Universal Audio Paradise Guitar Studio

nitrateaudio said:
I was just reading that while doing some research on this. Did you happen find one where they talk a bit about what are the new ways they emulate the amps in Paradise compared to the older amp sims? I am guessing Paradise is new technique and algorithms compared to Lion , Ruby e.t.c?
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I put the UA Lion against Paradise and they sounded pretty much identical. I don't think there's any real difference between them. Paradise is just more versatile because you get more cab options and whatnot.
 
nitrateaudio said:
I was just reading that while doing some research on this. Did you happen find one where they talk a bit about what are the new ways they emulate the amps in Paradise compared to the older amp sims? I am guessing Paradise is new technique and algorithms compared to Lion , Ruby e.t.c?
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I think the modelling is identical between their pedals and all plugin versions. The recto and dumble have a lot more parameters exposed to the user than the earlier models but I don’t think the tech has evolved much between them. The only one where that might be their case is the old DSP only Fender plugin they released that got “remastered” as Woodrow (I don’t think it’s a ground up re-write).
 
nitrateaudio said:
I was just reading that while doing some research on this. Did you happen find one where they talk a bit about what are the new ways they emulate the amps in Paradise compared to the older amp sims? I am guessing Paradise is new technique and algorithms compared to Lion , Ruby e.t.c?
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Well paradise is those, as in Woodrow, Dream, Ruby, Lion, Enigmatic and the showman.
 
What’s funny about the boomer plugin thing is @2112 and Troy were talking about it the opposite way in their podcast, that most of the gear in the plugin is stuff younger people would be using. Most young rock bands I hear are either indie rock with some jangly guitar or grunge/shoegaze inspired fuzzy guitar.

Metal bands seem more older millennials. But I could see bands like sleep token and Spiritbox inspiring some younger kids to get into metal. Honestly middle aged bearded dudes screaming aren’t going to be drawing a lot of teen girls and where the girls go the boys will follow lol.
 
Jarick said:
What’s funny about the boomer plugin thing is @2112 and Troy were talking about it the opposite way in their podcast, that most of the gear in the plugin is stuff younger people would be using. Most young rock bands I hear are either indie rock with some jangly guitar or grunge/shoegaze inspired fuzzy guitar.

Metal bands seem more older millennials. But I could see bands like sleep token and Spiritbox inspiring some younger kids to get into metal. Honestly middle aged bearded dudes screaming aren’t going to be drawing a lot of teen girls and where the girls go the boys will follow lol.
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I know that metal had a big surge when I was in high school in the mid 00s, but the scene (in my area at least) definitely didn't revolve around girls, it was the riffs lol

The girls liked that emo pop punk shit way more than they ever like metal
 
Jarick said:
What’s funny about the boomer plugin thing is @2112 and Troy were talking about it the opposite way in their podcast, that most of the gear in the plugin is stuff younger people would be using. Most young rock bands I hear are either indie rock with some jangly guitar or grunge/shoegaze inspired fuzzy guitar.

Metal bands seem more older millennials. But I could see bands like sleep token and Spiritbox inspiring some younger kids to get into metal. Honestly middle aged bearded dudes screaming aren’t going to be drawing a lot of teen girls and where the girls go the boys will follow lol.
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This is the real truth. The current generation of kids are massively into the kinds of bands I grew up with so I'm all for it, honestly. Plus the goths are thriving.

That unfortunately doesn't take away from the fact that its still a boomer plugin though.
 
Dez said:
I know that metal had a big surge when I was in high school in the mid 00s, but the scene (in my area at least) definitely didn't revolve around girls, it was the riffs lol

The girls liked that emo pop punk shit way more than they ever like metal
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That's true, I was in both kinds of bands for a bit in the mid 2000's. I can fully attest that the pop punk band brought in WAY more girls than the metalcore band. Still I think they ended up crossing over a lot, and in the 2010's the pop punk bands got a lot heavier in their breakdowns while still keeping the poppy sing along choruses.
 
