Thermionic Culture Vulture
Customer Reviews
Thermionic Culture Vulture
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V. Cañas
LaineREC - Dope tips.
As usual a good and useful review. Really appreciate the demo on 4 kinds of instruments really show the possibility of the Culture Vulture. Impatient for getting to the studio and try it. Cheers
M. Olsen
Pros FAR outweigh cons
I just spent over an hour with this plugin, using my electric bass through both the new 1073 and the API Unison Preamp plugins. In both cases, the Culture Vulture was a priceless addition. I also played extensively with the distortion and found it to be incredibly responsive over the full dynamic range of the bass. It's über fat, beautifully harmonic, and full of thick analog personality. If only I could control Console sessions with a MIDI pedal board, I could plug straight into a PA system and have people on their knees, based on the tone alone. Drawbacks are the 15% DSP loss per instance, the delay compensation pop-up warning, and the high price (which will force me to have wait for a sale). Still, five stars for making this a reality!
J. Edwards
Great Low End, Poor Top End
After the success of the 1176, LA2a, Pultec, and Neve additions, I really had high expectations for this release. I think Fab-filter, Trash, or Kombinat would be a better option for the money. The plugin doesn't sound bad on the low end. I thought it sounded pretty thick when it is used just to fatten things up. It really sounded great when i was re-sampling bass lines in a Neuro Drum and bass track. It really does have a nice low end character. On the other hand, It really sounds digital on the high end. Whenever you push the drive it starts to break up and sound like a cheap digital distortion. There is no resemblance to the hardware unit. Stereo Multiband Distortion is the future guys! Make a multi-band dist with a super fat analog sound
C. Mcdonald
Thermionic Culture Vulture Plug-In-Mixing
I love using this in the final stages of mixing to help warm up a mix.
This brings back the "old school analog sound" that I am used to that I love.
Coming from the era of live recording this is familiar to my ears.
Thanks to Universal Audio for bring out another great plugin.
G. Dayal
This is it!!!!! I just sold my hardware Culture Vulture
I was waiting for this one to come and , and i just used it today... It just blew my away..
Tracked my MPC, Electric Guitar through it on the Apollo.... just the SAME as the hardware...
I used to own the red mastering version... of the culture vulture..
I'm glad i sold it.. this is the SAME!!!
UA has done a brilliant job!!
Hats off again!!!!
The video and demos they have on site are misleading.. they just shot themselves in the foot by doing lame demos...
TRY this for yourself and see why this is phenomenal!!!
Finally digital audio is getting there!
LOVE IT!
D. Matthies
Sounds awesome, uses an insane amount of DSP
This thing is really beautiful sounding and does what you would expect, but uses A LOT of DSP, enough that is should come with a disclaimer. I'm used to The ATR-102, which is a heavy DSP hitter, but this seems to use almost twice as much.
Y. Harvey
very nice. love the vibe of this plugin
So - i demo'd this plug and put it on a few tracks in current mixes i'm working on. It's a great tool for sterile tracks, very nice on vocals in parallel - adds a thickening glue to vocals that makes them sit in the mix in a way that i love. Killer or drum bus and bass. I too was a bit turned off by the demo video - way overcooked sounds. A little goes a long way is how i have been using it - me likey.
J. Carmo
Culture Vulture Reviews
Please remove all the duplicate 4 and 5 star reviews for this product and others.
I have over 2500$ plugins from UA, i love your stuff, have Satellite DUO, Apollo Quad, LA-610 and gonna buy Octo core, but i want to continue trusting UA company. Even if im opinion about CV is very negative, it does not mean i am not satisfy with your products...i really love UA stuff, but after demo several times CV, i really think this plug IMHO is a mistake...but, everybody makes mistakes.
P. Tavasoly
Thiz plugin is amazingly amazing !
Got in love with it at the first use !!! I mean WOW !¡!¡
I do not understand those guys who say it is not a good plug ....
Maybe you need to switch to better speakers or converters !
This thing is one on the most advanced modelings I have ever came across.
The sound is extreamly real. Injects life to everything I tried.
But I warn you ! You must have hi quality material to hear this baby correct.
It does do magic but can not make badly recorded material into gold.
It is not a home studio toy. It is hi end stuff. You need to be pro to use it.
