Unofficial Acustica Master List as of December 2017
(newest updates are Crimson, Ivory, Lemon, Ruby and Azure)
Numbers in parenthesis indicate their Core engine version. For those aquas without version numbers, assume Core6 or below.
Amber (7) - Avalon AD2055 equalizer
Amethyst (10) - EQ A: Amek clone EQ, EQ B: Amek 9098r + Amek 9098 compressor + Amek 2500 & 9098 preamp options. Rupert Neve designed gear. 9098 has a smooth RND - 33609'ish flavor. (thanks @
Will The Weirdo
)
Aquamarine (8) - Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor (formerly the Murano)
Azure - (not released yet) Knif Soma Mastering EQ
Blue - Chandler Germanium Tone Control
Cobalt (10) -Acustica's first dynamic equalizer. Dynamic function is switchable. Officially endorsed by the hardware maker, Luca Martegani. LM 9736 equalizer (improvement upon the Pultec EQP-1a) and the LM 9804 Compressor (Altec Lansing Feedback Compressor improvement).
Coral (9) - A hybrid mastering strip featuring an elliptical filter, transparent equalizer and a soft clipping compressor. SPL Iron mastering compressor and SPL PQ mastering equalizer inspired.
Crimson (11) - Vertigo Sound VSM-2 harmonics generator. Also Vertigo Sound VSC-2 compressor with added Asym (even harmonics) feature. This is Acustica's first featured dynamic saturation/distortion plugin.
Diamond (9 with Ultramatch & Ultrasync) - Endorsed by Luca Pretolesi. Based on a CharterOak PEQ-1 and some other hardware. (thanks @
Viking4
)
Ebony (10) - Elektromesstecknik (EMT) 140 Plate Reverb.
• E111 equalizer: EMT 111 console EQ
• E411 equalizer: EMT 411 console EQ
• E82 equalizer: Eela broadcast 82 console EQ
• D112: EMT 111 console compressor (emulation of the compressor module included in a rare mixing console built in ‘70 by German company. The original design of the desk was simple (in a good way), making it easier to maintain / modify.)
• D277: EMT compressor/limiter 277 (a rare compressor, fairly transparent sound of many ‘70s and early ‘80s records.It’s characterized by a good line preamp inside.)
• D473: Neumann U473 or U473a compressor.
• D82: Eela broadcast 82 console EQ (Compressor module emulation of a rare/vintage Dutch “heavy duty” mixing desk.The company founded in 1975 is recognized as one of the companies who has been dedicated to developing, manufacturing and supplying professional audio products to the Radio Broadcast Industry.)
• Filters E118 are recreated and modeled after EMT filters 118
• Preamps: E111, E411, D112, D277, D82/S (stereo), D473/S Thank you Will the Weirdo for filling in the Ebony gaps...this one was tough!
Emerald (7) - Custom built hardware, loosely inspired by the Klein & Hummel UE 1000 equalizer. The curves practically have the same unique slope as the UE-1000, but the center frequencies are different and the active part of the circuit is more modern/cleaner
Gold (9 with Ultramatch/sync) - 4 Neve equalizers (1066, 33122, a homebrew DIY 1073 clone and an EMI-Neve 1093 which is a 1081 with Marinair transformers) and 2 Neve compressors (2252 and 2254). Neve console inputs/outputs. Plus a variety of tube preamps. The 8254 pre emulation includes a Neve 1272 line amp. 1960s/early 70s era hardware.
Green (7)- George Massenburg Labs Model 8200 equalizer aka GML8200
Honey (7) - 1970s era Harrison 32C equalizer + Harrison console preamp
Ivory (10) - Maselec MEA-2 equalizer (IAE2, year 2017 model), Maselec MLA-4 (Mac-3, multiband compressor/limiter), COMP 1B is a single band derivative of the MLA-4, DynEQ is a dynamic eq derived from MEA-2 & Comp 1B and DynEQ Stereo is a dynamic eq derived from IVORY3 STEREO and
Comp 1B.
Lemon (11) - The first Acqua delay. Features a huge collection of saturation flavors including Eventide Orville,
Lexicon PCM 70, Electro Harmonix Memory Man, Nagra 4.2,
Echoplex and Roland Space Echo 201. (thanks @
SameOh
, more listed at
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12904103-post9304.html). It is the first Acqua to use Core 11 technology.
Lime (9 with Ultrasync/match) - A combination of modern AMS Neve gear. A = VR B = 88RS. C/D = 8051 5.1 Surround Compressor/Limiter E = FJ V Series Channel Strip Preamp F is a Neve 1073.
Magenta (7) - Manley Labs Massive Passive equalizer
Murano - Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor (now called Aquamarine)
Navy (7) - 2000s era Neve 1073 reissue preamp. Neve 1081 EQ reissue circuit. Unknown Neve console line outputs.
