I think that tool is not suited to apply on a bus. It's for preparing records for next mixing. It's not mixing tool at all. So, your first point is lacking. And it's better than RX. It takes preparing, like Melodyne, but after that you can freely scan and listen any part of a file, changing any effects on the fly. Moreover, you can do automations on how effects apply on a material. RX can't do that, and it's harder to do even in DAW. and as offline processing that beast can suggest more complex processing which should get us better results.
I have to disagree with you on this one. This is a competitor to iZotope RX and as such functions better as a standalone program. The analysis files it creates are about 90 MB for every minute of audio. The setup file for prime:vocal is around 736 MB for the Windows version...this is a serious beast of an ai/machine learning program. My big critique is that the navigation/selection are not ready for PRIME time...pun intended. I suppose that's to be expected considering this is sonible's first standalone program outing, so they'll no doubt take user feedback and implement features in the future to improve on that aspect.
I absolutely agree with you, I purchased it without even trying it, because 1st I trust sonible and I like to always support them, but to be really honest, the plugin in its state right now, is not worth it at all ... Brilliant idea though, like you said. Another amazing review, big fan of your work!!
tbh, the use case where most of us would want to use this is cleaning up a vocal recorded in a less-than-optimal home/bedroom/hotel room studio setting. Not these extreme noisy environments. Let's hear what it can do with a typical home recording where the room treatment isn't perfect (audible reflections, flutter echo) and there's a little background hum from the fridge in the other room, or some light road noise coming through the window. Can it clean up such recordings so they are clean enough to use in a mix without noticeable artifacts?
I've had it open in cubase as an ara editor on mac silicon. I think you might need to revisit. the thing does take a while to cook, but in terms of convenience, just pop it on and it does it's thing.
100% agree with everything you said ... I LOVE the idea (and Sonible as a company) and would purchase it in a second, but not having it as a VST plugin is truly disappointing. I don't understand how you can have a VST chain of plugins work perfectly in real-time, but NOT this plugin. Also, the de-reverb is "meh". Maybe next year they can release a 2.0 and I'll consider it then.
Hello from France. Good and honest review. I also had big (, maybe too big) expectations from this plug-in since I have all of their flagships and love them. But I recently purchased a very similar plug-in (DynAssist). Does the same vocal prep tasks except from the deReverb part. It does a better job for the same price as of now. Works with ARA, VST 3, AU, AAX. Feels more complete as it can address voicespeech but also voice singing applications. Maybe a comparison could be interesting. I don't work for them 😅. I'll pass on Prime:Vocal hoping they will fix the terrible artefacts issues before considering buying it. Take care and keep up the good work. Bonne soirée !
@FoliaSound you're welcome. It has gain riding targeting in LUFS, auto Gate, sibilance, breaths, plosive and auto-write automation curves modules . Can be used with voice mode or instrument mode. Add an EQ and a Clarity vx and you're set
blimey i take it back when I see your realtime chain, definitely got a way to go for heavy lifting. It did a cracking job on a decent-ish female singing vocal I recorded in my shed studio. Cleaned up all the noise, lip smacking, de-essing, plosives etc, and compressed it better than I could with my UAD plugins. Saved me hours of work - but agree it fell flat on a field recording.
It doesn't work in real-time at all, that's why I git this info when I tried to use the plugin as a standard insert. You'll get exactly same info in S1, Reaper, Logic and PT.
It’s a no for me, dawg. Whatever their rationale, VST is the place to be. Otherwise I can just get the Waves Clarity. Was excited for this, but it won’t work with Live.
Totally disagree, waves clarity takes up too much CPU , Stand alone work just fine. I'm loving the fact that prime gives me full control and I can tweak setting, that's an ear full, feel me🎉
I agree with you, Paul. Anyway, in my opinion mouth declicker and breath control also should be added to prime:vocal chain. I love sonible and have almost all their plugins, even entropy+. Prime: vocals is not for me.
