that’s what I meant 
may be not so gentle 
…and not to be used for final masters but on my live act.
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Of course you can use it any fashion you mention, but as PlayRecords pointed out what we are discussing here is slapping this thing on the master bus which is ‘normally’ a completely different approach to saturation. If it doesn’t work subtlety enough it will color the master too much and sound like shit.
The reality is until we get this thing wired up in our studios its very hard if not impossible to tell from youtube vids etc whether this unit will work for that very subtle application.
As mentioned it has all the required parameters so I am hoping so, but not a little worried worried if not, as I and most people are not buying this thing for its ‘mastering’ application.
Other products similar are advertised extensively for mastering applications i.e. Elysia and Thermionic CV and the myriad of mastering saturation plugins currently available, and excel at this extremely subtle saturation.
Due to the implementation of dry/wet/parallel processing, I don’t see what’s stopping anyone from making it sound as subtle as they desire. You could put distortion on full blast, hi pass the hell out of it, and just make it whisper in the background if that’s what you wanted. I plan on making tons of different presets exploiting its ability to be something new. It achieves the same ends as conventional means, but allows so much control & customization. I plan on it being the final step before calling a track finished. I don’t know if that’s considered mastering or not in a legitimate sense.
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Totally!
Is there any news? Someone tried?
For glueing and higher RMS I use a TK Audio BC-1S.
Wonderful thing that glues but stays clean.
Warmth (distortion) I make with an tube preamp before the compression.
There is however a vintage two track masterrecorder in the corner of the room waiting for some tape …
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Not sure I’d reach for a distortion unit to ‘glue’ a mix? Compressor or tape, yeah… Distortion over a mix I guess gives all the instruments/sounds a kind of blanket to share which I guess is a kind of glue, but don’t know if it’ll do what you’re talking about? Never tried tho. I normally try a few distortions/bitcrushers etc on the Mixbuss and use something there, but I’ve never used it as a substitute for comp/tape. Be cool if one/some of the AH distortions can do that kind of thing tho.
Edit - I thought this was a new thread! Not the ‘mastering’ can of worms. I didn’t mean to add to the semantics roundabout Ignore what I just wrote unless of any use…
Thanks for the tip!
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Your welcome
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I’ll let you know when mine arrives
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AH here in SouthItaly !!
First impression: l like it, quite a lot…!
It can behave as intended, as a dynamic processor, as a transient shaper, as a pseudo stereoizer (something, obviously, disappears in mono), as a normal filter+eq, as a filter fx…it can do many many things!
And, of course, creates huge crunchy and tasty sounds from sterile sources.
Someone complains about the price…it can be high, but if you think of the multitude of features it has, well, it pays itself.
@gbravetti: I would like to share some examples of AH on masterbus, but I cannot use those tracks I’ve written about before, because label told me I have to wait January (release month)…and I do not have finished tracks at the moment.
But I can tell you it can smooth some transients while keeping a higher RMS…but it is definetely not a master processor even if with some fine tuned settings can get pretty close.
Of course it would be better to use CleanBoost but some other Characters can deliver too.
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and you I am looking forward to hearing practical examples on how to use the AH for mastering (of sorts). I have to admit that one use for this would be with Ableton and not just an Elektron setup. I produce tracks in Ableton that I turn into clips across five tracks in Ableton’s session view, controlling everything with the Push2. Now, everything in Ableton is fed through the master track before going out an audio interface. When I saw the new A&H Xone PX5 coming out with five channels, I thought that I could stream my five channels in to that mixer (a problem with Push is the lack of faders, for which I then have other midi controllers … would be nice with a DJ mixer). The problem is then that I loose my mastering channel strip in Ableton. What I have in there is a bit of EQing, multichannel dynamics, hot tube saturation, glue compressor, and a limiter. Because, or even though, I produce the tracks myself, the stem groups have not much compression etc, which is why the mastering channel is important. (This has mostly to do with the fact that I find compression a difficult topic, so I avoid it where I can I therefore require some control of peaks and maximisation and it sounds like the AH could do that. It would be great if people can share their experience with the AH for that purpose. This is also why I wondered whether one could then take the popular FNR Audio RNC of the wish list. So far I treated the Elektron and Ableton projects completely separate but maybe in future these two things could come together for me.
That’s too bad. I might have to cancel my order; this was the main application I had in mind. OB not being ready, and not being able to use it as a soundcard yet make me less eager to have one right away.
well…if AH was a master processor in your intentions you should definetely reconsider different things about Audio imo…especially because: do not expect to spend €800 for a master processor (read “mastering” processor)
-But-
I can swear you though that you will not be disappointed by how it sounds and transforms sounds…
One more note: I used to work in a Studio where they have a CultureVulture Mastering Edition…I would never use it as mastering processor to finalize a track, but I would definetley use it to warm a mix, like I would do with AH…
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I can get an Elysia Karacter for about a grand; is that not good enough for the master?
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I do not have experience with it…but It is still not something that would be used as “mastering finalizer” in a mastering suite imho…I would for sure use it on the mixbus to warm things up-----but, repeating myself, I would use the AH too…and AH is more flexible and more fun imho
What about my questions regarding the Ableton chain consisting of multichannel dynamics, hot tube saturation, glue compressor. (EQing and limiter aside). What would it take to add this as hardware to the master out of a DJ mixer?
Anyhow, to put things into context, I like making grimey, dark, lo-fi-ish techno. Maybe, that makes a difference. I’ll keep watching demos until my unit has arrived, and I’ve made my final decision.
what’s your use? mastering for printing or “mastering” the sound for P.A.
First of all: let’s not forget -ever- that Mastering Engineers and their equipment exist for a valid reason
In the first case, you can put out some elements since AH does glueing and saturation actually…but i’ll leave a limiter at the end of the chain.
In the second case (P.A.) the limiter will be final amplifier for loudspeakers…be conscious 
P.S. multichannel dynamics…do you mean multiband?