Ochre - Free Acustica Audio homebrew equalizer, inspired by the Scientific Audio Electronics (SAE) 2800 equalizer. Features a bridged-T topology (like a Sontec 432), modern opamps and a Sowter output transformer.
Orange - Orban 672A
Pearl (9 with Ultramatch/sync)- Siemens ELA 75-15 Universal Equalizer and Auso-Siemens ELA 75-16 Compressor/Limiter. Just like the hardware, sales for this plugin are limited. The closest plugin to this that is for sale without limitation is the Emerald, as this was Siemens' response to the UE100/UE1000 mastering equalizers.
Pink (8) - API 512c preamp. modified API 550A/550B equalizers with API 2500 compressor (no Thrust [pink female gender button] variables)
Pink 2412 and 7236 (8) - The 2412 is a API 2500 compressor with modifications. 7236 is a triple Pink Multiband Compressor. Various crossover filters from TubeTech SMC 2B, Masalec MLA-3/4 and a custom filter by Acustica.
Purple P-1 (8) - Pultec EQP-1A
Purple M-5 (8) - Pultec MEQ-5
Red - Free plugin. Joemeek VC5 Meequalizer
Ruby (11) - (not released yet) Officially licensed D. W. Fearn VT-4 and VT-5 equalizers.
Sand (9 with Ultrasync) - Solid State Logic 4000 G+ (Ea, black knob) and 5000 (Eb, brown knob) equalizer + SSL G Series Master Buss compressors (2 flavors)
Scarlet MHE-400 (8) - Homebrew Sontec 432 inspired (close to the original, cleaner sounding)
Tan (8) - IGS Audio Multicore Compressor (one band)
Titanium (9 with Ultramatch)- Tube-Tech SMC 2B Multiband Compressor
Ultramarine (9) - Fairchild 670
Versatile - A hybrid between Amber and Green
White (8) - White Sound Mastering WSM PEQ-2.0 (solid state equalizer inspired by the Pultec EQP-1A)
Prime Studio Plugins (powered by Acustica Audio acqua)
Found at
Prime Studio(R) - Plug-ins (before sure to switch the language to English on the top right side)
(thanks @
Avgatzeblouz
for the following information)
Black Series
Black EQ - Apparently a mixture of several devices (guesses : Neve 2068 and/or Neve 1077)
Black Comp - Again, could be a mixture, but smells a lot like a Neve 32264a or Neve 83065, with the addon of different attack times if it is the 32264a, and the lack of 3 release times (100ms and Auto 1&2)
- Black limiter : The limiter section of the 32264a or 83065, or a mixture of both.
Caribou Series - Elements from the Neve 8016 console (previously owned by Caribou ranch):
- Caribou Mix : Neve 1064 input + output stage + Eq
- Caribou Filter : Hi pass + Low pass filters + Input stage (preamp) of the Caribou Mix
- Caribou comp : Neve 2254/A pair of compressors from the same console.
Charly - Tube-Tech SSA 2B Stereo summing amplifier (thanks @
BearOnGuitar
)
Hubbard Squash - Possibly a GML Nova Research Series 7000 Preamp / EQ Module. Very hard to figure out.
Sparkle Series - All elements from an EMI TG 12345 Mark IV/Q console :
- Prime Curve : Eq
- Prime Comp : Compressor
- Prime Mix : input + output stage of 6 different channels (includes Hipass filter and bass Eq)
Acustica Acqua Core Engine Descriptions
Core7: First released with Navy in October 2015. Major CPU and RAM usage enhancements. Zero latency plugins made possible.
Core8: First released with Amethyst and Pink in April 2016. Further computer performance enhancement and major compressor behavior progress. ShMod feature introduced with Pink2412.
Core9: First released with Sand in September 2016. Introduced Ultrasync technology for the equalizers (error minimization) along with internal routing controls. AAX performance enhancements. Since Titanium2's December 2016 release, compressors have Ultramatch technology. Ultramatch minimizes digital compression curves errors
Core10 (aka Core X): Cobalt was the first to officially receive the Core X engine. It provides faster compression timings for more accurate hardware emulation. A multi-input system. CPU savings with a blending algorithm that reduces the number of instances. The plug-in signal no longer exceeds +3 dB.
There's also a new hard clipping algorithm.
Core11: - Introduction of new Delay and Pre-delay modules.
- Implementation of High Efficiency Symmetric & Asymmetric Saturation Modeling (SASM), a high performance saturation algorithm/harmonic distortion modeling characterized by a significantly smaller number of digital artifacts.
Giancarlo's post has more technical details about the Core engines:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/12119768-post18.html
I probably made a few mistakes. Feel free to copy/paste and correct! The vast majority of these are user speculation and have never officially been verified by Acustica Audio.