Whats the vote on UAD The Neve 88RS Channel Strip

[Justice]

First I am back from Miami,

Didnt get to slide into the Hit Factory.

But learned a lot. If you can't beat um have the best of both worlds!

On to the subject, UAD-1 I have had one for a while one of my fav's to go to for mixing!

Imma get another card. Hell imma get 5 someday!

What is the word on the Neve 88RS Channel Strip! I know it's hot but are there any problems?

Any users yet?

[cynic one]

Originally Posted by Justice

First I am back from Miami,

Didnt get to slide into the Hit Factory.

But learned a lot. If you can't beat um have the best of both worlds!

On to the subject, UAD-1 I have had one for a while one of my fav's to go to for mixing!

Imma get another card. Hell imma get 5 someday!

What is the word on the Neve 88RS Channel Strip! I know it's hot but are there any problems?

Any users yet?

don't have it.....haven't demo'd it........why not demo it yourself?

[Justice]

cause when I do I want to get the most out of the 15 days. After that you got to drop $299.

Should I check it out and drop my feedback?

[TonyBelmont]

Originally Posted by Justice

cause when I do I want to get the most out of the 15 days. After that you got to drop $299.

Should I check it out and drop my feedback?

Yes...

[Justice]

I'm on it!

I WILL CHECK OUT THE WHOLE BUNDLE THEN! All of the new NEVE new stuff and the LA-3A!

I got a project in the works so it might be a little bit to give you a full real world recap.

But I will get it done ASAP!

[Traxx]

That channel strip is nice...It has a nice beefy sound to it...ppl say the waves ssl buss comp has a way of glueing the mix together, i can't say i got that effect but i can say this neve strip definitely does just that. I think its one of the newer plugs they've released that is worth getting...I would recommend that plug over the 1073 & 1081 plugs. On top of that, i think you can run up to 19 instances of the plug mono if i'm not mistaken..With that said, its does not take a load on the cards cpu...Check it out though, tell us what you think..

[blayz2002]

Demoing it now, had a dude come over last weekend and drop some rap vocals on a track, and his flow was a bit mushy, I used the 88RS eq to low shelf the low end and get some top end on it without over emphasizing the s's, then used the gate just to make em punch a little bit, now the lead vox sounding real present in the mix. I haven't got that vibe out of the Cambridge EQ, Air EQ (although this always give good results, just different) or Trackplug. So yeah I'm buying it at the end of the month when I buy a 2nd UAD 1.

Only bad point I would say at the moment is you have to play with it a bit though to get what you want, but I think I'll get faster with it over time.

Ps..I used the 1176LN to get the vox sitting tight first followed by the 88RS.

Ain't used it on anything else yet, but I'll be finishing this mix over the weekend and will probably use it on something else.

When I finish mixing the track I'll stick up on myspace.

[cynic one]

Originally Posted by blayz2002

Demoing it now, had a dude come over last weekend and drop some rap vocals on a track, and his flow was a bit mushy, I used the 88RS eq to low shelf the low end and get some top end on it without over emphasizing the s's, then used the gate just to make em punch a little bit, now the lead vox sounding real present in the mix. I haven't got that vibe out of the Cambridge EQ, Air EQ (although this always give good results, just different) or Trackplug. So yeah I'm buying it at the end of the month when I buy a 2nd UAD 1.

Only bad point I would say at the moment is you have to play with it a bit though to get what you want, but I think I'll get faster with it over time.

Ps..I used the 1176LN to get the vox sitting tight first followed by the 88RS.

Ain't used it on anything else yet, but I'll be finishing this mix over the weekend and will probably use it on something else.

When I finish mixing the track I'll stick up on myspace.

how's it compare to the cs1 or ex1? i pretty much use those as my go-to strips.......

[t.dizzle]

Originally Posted by blayz2002

When I finish mixing the track I'll stick up on myspace.

Can't hear shit on myspace. Put a snippet up here!

[blayz2002]

Originally Posted by cynic

how's it compare to the cs1 or ex1? i pretty much use those as my go-to strips.......

Don't really use those 2, but I try doing a comparison and post my thoughts

Originally Posted by t.dizzle

Can't hear shit on myspace. Put a snippet up here!