Well, I dare to partially disagree with you on this one. Not many DAW's can handle more than 10 sec. or less of latency before they shit their pants and wave the white flag, and 10 seconds is WAY less than several minutes and potentially hours of working material. There is NO current consumer grade CPU that is capable of handling that much real time processing before it becomes a liquid. As a release version, it is almost expected to have integration issues considering the nature of how each DAW handles ARA plugins, but that is fixable with an update. I do believe that this example that you presented, is absolutely valid and it did worse than a real time VST plugin, but remember...in the case of AI based plugins, this is the worst that it will ever be. With few more hours and days of training and few more updates, it will get better and better, up to a point that no real time VST could ever be....and this comes from a person that does not a particular fan of AI tech in general at this time and age, but I try to be optimistic about it.
@@FoliaSound By "real time processing" I meant, the whole raw AI training data all at once that the plugin is trained on to, in order to create a satisfactory output, which usually equates to tens or hundreds of hours of GPU time. No one knows how much exactly in the case of this particular plugin, but it is very clear that it still needs more than it already had.
well, you chose not the best dereverberation plugins on the market and still it sounded better! Yes, there is a home work for Sonible but I would better prefer smartEQ 5 and comp and limiter
@@FoliaSound Of course your vocal plugin chain is what, €400-€500? But your example of Sonible really sounds terrible with all those barking artefacts.
My chain is: 40 USD + 70 USD + 70 USD + 50 USD + 170 USD = exactly 400 USD, current prices, single plugins. But the tools out there are way more flexible and powerful, not just stripped down to a form of one multitasking app. I believe that AI algos + reatime processing are a must here. Cheers!
@@FoliaSound I have Clarity VX and Acon in demo mode but I always try dxRevive first because it does more than just removing noise. Sometimes I'm using two or three of those plugins (or/and RX) when I have to fix really bad VO.
@@RealHomeRecording there are people who can afford the best studios and equipment but they prefer to just record with a camera's microphone in busy places. If not those new "pseudo-AI" tools, my job would be much more difficult and it would take at least 10x more time. So I'm really, really glad for those new plugins. At least, it's one part of the machine learning that is not bad for the audio industry ;)
Moim zdaniem nie do takich rzeczy ten program został stworzony, a raczej do ludzi, którzy mają niewielkie domowe studia, gdzie nagrywają tylko i wyłącznie wokal
To my ears lots of artifacts on both the de-noise and de-reverb of the prime vocal one. Completely unusable in my opinion. I use Accentize Dialog Enhance (just the de-noise part) and DeRoom to get rid of reverb and they are miles ahead of what I heard here, they can both be used in the daw and are pretty light on resources too, much less expensive (especially on sale) and again most importantly sound WAY better.
A very strange review. It is obvious that the tool needs access to the complete sound file to do its job. Accusing it of not working as a normal VST3 is a bit like blaming an aeroplane for not having good road holding. Access to the entire sound file is only possible with ARA from a technological point of view, but not with ‘normal’ VST3. If you then use a DAW that doesn't support ARA or supports it poorly, it's a bit strange to blame the plug-in manufacturer.
I think everything Sonible is overrated. Good maybe, but overrated. I have the smart bundle and I haven't used it yet in any full project. Been trying to sell my license for months.
I wouldn't say so. Their smart:EQ 4 is there with me at all times. Same for their smart:limit, which replaced all my other limiters (Pro-L2 and Limitless).
@FoliaSound Smart limit I agree. It's really good. Smart EQ never really worked for me for some reason. I just hope that Melda will soon upgrade MAutodynamicEQ with some resonance suppression and that instance list thing. A true workhorse.
Excellent review! Because of it, I've decided to hold off buying for now and experiment with building my own chain. Quickly, a critique of your "critics": "critics" /ˈkri diks/ are the people; "critiques" /krəˈtēks/ are the criticisms they present.
@@FoliaSound You're welcome of course. And, thank you many times over for your always thorough, objective, and therefore, trusted reviews. Like your community, I appreciate you greatly.
