I decided to do a comprehensive comparison of Parallax against Darkglass Ultra, and then pick one to buy (Neural DSP has a sale that's ending tomorrow). I watched YouTube videos of other people's comparison tests, and also emailed Neural DSP asking for their advice. Everyone seemed to say Parallax is the more versatile/better choice, but I had to find out for myself, using my own criteria.
So I recorded a few basslines of the kind of stuff I'd actually want to use these plugins on, and then set up the plugins on different buses in my DAW and began doing comparisons. What I recorded were basically prog metal type basslines with finger style, pick, and slap.
I first tried all the available presets and listened to the range of tone shaping capabilities they represented. Then I tried all the tone shaping controls in both to get familiar with how they altered the sound. Next, I tweaked the plugins to create a few of my own presets that have the kind of tones I might use, and then I tried to replicate the same sound with the other plugin. I would do a preset with Darkglass Ultra, and then tried to match it with Parallax, and vice versa. This was done to identify whether they could sound just like each other, and how much work it would take to match each other.
Initially, it seemed like it was much faster to dial in a desirable tone with Darkglass Ultra than with Parallax, but once you get into very detailed tweaking for a very specific sound you have in mind, Parallax wins out in terms of clarity in tone and intuitive GUI. With the same amount of distortion, Darkglass Ultra tends to have a fuzzier sound, and Parallax tends to have a clearer sound. Parallax's GUI is also more intuitive for software, whereas Darkglass Ultra is basically just the hardware version mapped onto a software plugin, and that's not optimal because are no visual cues like the graph window in Parallax.
But there was one thing I really didn't like about Parallax. Even on the lowest drive setting (at 0), the mid and high still had too much distortion. There's no way to get a "barely distorted" setting in the mid and high. You can try to lower their volume or use the EQ, but it's not the same thing as keeping their amplitude the same but with less distortion. To me, that was a major deal-breaker, because often I want a tone that's just very slightly distorted, and Parallax isn't suitable for that, while Darkglass Ultra is much better at it, because you can dial in very low distortion and/or blend with the original sound. So I asked myself if I could figure out a workaround would overcome this issue with Parallax, and if I could do it pretty easily, I would buy Parallax.
The solution I came up with is this: Add another bus for the bass and put a high-pass EQ on it, so the low frequencies are taken out at the same frequencies as the lows in Parallax, leaving just the mids and highs (I do this because I want to keep the compressed lows in Parallax, as that compressor is very good and I like the sound a lot). This will be my clean bass tone that can offset the too much distortion of the mids and highs in Parallax. I simply adjust how prominent the clean tone is in the mix (and if needed, I can lower the mids and highs in Parallax), and that's it. With this simple workaround, Parallax becomes even more versatile, and does everything I want. I then pulled the trigger and bought Parallax.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience with y'all, and hopefully it can help others with their decision and production workflow.
So I recorded a few basslines of the kind of stuff I'd actually want to use these plugins on, and then set up the plugins on different buses in my DAW and began doing comparisons. What I recorded were basically prog metal type basslines with finger style, pick, and slap.
I first tried all the available presets and listened to the range of tone shaping capabilities they represented. Then I tried all the tone shaping controls in both to get familiar with how they altered the sound. Next, I tweaked the plugins to create a few of my own presets that have the kind of tones I might use, and then I tried to replicate the same sound with the other plugin. I would do a preset with Darkglass Ultra, and then tried to match it with Parallax, and vice versa. This was done to identify whether they could sound just like each other, and how much work it would take to match each other.
Initially, it seemed like it was much faster to dial in a desirable tone with Darkglass Ultra than with Parallax, but once you get into very detailed tweaking for a very specific sound you have in mind, Parallax wins out in terms of clarity in tone and intuitive GUI. With the same amount of distortion, Darkglass Ultra tends to have a fuzzier sound, and Parallax tends to have a clearer sound. Parallax's GUI is also more intuitive for software, whereas Darkglass Ultra is basically just the hardware version mapped onto a software plugin, and that's not optimal because are no visual cues like the graph window in Parallax.
But there was one thing I really didn't like about Parallax. Even on the lowest drive setting (at 0), the mid and high still had too much distortion. There's no way to get a "barely distorted" setting in the mid and high. You can try to lower their volume or use the EQ, but it's not the same thing as keeping their amplitude the same but with less distortion. To me, that was a major deal-breaker, because often I want a tone that's just very slightly distorted, and Parallax isn't suitable for that, while Darkglass Ultra is much better at it, because you can dial in very low distortion and/or blend with the original sound. So I asked myself if I could figure out a workaround would overcome this issue with Parallax, and if I could do it pretty easily, I would buy Parallax.
The solution I came up with is this: Add another bus for the bass and put a high-pass EQ on it, so the low frequencies are taken out at the same frequencies as the lows in Parallax, leaving just the mids and highs (I do this because I want to keep the compressed lows in Parallax, as that compressor is very good and I like the sound a lot). This will be my clean bass tone that can offset the too much distortion of the mids and highs in Parallax. I simply adjust how prominent the clean tone is in the mix (and if needed, I can lower the mids and highs in Parallax), and that's it. With this simple workaround, Parallax becomes even more versatile, and does everything I want. I then pulled the trigger and bought Parallax.
Anyway, I just wanted to share my experience with y'all, and hopefully it can help others with their decision and production workflow.