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[Nathan] said:
I’m just happy kids are still into instruments and music, all for whatever they want to listen to and play through.
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I know right? I was at GC last week and these parents came in to buy their kid a guitar and amp for Christmas. They took him to see Paul McCartney over the summer and then he got obsessed with the Beatles and wanted to learn guitar. Made me super happy.

My middle kid is big into playing instruments but doesn't like rock or pop music at all (strictly classical). Younger kid is really interested but she mostly likes pop music. We'll see...
 
Dez said:
I know that metal had a big surge when I was in high school in the mid 00s, but the scene (in my area at least) definitely didn't revolve around girls, it was the riffs lol

The girls liked that emo pop punk shit way more than they ever like metal
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And there’s a reason for it. Since Rock Guitar was gonna go the way of the Bebop horn.

The Guitar Hero Video franchise renewed interest in guitar irl.
 
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Even UAD knows who they’re marketing to here
 
Just testing Paradise out for the first time.

Initial thoughts:

- Some aspects are big and spread out, other bits are small and finicky. It reminds me of Luna where there doesn't seem to be much logic behind what UI elements are big and which are small. The search page with all the gear listed is super annoying to me. You can only see 6 items of gear at a time even though that section of the screen takes up a large % of the UI. It almost guarantees you'll have to do additional clicks or dragging to find what you need. You have to keep tabbing back and forth between that page and the main layout to do changes (like you can only add pedals from the search page but can't remove them). To do small tweaks usually requires several clicks, all over different parts of the UI. It's more like Amplitube in feel than anyone would ever choose to have. No right clicking for anything, which would have saved so much bother (I wonder if this is for future iPad/touchscreen support).

Here's an example - on pitch delay, the delay time slider is tiny to read AND rotated 90º. And small amounts of dragging change the delay time quite drastically so you also have to be quite precise/careful with it.

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- I don't mind empty space in a UI per se as it can serve a function. In Paradise however, some parts of the screen are really crammed and other parts serve almost no purpose. I thought I'd enjoy having the amp controls visible all the time but it makes the rest of the UI suffer too much with space. And there are lots of things you can't tweak from the bottom panel anyway, meaning you have to go to the amp page regardless.

- you have to drag switches rather than click, doesn't sound like a huge deal but for amp sim plugins you're usually juggling having a guitar on your lap, sitting at a weird angle from your desk and reaching for a mouse/trackpad to click some of the smallest parts of the UI. Making the controls as simple to operate as possible really adds up and most companies these days have this feeling more slick.

- it should be WAY easier to reposition, bypass, and remove FX. I'd also prefer the search page to close once you've loaded a module rather than manually doing it.

- clicking the cab section moves the cabs to the next one. Too easy to accidentally change your tone drastically

- Tuner is bad, the needle movement is clunky rather than smooth. I'd enjoy a strobe mode, or a combined strobe+needle mode a la LockOn

- Cab sim is so underwhelming compared to the rest of the plugin. Cool cabinet options but totally neutered by the limited range of what can be done with them. Total waste of cool gear IMO.

- The sounds are FANTASTIC. I don't tend to like Dumble's but these ones sound great and I love the ability to tweak them. Possibly the only Dumble models I've actually enjoyed using. The FX are stellar, the reverbs are better than what anyone else is offering IMO (and by some distance). Drive pedals feel very much like they're missing the impedance interactions of the real thing - UA handled this well on their interfaces with DSP plugins but it would be nice if they could offer some kind of solution for this.

I have similar thoughts to how I feel with LUNA - the UI is almost so bad to me that I can't see myself ever buying this, despite the sounds being top tier. IMO, it just needs a ground up redesign rather than trying to correct what's here. I much prefer the individual amp sim plugins they've done and just using a DAW's own features (where I can re-order, bypass, resize, tweak things much faster and more enjoyably). It also makes it easier to use a better cab sim, or a better tuner, or to mix and match FX or amps that aren't in the plugin. It gets a lot of things right but the things it gets wrong just make me not want to use it, unfortunately.
 
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