Anyone tried Nebula?

[Chaellus]

nebula is the biggest hogging plug...i think at the most you can use 15 at a time on a fast computer.....hence i tihnk they need to re work it but the concept is sweet

[Gordon]

Zaphod, how much mojo can I get out of an Nvidia 9800GT running CUDA with the new versions of the plugins? I know GPUs are better at this type of math than CPUs.

[zaphod]

Originally Posted by Chaellus

nebula is the biggest hogging plug...i think at the most you can use 15 at a time on a fast computer.....hence i tihnk they need to re work it but the concept is sweet

well, we are optimizing and optimizing the engine, new versions will be better. The number of instances depends on what you are loading, they could be a lot more than 15. We don't think we need to re work it very much. We are waiting for faster cpu, in the meanwhile we are expanding our libraries and userbase. I think there is a tradeoff between what you are expecting from a plugin, results and cpu load.
First customers were users who were looking for the closest emulation possible. They bought even without trying the demo. Someone was satisfied, someone not.

Than we had positive reviews, so the interest increased. Someone tested the plug using first dualcores and was happy, someone tested it using slow old p IV and was not excited very much.

With quadracores we had a lot of positive feedbacks, obviously, because the attention is moving from "how much cpu is using" to "is this emulation worth" to "is really better than".

Today you have fast dual xeon, and they are pretty cheap. Using an dual xeon, the cpu load should not be a trouble any more, unless you think to run everything in real time for each possible track of your mix. At the moment the real trouble is the workflow and gui. I think you get many emulations, they are pretty cheap and they are (in my opinion) very good. Sometimes you could replace an expensive hardware gear, so it makes sense.

[electro]

Did you make any improvements with CUDA? What How Much DSP offload would a Nvidia GTX 200 series card provide?

[nicolasmasset]

When is it coming for mac please? Is it still a long way off, or just around the corner? That's all I'd like to know! Pretty please?

[MelodyMan]

Originally Posted by nicolasmasset

When is it coming for mac please? Is it still a long way off, or just around the corner? That's all I'd like to know! Pretty please?

The last i've heard that it was planned for a December-release.

[O'Ryan]

Originally Posted by MelodyMan

The last i've heard that it was planned for a December-release.

From Where ?

[Funkster]

me too!????

don't they have an add that runs here on gearslutz that says it is available for mac now?

I went to there site and couldn't figure anything out?

[MelodyMan]

Originally Posted by O'Ryan

From Where ?

From the forums on nebulaprograms.com, the place where users post torrents with self-sampled stuff.

[zaphod]

the official thread regarding mac osx is this one:
Acusticaudio Forums-viewtopic-Nebula on MAC OSX

there is an other thread on nebula-programs:
Mac OS X :: nebula-programs.com

from there:

Nebula3 free for mac will be released within a couple of months. I hope for 31-12-08, but we are doing so many things at the same time, I don't know if we'll respect the deadline. We are doing our best! We should complete the new website before, because rather confusing for the planned new crowd.

but we are a small company, sometimes our deadlines are not respected.

[nicolasmasset]

So there's this whole discussion on a couple other threads on GS that all digital eq's are practically the same. That with proper tweaking, you can setup up each eq to mimic the same frequency curve, and that it's just primarily the UI and difference in Q's and bells etc that makes it instantly more 'warm' or whatever.

Is this the same for nebula, or will you really get the harmonic distortions that come with the vintage consoles?

[zaphod]

There are a lot of open topics regarding our technology. We mimic harmonic distortion and with a proper amplitude/phase behaviour, sampled from original gear. Not only the clean signal could be described by a amplitude/phase relation, but also harmonics. We sample them.
If we are interested in a dynamic relation, we sample it aswell.
If we are interested in time behaviour, we sample it.
Our technology is cpu intensive, but there is a reason for that. Our approach is a brute force. You need to add a variable, nebula allows that.

[captain caveman]

Originally Posted by nicolasmasset

So there's this whole discussion on a couple other threads on GS that all digital eq's are practically the same. That with proper tweaking, you can setup up each eq to mimic the same frequency curve, and that it's just primarily the UI and difference in Q's and bells etc that makes it instantly more 'warm' or whatever.

You can tell instantly with Nebula that it is different. There is none of the "ringing" around the frequency being EQ'd that you get with digital EQs.

And it doesn't just do EQ remember.

[nicolasmasset]

Originally Posted by captain caveman

You can tell instantly with Nebula that it is different. There is none of the "ringing" around the frequency being EQ'd that you get with digital EQs.

And it doesn't just do EQ remember.

Alright, bring on the mac version then before I spend hundreds of dollars on other plugins! Currently really digging the chandler emi mastering suite.

How are the reverbs? I was planning to buy a powercore for vss3...

[O'Ryan]

Can anyone post some before and after clips. And I'm just asking what would it take to make this plugin Rtas ready ?

[SWAN808]

Originally Posted by O'Ryan

Can anyone post some before and after clips. And I'm just asking what would it take to make this plugin Rtas ready ?

check out this post - and the thread:

Cockos Confederated Forums - View Single Post - i HATE nebula.