Hellloooo! What do you think about my criticism? Did you try prime:vocal yourself? What do you think about it? Lemme know down below!
I think that tool is not suited to apply on a bus. It's for preparing records for next mixing. It's not mixing tool at all. So, your first point is lacking. And it's better than RX. It takes preparing, like Melodyne, but after that you can freely scan and listen any part of a file, changing any effects on the fly.
Moreover, you can do automations on how effects apply on a material. RX can't do that, and it's harder to do even in DAW.
and as offline processing that beast can suggest more complex processing which should get us better results.
I have to disagree with you on this one. This is a competitor to iZotope RX and as such functions better as a standalone program. The analysis files it creates are about 90 MB for every minute of audio. The setup file for prime:vocal is around 736 MB for the Windows version...this is a serious beast of an ai/machine learning program.
My big critique is that the navigation/selection are not ready for PRIME time...pun intended. I suppose that's to be expected considering this is sonible's first standalone program outing, so they'll no doubt take user feedback and implement features in the future to improve on that aspect.
I absolutely agree with you, I purchased it without even trying it, because 1st I trust sonible and I like to always support them, but to be really honest, the plugin in its state right now, is not worth it at all ... Brilliant idea though, like you said.
Another amazing review, big fan of your work!!
Thanks, man! I believe your purchase is still not a bad one and Sonible will improve prime:vocal soon!
tbh, the use case where most of us would want to use this is cleaning up a vocal recorded in a less-than-optimal home/bedroom/hotel room studio setting. Not these extreme noisy environments. Let's hear what it can do with a typical home recording where the room treatment isn't perfect (audible reflections, flutter echo) and there's a little background hum from the fridge in the other room, or some light road noise coming through the window. Can it clean up such recordings so they are clean enough to use in a mix without noticeable artifacts?
Sure thing, but dialogue editors still require more to be done...
@@FoliaSound Different target group..different products: izotope RX, SPectral Layers etc..
oh and I don't think it's designed for recording vocal in a train station lol! ;)
Please test the Fuse OCELOT True Peak Limiter!
I've had it open in cubase as an ara editor on mac silicon. I think you might need to revisit. the thing does take a while to cook, but in terms of convenience, just pop it on and it does it's thing.
I checked it out with Sonible people - there is some installation issue on my PC.
100% agree with everything you said ... I LOVE the idea (and Sonible as a company) and would purchase it in a second, but not having it as a VST plugin is truly disappointing. I don't understand how you can have a VST chain of plugins work perfectly in real-time, but NOT this plugin. Also, the de-reverb is "meh". Maybe next year they can release a 2.0 and I'll consider it then.
Hope it happens. Cheers!
Too expensive for. £50 yes, £100... no. 😑
Hello from France. Good and honest review. I also had big (, maybe too big) expectations from this plug-in since I have all of their flagships and love them. But I recently purchased a very similar plug-in (DynAssist). Does the same vocal prep tasks except from the deReverb part. It does a better job for the same price as of now. Works with ARA, VST 3, AU, AAX. Feels more complete as it can address voicespeech but also voice singing applications. Maybe a comparison could be interesting. I don't work for them 😅. I'll pass on Prime:Vocal hoping they will fix the terrible artefacts issues before considering buying it. Take care and keep up the good work. Bonne soirée !
DynAssist? I have to check it out, thanks!
@FoliaSound you're welcome. It has gain riding targeting in LUFS, auto Gate, sibilance, breaths, plosive and auto-write automation curves modules . Can be used with voice mode or instrument mode. Add an EQ and a Clarity vx and you're set
blimey i take it back when I see your realtime chain, definitely got a way to go for heavy lifting. It did a cracking job on a decent-ish female singing vocal I recorded in my shed studio. Cleaned up all the noise, lip smacking, de-essing, plosives etc, and compressed it better than I could with my UAD plugins. Saved me hours of work - but agree it fell flat on a field recording.
