Helpful ReplyI'm curious about Blue Cat plugs

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gswitz
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2013/09/13 18:16:03 (permalink)

I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs

Anyone have experience?
 
The pictures look interesting and helpful.
 
I don't want to get a lot more of what I already have.
 
I was thinking about the Analysis Pack or the Dynamics Pack.
 
Thoughts?

StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen.
I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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cryophonik
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/13 18:29:51 (permalink)
Blue Cat makes quality plugins, with great prices, and nice features.  They have excellent support, they're very active on forums, and they are among the best as far as timely updates and supporting pretty much every plugin format on the planet.  I have several plugins in the Analysis Pack and they're very cool.  Their "Multi" plugins are really nice for comparing multiple signals simultaneously.  I can't really think of anything bad to say about them.  Have you checked out any of their freebies?

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#2
gswitz
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/13 19:42:19 (permalink)
The free VSTs can't be discovered. Maybe they're VST 3? I should try another version?
 
I'm not even sure what kind of plugins work in Sonar. I've always just used the VSTs.
 
The Blue Cat Vsts come in folders of files, none of which have a vst extension.
 
http://www.bluecataudio.com/Download/Products/

StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen.
I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
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jazzwombat
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/13 19:48:37 (permalink)
Same here: Sonar X1 does not see the Blue Cat plugins on my machine. They are the only ones that do this.
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jbow
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/13 20:23:19 (permalink)
They are too expensive  for me to experiment with....
 
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backwoods
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/13 20:48:40 (permalink)
Too expensive for me too.

 
#6
gswitz
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/13 20:56:02 (permalink)
I found them in a VST folder after installing the DXs.

StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen.
I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
#7
Skyline_UK
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/14 03:55:22 (permalink)
I've got Ozone5 and TRacks so although it's always nice to have more I can't justify this high expenditure.  The offer is a wee bit disingenuous; they're almost discounted to the CW prices on the Blue Cat web site. 

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#8
The Maillard Reaction
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/14 07:39:38 (permalink)
 I like the 3d display in the Analyst pack but when I start using it I find that I can not place the viewpoint, or the point of perspective, where I want to and so I feel like I am looking at a fun animation more than a display of useful information.
 
 You just sort of spin around it and watch it.
 
 I also find that the color scale is not as useful or informative as some of the color scales that are available in competing products such as Nugen Visualizer.
 
 In my opinion the Blue Cat GUIs are very fatiguing to view. They have skin-able GUIs, and so I once made some nice clean and bright knobs for that purpose, but then I decided to simply use the existing alternative products that already have a design that I find pleasant.
 
 best regards,
mike


#9
gswitz
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/14 08:37:50 (permalink)
It's been fun exploring them. I've also looked at the Fab Filter Plugins. I watched their 10 minute videos they have with each plugin. I was sold after watching, but I'm not buying.
 
I'm going to wait a little longer.

StudioCat > I use Windows 10 and Sonar Platinum. I have a touch screen.
I make some videos. This one shows how to do a physical loopback on the RME UCX to get many more equalizer nodes.
#10
bitflipper
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/14 09:48:40 (permalink) ☄ Helpfulby gswitz 2013/09/14 17:21:11
I'll echo what everyone else is saying: you can't fault the quality but they're too expensive relative to comparable products and the UIs, while not unusable, aren't great. To be fair, it's not easy packing that much visual information and features into a UI without it getting messy.
 
FabFilter isn't a great comparison because the FF product line is not as broad and lacks BlueCat's analysis tools. But while FF stuff is also expensive, they've nailed the UI experience, IMO. All the FF tools I own (Pro-Q, Pro-C, Pro-L and Saturn) have become go-to plugins because of that.
 
Voxengo and meldaproductions may be better comparisons. Like BlueCat, their products are wide-ranging and of excellent quality with ugly UIs that are often not laid out in a logical way. But they're priced more attractively than BlueCat's.
 


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mcdonalk
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/14 12:05:32 (permalink)
I bought Frequency Analyst Multi when it first went on sale through Cakewalk. It works as specified with no bugs, and it does exactly what I wanted: Simultaneously display multiple audio/synthesizer tracks in the frequency domain so that I could better understand what I was hearing in my mixes, and when editing patches. I even use it to observe the dynamic frequency spectrum of external synthesizers when their output is digitized into Sonar. Frequency Analyst Pro is a quality piece of software.
#12
javahut
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/14 12:17:22 (permalink)
I've used their Peak Meter Pro VST forever. It's really my go to for a simple meter. Also does some crazy stuff, tracking the signal and creating automation, that can be reversed to be opposite of the levels. Cool plug-ins. Yeah, user interfaces are a little on the "old skool" side. But I tried the compression several years back. It was really one of the best plug-in comps I've used. But already having so many comps, really couldn't get into another "plug-in style" compressor. The sound was killer though. But my go to in that area is always Sonalksis... for quick EQ and compression, Sonalksis is so easy to use, interfaces intelligent with the right info, and sound as good and most of the time better than anything. But I do use Blue Cat Peak Meter Pro in every session, and a lot of times pull up MultiFreq for frequency comparisons between tracks. Very cool stuff. Couldn't resist getting into their newest version of the multi-band mixer, with VST inserts on each band, too... MB7. Very cool little toy for sound design and experimentation. And Blue Cat is great with support and updates for quite a few years now.

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#13
MorganT
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Re: I'm curious about Blue Cat plugs 2013/09/14 19:28:09 (permalink)
+1 on mcdonalk.  Identical experience.

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