[O'Ryan]

Ok Ive download the demo version of nebula and here's what i got to say.

thumbsupPro's

*The sonic qualities are superb, some of the best ive heard natively.
*The ease of interface within switching from pre's to eq's to reverbs.
*The number of emulations the package comes with.
*The Price

tuttCon's


*It is way to CPU intensive ( On my old P4 system 2 instances causes the system to almost halt)
*The mutiband thing is annoying where you have to open up more than one instance of the plugin
*Although the Gui isnt important it is a driving point where it need s dramatic work in this area.
*Downloading those huge libaries from sites all over the place (Which takes forever) and navagating your product website, programs website and forum ( just one Central Site with one login) Make it consumer friendly.

Other wise from that its great software that I think it will develop into something Huge and I will be apart of it with further updates.

Thanks, Just saying my piece

O'Ryan

[angelinadavid]

No i have not heard about it.... but you guys have given more information about this thanks ....

[zaphod]

Originally Posted by O'Ryan

Ok Ive download the demo version of nebula and here's what i got to say.

thumbsupPro's

*The sonic qualities are superb, some of the best ive heard natively.
*The ease of interface within switching from pre's to eq's to reverbs.
*The number of emulations the package comes with.
*The Price

tuttCon's

*It is way to CPU intensive ( On my old P4 system 2 instances causes the system to almost halt)
*The mutiband thing is annoying where you have to open up more than one instance of the plugin
*Although the Gui isnt important it is a driving point where it need s dramatic work in this area.
*Downloading those huge libaries from sites all over the place (Which takes forever) and navagating your product website, programs website and forum ( just one Central Site with one login) Make it consumer friendly.

Other wise from that its great software that I think it will develop into something Huge and I will be apart of it with further updates.

Thanks, Just saying my piece

O'Ryan

agreed on everything. About CPU load, new computers are pretty good with nebula. I suggest at least a dualcore, maybe equipped with a CUDA card.

[O'Ryan]

Originally Posted by zaphod

agreed on everything. About CPU load, new computers are pretty good with nebula. I suggest at least a dualcore, maybe equipped with a CUDA card.

Cool, I understand as for right now my system is underpowered but I stand for the people who won't let go of there old P4 (well a few months for me ).

[mos]

I noticed the Acustic audio website is down... i guess that means the Mac version is coming real soon!

[nicolasmasset]

Originally Posted by mos

I noticed the Acustic audio website is down... i guess that means the Mac version is coming real soon!

Well it's about time!!! I've been holding off a uad purchase for this for almost a year

[Gordon]

Originally Posted by zaphod

agreed on everything. About CPU load, new computers are pretty good with nebula. I suggest at least a dualcore, maybe equipped with a CUDA card.

I've asked this about 10 times on different threads but I've yet to get an answer. What kind of performance can we expect from CUDA from a 9800GT card?

[Eskimo Brain]

Originally Posted by Gordon

I've asked this about 10 times on different threads but I've yet to get an answer. What kind of performance can we expect from CUDA from a 9800GT card?

I'd like to get some more details on this as well. I understand that the vector engine still doesn't run on the GPU, so mainly EQs and some reverbs will take full advantage of CUDA, but how much advantage? And how much difference does a choice of NVidia card (chipset, speed, memory) make? I think you (giancarlo and co) need to address this somewhere in depth, since you've been stressing CUDA support for a while.

[zaphod]

hi,
we are testing nebula on different systems, checking differences caused by OS (windows, mac), by FFT routines (for example in windows you could select FFTW), by CUDA.

In general the memory amount for CUDA is a limitation: you could run out of memory if you plan to load a lot of long tailed reverbs.
Cuda processor doesn't matter too much really, because
1) CUDA is used not for making things faster, but for executing calculations in a different way than using the main CPU.
2) the bottleneck is the data transfer speed which is pretty similar on many cuda devices.

At the moment CUDA is still in betatesting, it means that you could test it without paying for it. We even provided DLL for testing it using our free products in the past, just ask us if you are interested.

Really a fast processor is helping more than CUDA: several customers are opening dozens or even hundreds of instances using new i7 processors. But in nebula reverbs are still CPU intensive, and using CUDA you could achieve a good compromise. On my system, a dual core shipped with a ge force 8800 I save 50% of the main CPU for a long tailed reverb. This happens both for windows and for mac osx (in such case I'm using a geforce 8600M GT) and on different systems, for example a notebook shipped with a geforce 9600M

[Jidis]

Originally Posted by Eskimo Brain

I'd like to get some more details on this as well.

Me three. I asked about it at the tail end of another thread here and never heard back. What all do you need to get in order to try that capability? I bought an 8600GT for this machine hoping to check that out and never have. I've still got what I managed to download from Acusticaudio months ago, so I may already have it.

BTW- I hate to complain about this sort of thing, but that website is still as weird as ever. Also, I just signed in over at Nebula-Programs figuring to check some of those EQs everyone raves about. I'm guessing now you need to buy something in order to download those torrents (or am I missing something)?

Thanks!

[zaphod]

well, we were stopped a bit because I had a big health issue. Things were solved on my side, we'll release new things as soon as possible. The website is on the top of the list. It's ready, we are setting up the e-commerce module.

[zaphod]

if you are a commercial user you are able to test it by yourself. Otherwise download the free product. If you like it contact us using the free forum or send a pm to me. I'll make available those DLL for a free test.

[zaphod]

and yes, you need to buy something in order to test the new eq (doc fear). But I spoke with velinas some time ago, we'll release something for free in the future.

[feck]

Hi Zaphod. ETA on the Mac VST release?