New and old AmS reverb 500 and plugs

[rick]

00178D15-88A6-4916-9AF5-373DF1B4C991.jpeg

I think this subject is worth its own thread
On the other one a started saying if I had the cash right now
I would probably buy the 500 hardware for my home studio
So it was always up and running on my ssl Logic desk

I have the real thing on my neve 8038 , I use it every recording session
And the rmx has been on every mix I have ever done
Ambience 1.8- 2.2 secs

My friend did an album with Bob clear mountain a couple of years back
The good news is Bob told him the exact same thing .

Obvious non lin 1 gets a run historically for drums and has that sound
But yeah ambience has been on vocals hits and misses the world over consistently since it came out .

Yeah the real ones are unreliable if you move them about , we can talk more about that and the fixes here too

[rick]

From the other thread


Postby Text_Edifice » Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:16 am
Did your old one RMX ever start spitting digital hash (on the display)? The work one has started doing this occasionally - not enough to really troubleshoot but once in a while....

Suspect a battery is the culprit?
———-


It’s the common fault ( one of them )

The solution short term is to take the top of and reseat and and massage every chip back into its socket

A better solution is go to studio solutions website or on on eBay and buy their rebuild kit .
It has new ribbon cables and bits and bobs that get it going well

I did that and resurrected my two about 8 years back , the one I still have is the most reliable I have ever had

[Text_Edifice]

Thanks Rick - is the 500 version UAD in a box?

[Thirteen]

I have a rack that I can hardly lift with an RMX-16 and a DMX 15-80 S and they both work but are due for a power supply and base board restoration. Hopefully I will get to them both this year.

[rick]

I don't know anything about how the 500 series one works or is coded, I was hoping somebody was going to tell me

[berkfinger]

I've been looking at the 500 series and wondering. Would love to hear it.

I think the original runs on + and - 15 volts and surely the digital stuff can be recreated with modern components with a small footprint?

It looks like the orig was electronically balanced from a schem I saw just now, so no need to save space/money with a transformer change either?

In theory it should be achievable to fit an accurate reissue into the 500 format right? Or do the ancient converters have a sound unto themselves?

[rick]

The original is like 8 seperate circuit boards full of chips and the a2d board is an entire board the da is an entire board
And then there are logic upon logic boards .
It was no simple task to port that into the uad plug
And the uad is the same but it’s not .
But I love having lots of them to use at will with the uad .

Getting the signal to noise ratio right in the original isn’t simple either
( or getting the hiss levels right ) I don’t need to do that in the uad

All that to say I could not give two hoots about the quality of the original converters being replicated
Because it would depend on how you set it

I don’t think it’s just 0 and 1 plus converters either

But if they got the dsp right and stuck it in a sharc chip like every guitar pedal reverb out there
And it sound the same and setups the same and I had any money at all right now I would buy
One just to find out .

[a.d.a.m. baby]

The UAD video has the original designer claiming that the plug in is "byte for byte" the same algorithms as the 30 plus year old hardware. If that's true, then Rick's observation that the hardware blends better into a mix must be down mainly to whatever is going on after the DA converter, the circuitry that massages the analogue outputs. You would hope the 500 series was cloning that accurately.

Interesting to hear very positive reports re the UAD plug-in version - I'm looking for a new inspiring reverb at the moment.
The other one that caught my ear was the EMT 250.

[simonstav]

Comparison of Vintage, 500 series and plugin

https://youtu.be/VqTaSW5f4IU?t=122

[Text_Edifice]

Plugin and 500 series sound pretty close - I don't think the original hardware sounds the same, but maybe my eyes are tricking me.

[simonstav]

Bruce Johnston just listed one for sale if anyone is looking

https://www.johnstonaudio.com/ex-hire-sales/ams-rmx-16

[Thirteen]

That's a cheap RMX-16!

[Text_Edifice]

I'd love one of these for my place but I'm holding on to money for a bit because who knows how long it has to last.