THANS UA ... You nailed it just like always.... Love you !
C. Bower
Dont Stack the Cards Please!
Come on, I realize you guys want good reviews, but as customers we want reliable reviews that we can trust. Please remove all the duplicate 4 and 5 star reviews for this product and others.
J. Cox
This plug is an exercise in restraint
With the majority of gear the sweet spot ranges are middle to max settings... the sweet spot in this guy is from 1% to 10% max settings on all knobs except the bias.
A little gain, high bias and T mode is gold! It breaks up nicely and sounds amazing!
I hallucinate that most of the bad reviews on this thing are from people who want to believe that the entire range of a plugins ability should be usable very often. That's not the case with this thing. A small range of it's ability is useful often, while the rest of its range would be great on some things and not very often.
Apollo Users: You can track with it other plugins (like api vision channel strip). Search for how to get past apollo dsp channel limit on uadforums.
M. Compton
It's like sound toys decapitator only twice as expensive and 5 years later
I wanted to love it, really did.... I like it, but it doesn't live up to the characteristics of other similar plugins like Decapitator or camelphat. Pretty disappointing really, and at this price there is no way I will be a buyer.
-1 star for value
-1 star for lacking exciting or unique characteristics
-1 star because I think 3 stars is too much
J. Harris
Don't be fooled/ try it!!
I understand why people are giving this negative reviews based on the audio demos. They really don't express what this plugin is about. Yea it does heavy distortion but with subtle use, it really gives depth & character. Honesty I demoed this thinking it was just another processor and was really blown away. I kept coming back to it thinking it was fooling me, but it's the real deal. The magic comes with just a little push of the unit. Especially drums!! But other instrument benefit too. I'm not going to wait for this to go on sale, I'm getting it. It does use dsp but I bounce to disk anyway. As my boy Darth would say "impressive!"
J. Roger
Grew on me.
I didn't like it at first, but as I played with it over different sources I started to really like it. For more subtle breakups and harmonically enriching a source, it sounds really really great, and will make something fatter and pop out a bit. For heavy distortion I still am not a huge fan, but it isn't bad by any means.
It is hard on processing, but I'd rather UAD keep making plug-ins sound better at the cost of DSP, than the other way around. It's not that hard to commit to and print a sound with this
You gotta play with it to get into it, don't go by the examples in the video.
M. Penn
Sounds So Awesome!!
I don't get the negative reviews on Consumption, and sound.. The real version is like $2,000 you would have to commit to it anyways.. So 1 Instance per sharc is fine with me..It's simple guys Record through it if you have apollo/twin or Commit and bounce "SIMPLE"
This is a Great time to be in the Audio game, UA are the Leaders Period.. I'm currently using the demo and have the other offering out there and this is warm, phat adds weight and that sizzle/crunch distortion that's great for parallel use. This really helped on a Dance/R&B Record we were mixing used about 4 instances.. And bounced when card hit the ceiling..
and yes.. Will By another Octo this summer!!
Another Must Buy!!
A. Schaar
Rich and deep!
Unbelievable rich and deep sound, highly versatile, thanks UA! Go on making the best plugins possible, no matter how much dsp-power they use!
B. Finnie
Sounds nothing like the hardware.
As an avid UAD user and also an owner of the Vulture hardware unit I was excited to hear about this release. However, upon hearing the audio examples I was very disappointed. The distortion sounds nothing like the hardware, and the overdrive switch sounds like a cheap plug-in not even comparable to other dedicated distortion plug-ins already available for the same price. why pay 300 for a gain knob?
D. Johnson
it kills!
I cant get enough its so good... killer on vocals
This one and the new LA2a, as well as the new 1073
are some of your most vibey and best sounding pluggins yet..
I. Babayoff
DSP consumption
I love your plugs, they are 85-100% of my Mixes. But... this one have way to much DSP consumption. so its not a real option for me no matter how good it sounds. Sorry.
J. Carmo
Can´t be true....Disaster
Please UA, tell me this is one mistake...
I never heard the hardware, but this plug sounds IMO very BAD.
I just saw the video and the distortion that this plug generates
is horrible IMO. Can´t belive that UA (The best in the market) have done this job...!!!