# Best Neve Emulation I've ever heard!! - NoiseAsh Audio NEED 31102 CONSOLE EQ



## S R Krishnan (Dec 10, 2019)

Need Console from Noiseash is the best Neve emulation I've ever heard. What are your thoughts after trying this? 

NoiseAsh Need 31102 Console EQ


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## labornvain (Dec 14, 2019)

I agree. I was so impressed with the sound that I ran a sine wave through it and looked at what was happening using Pro Q 3 analyzer. Sure enough, it was doing all kinds of delicious things to the signal. Highly recommend.


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## nas (Dec 14, 2019)

This and the Pultec emulations are very good. I've purchased both.


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## MartinH. (Dec 15, 2019)

Sorry if this is a daft question, but I always have a problem understanding 100% what all thise console thingies do. Does this one just color the signal, or does it also do analog summing emulation? And when people talk about "crosstalk", does that mean left and right channel of a stereo signal influence each other, or does that mean all stereo channels on a console influence all other stereo channels? 

The only console emulation I ever used is from Airwindows (link below) and it works by having a pair of 2 plugin types, one that "encodes" the signal and you put on every track that goes to a bus, and one that "decodes" the summed signal, that goes on the bus where you've sent all the tracks that get summed together. 
Do others work the same way, or are they mostly just one plugin that adds color to each track?





There might not be such a thing, but I was wondering if there is a good one-stop solution for all the console emulation related things including color, channel strips and analog summing emulation, that doesn't use iLok or similar as DRM? I have a hard time hearing the differences (other than the EQ part) myself since I don't have the well trained ears of a pro audio engineer and so most of the products I've found googling are just fancy saturators with more marketing buzzwords to me, with a lack of explanation what it really does on a technical level to the signal. With Airwindows I at least hear that it does _something_ other than EQ (it has no EQ) and saturation, and he explains what it does technically, although I'm having trouble making sense of it on a technical level how that kind of math operation would happen to "sound like a console".


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## emid (Dec 24, 2019)

@MartinH. 

Acustica Audio. You get the pres for all channels and final summing into channel strip. I use their Navy if I need that Neve sound. 



> Navy features a modern Neve 2081 equalizer sampling (A) from a Custom 75 Series console, vintage Neve 1081 (B) equalizer, a large selection of line inputs/microphone preamps/console busses, 2254 reissue compressor (COMP1) and 33609/JD (COMP2). The original NAVY featured a 2000s era Neve 1073 reissue preamp. Neve 1081 EQ reissue circuit. Unknown Neve console line outputs.



Website reference for all Acustica Audio emulatiuons


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## labornvain (Dec 24, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> Sorry if this is a daft question, but I always have a problem understanding 100% what all thise console thingies do. Does this one just color the signal, or does it also do analog summing emulation? And when people talk about "crosstalk", does that mean left and right channel of a stereo signal influence each other, or does that mean all stereo channels on a console influence all other stereo channels?
> 
> The only console emulation I ever used is from Airwindows (link below) and it works by having a pair of 2 plugin types, one that "encodes" the signal and you put on every track that goes to a bus, and one that "decodes" the summed signal, that goes on the bus where you've sent all the tracks that get summed together.
> Do others work the same way, or are they mostly just one plugin that adds color to each track?
> ...



Actually, that was an excellent question. And an excellent idea. I would be extremely happy with a plug-in and summing system that allowed me to drop down menu Neve API or SSL Etc type consoles.

To answer your question, as far as I can tell, this need console emulator uses various Distortion algorithms and filter types to replicate the behavior of a Neve console.

But I wouldn't knock Distortion or saturation plugins, marketing techniques aside. Pretty much what makes vintage analog gear sound good is its distortion. In my opinion, Distortion modeling is pretty much the Holy Grail of digital signal processing. And the quality of such Distortion modeling varies widely amongst different plugins.

It is true that some of them can be quite subtle in their effect. The real magic, however, is when you stack them on every track. Then you will hear a difference clearly

A lot of people never get around to enjoying this stacked effect because the CPU overload becomes quite significant. But it's worth doing even if you have to freeze every track to pull it off.

Lately I am quite enamored with the TG Series from waves. The channel preamp and the mastering plug-in both sound incredible. Especially when you put the channel strips on every channel. It will transform your mix. But it actually won't be very subtle, so it may not work on everything.

Steven slate tape emulator is quite subtle and it won't transform your mix. But when you stack that on every channel it sounds great.

Back to your idea though, it would be awesome to be able to load a plug-in on every track, and then select which console emulation you want to use, like a Trident on electric guitars, a Neve on vocals, and an API on drums.

This is how I tract in a real Studio, so it would be really cool to be able to do it in a DAW.

So make it happen man. I'm counting on you.


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## MartinH. (Dec 24, 2019)

labornvain said:


> But I wouldn't knock Distortion or saturation plugins, marketing techniques aside. Pretty much what makes vintage analog gear sound good is its distortion. In my opinion, Distortion modeling is pretty much the Holy Grail of digital signal processing. And the quality of such Distortion modeling varies widely amongst different plugins.



I love distortion, didn't want to knock it . Just thought "they must be doing more than that". 




labornvain said:


> Actually, that was an excellent question. And an excellent idea. I would be extremely happy with a plug-in and summing system that allowed me to drop down menu Neve API or SSL Etc type consoles.
> 
> [...]
> 
> So make it happen man. I'm counting on you.



Don't count on me, I'm not developing Plugins . But I think Chris from airwindows actually made the thing you mention. Check out these links and videos on those sites: 






BussColors 4 | Airwindows







www.airwindows.com










Channel7 | Airwindows







www.airwindows.com






My understanding is that you put "channel 7" on each track and route them to "console bus 6" to sum them. Make sure you check out the videos, I think there are some things to note about the levels and order of plugins in the chains because there's some encoding and decoding going on that would be thrown off by other plugins. 
I think "buscolors 4" is for when you just want the color without the summing. 

But I really am a bit unsure and was hoping some one here who has more experience with airwindows plugins can chime in.


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## Ashermusic (Dec 24, 2019)

I wonder how many who say "best emulation ever" actually have worked with the real thing? Pultecs are pretty rare.


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## jononotbono (Dec 25, 2019)

Ashermusic said:


> I wonder how many who say "best emulation ever" actually have worked with the real thing? Pultecs are pretty rare.


Only laughing because I agree so much. It's basically the same as "Tape" conversations. I'll just stop here.


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## robgb (Dec 30, 2019)

Whether or not such emulations are accurate, I do like the way plugins like the Waves Puigtech color the sound. Very pleasing. So maybe it doesn't matter how accurate they are.


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