.Stuff I didn’t know q-clone could sample like short reverbs which adds a depth unlike anything I can describe.Check out the ‘odd stuff’ folder if you are into sound design.

Some will be useful to you in some situations and on others – walk on by.Remember there are no rules – guitar presets can work for vocals or synths etc.Experiment.As with all the previous samples I gave I suggest you add the files to a folder outside your Waves Q-clone folder as having them all in there slows it’s loading time.( only bummer is q-clone defaults to the last opened location ) The high end eq release is useful in the Waves folder in case you wish to add anything to your loaded preset like a cut/dip or boost.Overall however I suggest for you to use the open dialogue instead of the preset drop down menu.Up to you.

PLEASE note – there is a bug in Q-clone that sometimes has the volume go to either 12 dbs or -48 dbs.Just set the eq back to 0 and save it.Also because of this please make sure you trim your track input by maybe 10 – 15 dbs.You don’t want a nasty shock……………there are also some really loud presets so please take care when loading them.

Couple of suggestions………..
1st – suggest (again) to use the load ( open preset dialogue ) instead of downloading them into your q-clone presets folder.On windows set the open dialogue box to – right click – view – list.This will make all the presets visible.Dunno about mac.

2nd -obviously these are no good for tight notches and don’t work on everything so augment their use with your other eqs.An example may be that you like a preset but it is too bassy.Well simply use another eq to sort that out or remove resonance etc..

3rd – I suggest use these first in your chain on a track.Obviously the buss stuff is exempt but I find that with the tight kicks for example – if I compress after the Q-clone preset with a good compressor like CL 1B or sonnox dynamics,it sounds crazy good.

The rest are high end EQs.Enjoy… and let me know if these help you mix better.

All my presets are now here

pultec

desk

tg_passive

enhanced_pultec

Free transparent Analog panning impulse responses

I have not given much free stuff away over the years on the site so this is the start of a new era.I made these analog panning impulse responses for my own mixing purposes and thought they were too good not to share.
The great thing is that they allow you to get beyond the limits of pan law within your DAW and can add great width and precise placement in your mixes.The impulse responses are CPU light in your convolution reverb and they sound good as they were sampled at 96 Khz.Obviously the source materials original panning will affect how these impulses respond.
Don’t be fooled by how small the impulses are.Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

You will need to kill the dry signal and have wet at 100% and obviously needs to used on a stereo track – N.B source can be mono.

If theses files are useful to you please leave a comment

henryolonganet-free-analog-panning

Check out my first commercial q-clone release here for £10.

All my presets are now here