Will do when it's done.

[Franco]

I've been using it the last couple of weeks. I had a Duende that I sold and got rid of because my system was having issues with it, and I couldn't work for more than 1/2 hour with it without a crash in PT (LE). Sometimes I would get lucky and was able to work on a mix using the Duende for an hour.

I liked the Duende's channel strip/bus comp, but I just had to let it go, too many problems. 2 weeks after I sold it, UA announced the 88RS channel strip and I thought it could be the replacement to the Duende (without the crashes of course, since I've got 4 UAD-1 cards and all the plugins with the exception of the Dimension D).

The only thing I regret about letting the Duende go before I got the 88RS is that I can't do a side-by-side comparison on how much the 88RS kicks ass in comparison, so what I'm hearing now, is only from memory of using the SSL channel strip and now the 88RS.

The 88RS isn't supposed to have the "vintage" tone of an older Neve console, the real 88RS is a "modern-sounding" console. From recollection, the compressor on the 88RS just sounds better to me than the Duende's, it's clean, but it adds a sort of "silk" to the sound. The gate is really natural-sounding (love using the EQ as a side-chain input to the compressor as a de-esser as well) and the lo/hi filters are dope as well.

Cynic, I've always had the CS1 and the EX1 and never used them, the Duende was a much better channel strip, but now the 88RS (IMHO) completely outshines the Duende, I wish I could have more DSP power, that's about it (Justice, you can only use 4 cards per system).

[t.dizzle]

Originally Posted by Franco

the 88RS (IMHO) completely outshines the Duende

How so? I know that they have issues with Macs and RTAS, but the Duende is killin' the game on my pc!!! It's badass.

[Franco]

I've got an AMD Athlon-based DAW, running on XP, a Magma chassis where I've got my UAD-1s and even went as far as getting an Adaptec firewire card to be used specifically for the Duende. My ASUS motherboard is supposed to be compatible, everything basically, but for one reason or other, the Duende never worked great on my system (SSL's verdict on my issue was that something in my system was causing a problem, even though that after I removed the Duende, I haven't had any issues at all with system crashes, maybe it's just not meant to be).

The EQs on the Duende are good, and what I liked about them was the punch that it would give things, it's definitely what people expect from an SSL I guess, clean and lots of punch. The 88RS, it's clean also, but there's a certain amount of what I'm calling "silk" that it adds to the signal, it's not as punchy as the Duende, and I wouldn't say it's rounder, but it does something really nice to the transients of whatever you put it on.

The compressor on the 88RS seems like it can be pushed harder without sounding harsh, and the gate/de-esser to me sounds better on vocals than the Duende did and I like the sound I'm getting using the 88RS and the other Neve EQs in comparison to what I was getting from the Duende/Neve EQs. Again, just my opinion. I know most prefer SSL for a Dre/Neptunes type of sound, but most of the stuff I work on is on the Buckwild/Beatminerz type of sound, and for me, the 88RS works better.

The Duende was $1,500 and I got just about that when I re-sold it (lucky for me they kicked up the price recently so I was able to sell it for almost what I bought it for), and the 88RS cost me about $300 (got the LA-3A plug and the Roland chorus plug as part of a promotion they had going on, plus another coupon I had on deck with them). The only downside is the power, I have to be more conservative now so I can't just slap the plugins anywhere, but to be honest, I was never using more than 8 instances of the Duende anyway, since I like these channel strip-type plugs on buses only.

Just me though, and taking the Duende out of the equation and just evaluating this for what it is, it's a good tool to have alongside all the other Neve stuff that UA has (probably not a fair comparison, since I honestly have to say that if my Duende didn't give me the problems it did, I most likely would have kept it, but now having the 88RS, I'm really not missing it much at all).

[t.dizzle]

That sucks for you man. Sorry. No issues whatsoever for me...And I'm using an Adaptec FW card too. At least you found something that's even better for what you're doing!