3:20 its working with DAW as a plugin but only with good ones like logic or studio one
Nope, it doesn't work like a real-time VST. Nuendo is one of the most feature rich and stable DAW environments out there.
You can automate your processes in it. You can take the denoising down to zero at the beginning
Sure thing, but you have to admit that the algo isn't the best one out there.
@@FoliaSound , it sure sounds like it. Thanks for the review
3:08 nope! it works with:
Studio One
Cubase
Reaper
Logic Pro
It doesn't work in real-time at all, that's why I git this info when I tried to use the plugin as a standard insert. You'll get exactly same info in S1, Reaper, Logic and PT.
What do you recommend for de-essing? Just curious
On-board Nuendo de-esser!
@@FoliaSound Thanks !
@@FoliaSound I am on bitwig, so any other?
Works perfectly as ARA in my Cubase 14
Ooops. Too bad for me :(
Papichulo, you did not show the automation lane in prime vocal where you can automater the intensity of each of the Modules
I believe I gave it a word, but didn't focus on that at all.
I was also hoping, Prime Vocal would be a VST-Plugin. Hopefully Sonible will improve😊
Yep, hope so!
It’s a no for me, dawg. Whatever their rationale, VST is the place to be. Otherwise I can just get the Waves Clarity. Was excited for this, but it won’t work with Live.
Totally disagree, waves clarity takes up too much CPU , Stand alone work just fine. I'm loving the fact that prime gives me full control and I can tweak setting, that's an ear full, feel me🎉
I try it but always closes to me the application! I wished to be original vst and not vst ARA.
Same here!
I agree with you, Paul. Anyway, in my opinion mouth declicker and breath control also should be added to prime:vocal chain. I love sonible and have almost all their plugins, even entropy+. Prime: vocals is not for me.
Well, I dare to partially disagree with you on this one.
Not many DAW's can handle more than 10 sec. or less of latency before they shit their pants and wave the white flag, and 10 seconds is WAY less than several minutes and potentially hours of working material. There is NO current consumer grade CPU that is capable of handling that much real time processing before it becomes a liquid.
As a release version, it is almost expected to have integration issues considering the nature of how each DAW handles ARA plugins, but that is fixable with an update. I do believe that this example that you presented, is absolutely valid and it did worse than a real time VST plugin, but remember...in the case of AI based plugins, this is the worst that it will ever be. With few more hours and days of training and few more updates, it will get better and better, up to a point that no real time VST could ever be....and this comes from a person that does not a particular fan of AI tech in general at this time and age, but I try to be optimistic about it.
Well, running 7950X here and being able to handle very, very heavy film sessions with hundreds of tracks with realtime inserts...
@@FoliaSound By "real time processing" I meant, the whole raw AI training data all at once that the plugin is trained on to, in order to create a satisfactory output, which usually equates to tens or hundreds of hours of GPU time. No one knows how much exactly in the case of this particular plugin, but it is very clear that it still needs more than it already had.
I use the smart eq and limiter all the time. It is a dope company from Austria. It is like the modern PSP for me, the best.
well, you chose not the best dereverberation plugins on the market and still it sounded better! Yes, there is a home work for Sonible but I would better prefer smartEQ 5 and comp and limiter
Hey, which is the best reverb for you?
Absolutely agree, Paul
This seems more like RX repair tool from izotope, as opposed to being a plugin.
This and RX? They are absolutely different tools. prime:vocal can be fully done in RT, I'm sure of that.
Great overview and comparison. Thanks!
No probs, thank you too!
@@FoliaSound lets here the secrets @14:41 haha
Agreed 💯 %
100% agree with u
Big fan of Sonible but this one is not for me....thanks for the review
Yep, I still believe there will be a reasonable update. Cheers!
Reminds me of my school reports: "Could do better..."
I thought your chain so good
sonible has not done itself any favors by bringing this “plugin” onto the market in this state.
Looks like it, but I believe they can seriously rework it!
Saves me both money and disappointment, thanks !
I see what you did at the thumbnail nice try Paul 🤣 🤣
keep it up Paul great show
Thanks, James!
