Ableton Forum

Is there anything Uhbik can bring to the table that Ableton's built-in effects can't?

marra wrote:Is there anything Uhbik can bring to the table that Ableton's built-in effects can't?

Yes. The flanger, chorus, filter, and phaser sounds much better, in my opinion.. But I wasn't really impressed with the reverb and delay.

the reverb sounds great to me.

can't get my head around the delay though.

Most of Uhbik is far and above what the ableton native effects are capable of IMO. The Shifter, Flanger, Phaser in particular are heavenly and FAT compared to ableton's.

I use Uhbik a *lot* - but I rarely use the reverb for bread-and-butter uses, I use Ableton's as it simple, I understand what it does and it sounds great to me. The delay is great, I use it when I want to go crazy with delay modulations and whatnot.

Heavenly and FAT?

Please - if you can - show us a demo of something you've done through Uhbik, and a demo of that same thing through Ableton. Honestly, I doubt there's much truth in what you say.

Yeah willsanquil put up some demos

I don't have uhbik plugs anymore, but they were definitely some of the smoothest sounding modulation plug ins I've ever heard.

The Uhbik reverb is great! I often use it tucked way down low, in direct mode, to take sounds that are too dry back a little, so they don't sound like they're stuck to the speakers. It gives quite a different sound to Live's reverb.

The Uhbik delay is one of the rare cases in which an uhe plug-in suffers from a bad interface design IMO. It's really fiddly.

The Runciter is also a nice plug-in. It's not my favorite filter sound, but it definitely doesn't sound like many other filters, especially when overdriven a little. The envelope follower on it is really nice.

And the EQ is surprisingly good once you dig into it. The low and high cuts on that thing are the steepest ones I've ever seen. They are amazingly transparent for something with such a steep slope. And the flex bell setting can do lots of nice stuff. Very nice special-purpose EQ plug-in.

-Luddy

marra wrote:Heavenly and FAT?

Please - if you can - show us a demo of something you've done through Uhbik, and a demo of that same thing through Ableton. Honestly, I doubt there's much truth in what you say.

Honestly, I doubt that statement wasn't rude and obnoxious. Yes, they sound a shitload better than the ableton native plugs - to me anyways, and most if not all of the people who have heard both of them - at least that I've talked to about it. Ableton's native FX pretty routinely get compared to other 3rd party plugs in a not-so-great way.

Anyways, I've done a quick upload of Ableton's phaser vs Ubhik's Phaser, and you can hear it here. The first bit is the raw Operator patch I used, simple saw wave 1/32nds through a LP filter modulated by an LFO.

Second bit is Uhbik. Third bit is Ableton's native phaser. I make no claims that I automated them the same or anything, I just twiddled the knobs on each. Straight out of the gate, Uhbik has more parameters to tweak that effect the sound more.

For one, the Uhbik phaser has more poles, ableton's max is 8 and Uhbik's is 41 or something ridiculous. That's a pretty stark difference.

Do Ableton's sound like complete ass, and are they unusable? No. However, Uhbik sounds SIGNIFICANTLY different, and in a way that is much more pleasing to me and so I use them instead most of the time.

You are totally within your right to say which plugins you like and appreciate more, but if you say that ableton vs uhbik sounds the same or is capable of the exact same thing then you are just lying.

Anyways, here's the file:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ddbd7u

marra wrote: Please - if you can - show us a demo of something you've done through Uhbik, and a demo of that same thing through Ableton. Honestly, I doubt there's much truth in what you say.

heavenly and fat sums it up nicely. Demo the software yourself to decide if you like what it does compared to ableton's.

i personally hear a significant difference. if you don't, good for you. but it's not our case to prove to you that we like the sound of the plugins
 

That's a pretty hefty file for just a phaser test.

I downloaded it just to see what the most thorough sound comparison ever recorded sounds like.

marra wrote:Is there anything Uhbik can bring to the table that Ableton's built-in effects can't?

Runciter is stunning for driving anything to a terrifying overdriven screech and the controls perfect for modulating your way there. Maybe there'd be a long-winded way to arrive at one of Runciter's sounds via Live's native effects, but the control options and progressions available in Runciter aren't possible, I don't think.

The equaliser is also great and use it in completely different ways to live's Eq3 or Eq8, due to the different focus of the controls.

Runciter is responsible for all the overdrive build up on this track: http://soundcloud.com/substance_g/battle-epic

luddy wrote:The Uhbik reverb is great! I often use it tucked way down low, in direct mode, to take sounds that are too dry back a little, so they don't sound like they're stuck to the speakers. It gives quite a different sound to Live's reverb.

big +1 on this -- it's what I use the uhbik A for regularly, and it's proved very useful. This usage is great on vocals among other things, as luddy says to get them 'back' a bit in the mix rather than sounding too up-front.

-M