[Justice]

Originally Posted by Franco

I've got an AMD Athlon-based DAW, running on XP, a Magma chassis where I've got my UAD-1s and even went as far as getting an Adaptec firewire card to be used specifically for the Duende. My ASUS motherboard is supposed to be compatible, everything basically, but for one reason or other, the Duende never worked great on my system (SSL's verdict on my issue was that something in my system was causing a problem, even though that after I removed the Duende, I haven't had any issues at all with system crashes, maybe it's just not meant to be).

The EQs on the Duende are good, and what I liked about them was the punch that it would give things, it's definitely what people expect from an SSL I guess, clean and lots of punch. The 88RS, it's clean also, but there's a certain amount of what I'm calling "silk" that it adds to the signal, it's not as punchy as the Duende, and I wouldn't say it's rounder, but it does something really nice to the transients of whatever you put it on.

The compressor on the 88RS seems like it can be pushed harder without sounding harsh, and the gate/de-esser to me sounds better on vocals than the Duende did and I like the sound I'm getting using the 88RS and the other Neve EQs in comparison to what I was getting from the Duende/Neve EQs. Again, just my opinion. I know most prefer SSL for a Dre/Neptunes type of sound, but most of the stuff I work on is on the Buckwild/Beatminerz type of sound, and for me, the 88RS works better.

The Duende was $1,500 and I got just about that when I re-sold it (lucky for me they kicked up the price recently so I was able to sell it for almost what I bought it for), and the 88RS cost me about $300 (got the LA-3A plug and the Roland chorus plug as part of a promotion they had going on, plus another coupon I had on deck with them). The only downside is the power, I have to be more conservative now so I can't just slap the plugins anywhere, but to be honest, I was never using more than 8 instances of the Duende anyway, since I like these channel strip-type plugs on buses only.

Just me though, and taking the Duende out of the equation and just evaluating this for what it is, it's a good tool to have alongside all the other Neve stuff that UA has (probably not a fair comparison, since I honestly have to say that if my Duende didn't give me the problems it did, I most likely would have kept it, but now having the 88RS, I'm really not missing it much at all).

Great feedback, I was gonna use them with a 8 channel sub-group in Nuendo. I'm sure it EQ's in Stereo right?

[blayz2002]

Originally Posted by cynic

how's it compare to the cs1 or ex1? i pretty much use those as my go-to strips.......

Originally Posted by blayz2002

Don't really use those 2, but I try doing a comparison and post my thoughts

Did a comparison last night (only on the same vocal track I was mixing) and the main difference I was hearing was that, the CS1 (same eq as the EX1) sounded a lot thinner and and less warm, also as the reason I pulled the 88RS up on the vocal track in the fist place was to try and make the main vox cut through the mix, the CS1 just wasn't giving me that.

Originally Posted by Justice

Great feedback, I was gonna use them with a 8 channel sub-group in Nuendo. I'm sure it EQ's in Stereo right?

Yep Mono and Stereo versions.

[blayz2002]

Originally Posted by blayz2002

Demoing it now, had a dude come over last weekend and drop some rap vocals on a track, and his flow was a bit mushy, I used the 88RS eq to low shelf the low end and get some top end on it without over emphasizing the s's, then used the gate just to make em punch a little bit, now the lead vox sounding real present in the mix. I haven't got that vibe out of the Cambridge EQ, Air EQ (although this always give good results, just different) or Trackplug. So yeah I'm buying it at the end of the month when I buy a 2nd UAD 1.

Only bad point I would say at the moment is you have to play with it a bit though to get what you want, but I think I'll get faster with it over time.

Ps..I used the 1176LN to get the vox sitting tight first followed by the 88RS.

Ain't used it on anything else yet, but I'll be finishing this mix over the weekend and will probably use it on something else.

When I finish mixing the track I'll stick up on myspace.

Originally Posted by t.dizzle

Can't hear shit on myspace. Put a snippet up here!

Originally Posted by blayz2002

Don't really use those 2, but I try doing a comparison and post my thoughts



Will do when it's done.

Sorry forgot I was gonna post this up when done.

Here's snippet of the finished.
for ref the Lead Vox mic chain is AT4033a > Presonus Tube Pre (don't laugh sorting that next month!) > EMU1820m UAD Neve 88RS > UAD Pultech.

I'm open for comments on the mix.