I already bought it and watched your video. lol Your chain great.
Thx, I'll make a vid about it!
Just saw the offer for this, so your comments are perfectly ontime, thank you! Audio Plugin Deals is sending out a loyalty offer for $89.
Thank you too!
@@FoliaSound Of course your vocal plugin chain is what, €400-€500? But your example of Sonible really sounds terrible with all those barking artefacts.
My chain is: 40 USD + 70 USD + 70 USD + 50 USD + 170 USD = exactly 400 USD, current prices, single plugins. But the tools out there are way more flexible and powerful, not just stripped down to a form of one multitasking app.
I believe that AI algos + reatime processing are a must here. Cheers!
They did too much . should have started with smart gate and ai room reduction. We already got smart eq and the other sonible fixers
I hoped for it to do better than this. Oh well. dxRevive still unbeatable :)
Did you try Clarity VX and Acon Extract:Dialogue?
I honestly like Accentize's offerings better too, still heard a decent amount of artifacts on your regular chain with those plugins @@FoliaSound
@@FoliaSound I have Clarity VX and Acon in demo mode but I always try dxRevive first because it does more than just removing noise.
Sometimes I'm using two or three of those plugins (or/and RX) when I have to fix really bad VO.
@@BattleAngelSound it's a real shame that people just can't use pro grade equipment like the good old days of voice over "artists".
@@RealHomeRecording there are people who can afford the best studios and equipment but they prefer to just record with a camera's microphone in busy places. If not those new "pseudo-AI" tools, my job would be much more difficult and it would take at least 10x more time. So I'm really, really glad for those new plugins. At least, it's one part of the machine learning that is not bad for the audio industry ;)
Soniblr has been slipping the last year imo
Moim zdaniem nie do takich rzeczy ten program został stworzony, a raczej do ludzi, którzy mają niewielkie domowe studia, gdzie nagrywają tylko i wyłącznie wokal
Nieważne, jak jest pomyślany odbiorca tej wtyczki - ważne, że da się ją zrobić w kilku aspektach sporo lepiej. Pozdrówki!
To my ears lots of artifacts on both the de-noise and de-reverb of the prime vocal one. Completely unusable in my opinion.
I use Accentize Dialog Enhance (just the de-noise part) and DeRoom to get rid of reverb and they are miles ahead of what I heard here, they can both be used in the daw and are pretty light on resources too, much less expensive (especially on sale) and again most importantly sound WAY better.
A very strange review. It is obvious that the tool needs access to the complete sound file to do its job. Accusing it of not working as a normal VST3 is a bit like blaming an aeroplane for not having good road holding. Access to the entire sound file is only possible with ARA from a technological point of view, but not with ‘normal’ VST3. If you then use a DAW that doesn't support ARA or supports it poorly, it's a bit strange to blame the plug-in manufacturer.
My point is, that you don't really need any access to the whole file here, you can achieve same results in realtime. It's way more convenient.
Comment +
Nice, thx :D
I think everything Sonible is overrated. Good maybe, but overrated. I have the smart bundle and I haven't used it yet in any full project. Been trying to sell my license for months.
I wouldn't say so. Their smart:EQ 4 is there with me at all times. Same for their smart:limit, which replaced all my other limiters (Pro-L2 and Limitless).
@FoliaSound Smart limit I agree. It's really good. Smart EQ never really worked for me for some reason. I just hope that Melda will soon upgrade MAutodynamicEQ with some resonance suppression and that instance list thing. A true workhorse.
i've never liked any of their plugins, their limiter is ok
Excellent review! Because of it, I've decided to hold off buying for now and experiment with building my own chain. Quickly, a critique of your "critics": "critics" /ˈkri diks/ are the people; "critiques" /krəˈtēks/ are the criticisms they present.
Thanks!
@@FoliaSound You're welcome of course. And, thank you many times over for your always thorough, objective, and therefore, trusted reviews. Like your community, I appreciate you greatly.