Yeah, the creme does overlap a little with the fusion as far as eq although the fusion can do cuts. I still need to do a little research on how the sound compares, and if they will work nicely with each other (boost and cut at the same time like using a pultec on the kick maybe), same goes for the eqs on the bus+.
The bus+ has so much control over the compressors that it might be a little more than I want. Although I do like that it is dual channel instead of just stereo.
I’m also thinking about tracking samples through the creme with subtle settings as well (maybe with a little vintage drive and transformer from the fusion), so simple settings would save me time here.
I was thinking about the bus+. they cramed so many things into one hardware - seems to be some sort of finishing processor… I would love to see a comparison side by side with the Manley NuMu (my favorite for the future) despite different compression concepts.
Well, I ended up going for the tegeler creme. The bus+ seems amazing as far as features goes, and if you need everything it does and you really want to do it analog then it is great. But for me I think this was also it’s downfall. I watched a lot of videos on it and it really felt like a plugin in a box… one without digital recall. I felt like if I was wanting to do a lot of the stuff it was doing it would just be easier to do in the box. For my outboard gear I just want something simple to get rid of a little of the ITB digititus, I don’t want to make my life too complicated doing everything out of the box.
You’ll be very happy with the Creme. I haven’t run across anyone who hasn’t been. It may leave you craving for a ‘little more’ at some point, but most gear (even really great gear) often does. One of the things you’ll probably notice is that you can push the compressor much harder than software equivalents and it still doesn’t sound ‘bad’. Not that you’d want to compress something that much, but just showing you where/how even great plugins start to fall apart whereas good hardware still sounds usable. It’s also easy to overdo the high end on the EQ just because it sounds so good.
If you’re using it in a mastering context, I’m almost always 1-2dB on either low end or high end. More often than not, I’m just using the high end, but that’s more a result of my overall chain than anything else and the fact that most of what I work on usually has plenty of low end already. For the compressor, I’m typically 30ms attack / 0.3 release and either 2:1 or 4:1 ratio doing around 2-3dB compression. I’m almost always COMP into EQ (120hz SC) as I’m doing final tweaks and limiting back in the box. Of course, this is all entirely dependent on your music. I master a lot of techno (minimal/dub), house and electro.
One thing I really like doing though is even if I’m using no EQ at all and just hardly bumping/nudging the needle on the compressor is using the output to add final gain. I’ll often lower the track in the DAW just to be able to add that volume back in the analog domain. Even without any sort of fancy output stage it just sounds better to me.
Just discovered the parallel function for me. Be sure to switch to parallel in the setup and try it out. And then drive everything in extreme settings. Just awesome!
Ive been playing around with the creme and I am slowly narrowing it down to your settings exactly. It does seem that the high end boost is more subtle than the low end boost, so I am usually 0 or 1 low boost and 3 high boost. Same compressor settings as you but I have not decided on my side chain settings or comp into eq or eq into comp yet. Of course these could all change depending on what I am doing, but are good base settings.
I was ABing it with the bus compressor on the big six and the big six one really holds its own though, really just a slightly different flavor although I am not always satisfied with its fixed settings. I bet the Bus+ is great too, just too many settings for me, I already feel overwhelmed with just 4 or 5 lol.
You’ll find your way… there’s no absolute right or wrong formula. I would say, just remember, if you’re boosting at 12K for example, that’s essentially the peak, so the actual beginning of the shelf is much lower and is going to bring up a good bit along with it. I’m usually in 1-2dB of boost, but a lot of that also has to do with my overall chain. I’m correcting and doing some work before going out to the analogue loop where the Creme is closer to the end of the chain and before any final tweaks and limiting. There’s plenty of scenarios where you can place it and have bigger boosts where it makes more sense. Really all about workflow.
I read on the mastering forum from different mastering engineers on FB that the Tegeler Cream has issues with headroom. Otherwise the Cream looks like a great unit.
Can’t say that I’ve experienced anything like that, but I also don’t realize what kind of level they’re expecting to feed it either. I have a Louder Than Liftoff Silver Bullet in front of mine that I feed a
-18dB FS signal from the DAW where I’m boosting it quite a bit using the pre-amps into the Creme, so it’s what I’d consider plenty ‘hot’. I don’t have any issues doing a few dB compression in the Creme, usually doing some sort of EQ boost and generally adding a last bit of gain as well (reasonably hitting the converters as much as I can), before going back into the DAW.
Two reasons -
I don’t use my SiX for summing these days. Most of my stuff goes as a stereo track through the Fusion and then the SiX only for compression now. Way overkill.
And for the above reason, I could use a proper compressor.
So I’ll sell my SiX, save up for what’s missing and get this one.
Might not be until 2023, tho. But that’s the plan now.
I have heard that some tegeler stuff has low headroom (the EQP1 comes to mind), but I think the creme is good. I have not had any problems with it’s headroom at all. I also remember Warren Huart from Produce like a Pro saying the creme had plenty of headroom as well.
Did you ever end up with one? I liked your videos of the Analog Heat and the Instant Mastering Chain, would be super useful if you ended up doing a similar video of The Bus+
Generally I’m having a hard time finding demonstrations of The Bus+ with any sort of electronic music, seems most demonstrations are with pop/rock music, or just drums. If anyone got any demonstrations at hand, please share!
Nice.
Any further thoughts on this unit from current owners?
Thinking that I might get one for the insert of my (hopefully) soon to arrive Silver Bullet Mk2 and then reckon that will be me out the game for any new outboard.
