Plug-In Sound Machine Wood Works®
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Sound Machine Wood Works
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J. Quiñónez Ley
Livesaver for live use
I've been using this plug-in for my Breedlove acoustic in live gigs with my Apollo Twin and I'm loving it. You have to tweak the stock presets a little bit but it's easy and fast. Totally recommended.
C. Lee
Fine tool
I have a humbucker-condenser mic blend pickup on my guitar, and I like that sound. So it is not the perfect condition to test it(the plugin is built for piezo pickups). But it has wide variety of sound, and is good for sketching.
J. North
Good on a case by case basis
This plugin is fairly polarising and I understand why.
On some sources (often strummed with a pick and with poor playing and fretting of chords/fingering) it can sound absolutely terrible, but on others (played with great dynamics with the hands or nails) it sounds absolutely fantastic.
It is not a complete solution - you'll likely need creative EQ and compression and possibly some other processing like Ocean Way as others have suggested.
I only use it for mixes I'm given where the engineer has used an acoustic DI. I'd never record with it or expect it to perform well live.
Mic up an acoustic guitar people - don't plug it in.
I got the plugin on sale for $74 ($99 - $25 coupon) and I don't think I'd pay more than that for it. Four stars based on that price.
C. Peralta
Excelent !!
Nice and Excelent
C. Turner
Worked perfectly for me
I'm left wondering what all the people who posted 1 star ratings on the wood works were listening to or what they were using as their source material .....
It worked perfectly for me .
I have a godin A6 and a Taylor 710 cc both of which I prefer to record DI'd in simply because of how I work . The sound difference was like chalk and cheese and too be honest I'm probably unlikely to bother re recording the guitar tracks once I've finished writing a song. Very happy and impressed .
Don't be put off my the negative reviews . Obviously this is something people of love or hate . I love it .
S. Rapos
You Say You Want A Revelation
I have been a UAD 2 customer for 9 years and this is my first review. Sounds fishy, doesn't it? I love every UAD plug-in I own but felt it redundant to join in with all the over-the-top 5 star assessments. 4 days ago, I decided to demo the Sound Machine Wood Works. I plugged in my handcrafted Yamaha LLX26C with its and I quote,
" A.R.T (Acoustic Resonance Tranducer) three-way pickup system that allows you to control the level of each pickup individually and is structured in such a way that it dampens excessive vibration from the topboard while picking up small resonances to achieve ideal sensitivity and outstanding dynamic balance. It truly delivers a special result that was immediately clear from the moment I plugged it in."
The Sound MAchine plug-in sounded terrible no matter what preset or setting I attempted. This morning, I tried it again with a Guild True American which has nothing more than a simple piezo pick-up. The results were stunning!!! A little 1073, some Ocean Way room B, the Studer A800 and three tracks of my ham-fisted playing sounds like CSN&Y. Be sure to start with stereo tracks and dial in your own settings. Oh look! It's on sale! Merry Christmas to me.
J. Castanheira
Not impressive as I expected, but usable
I used this plugin on an acoustic live session and it brought better sounding acoustic guitars, as they were line recorded to avoid the bleeding of the percussion and vocals. But afterwords I tried it in several ways on a more standard studio sessions and it never bettered the sound. Need improvements for more usability in general. I´ll be waiting for a V2 version
T. Urban
Was hoping for more
I found this plugin to have some interesting features, but found that it was difficult to sound good. My direct preamp alone with Ocean Way sounded better than most of the sounds. Setting this up on an aux channel gave a little width, but still didn't meet my expectations. I am hoping that someone revisits this plugin. I would definitely purchase it if I could find a way to make it more useable. It would be great to have while tracking live. But for now, I'm sticking with the direct out of my Adamas mixed with a mic.
R. Lucas
Sound Machine Wood Works Review
I find I can make a DI acoustic track usable with this plugin... lots of times I have a singer/guitarist cutting vocal and acoustic tracks live with a band and can use this plugin to achieve a much more desirable track in the mix.
D. Johnsnon
Frustrating but worth it
Firstly, insert this, and it will sound awful. Treat it like a reverb or exciter, as a subtle send, and excellent results can be achieved (with a lot of practice). Listen to your DI track and hear what's missing, usually body and resonance. Then you have a few choices, go through the presets and find the best sounding option, blend to taste, or, and I've got the best results this way, find the option that best fills the hole, even if it sounds wrong on it's own, switch to manual, tweak, and then blend. It takes a bit of getting used to, but for guitars recorded straight to the desk, especially live, this can make an ok track just that bit more special. I'd always record with mics at home or in the studio, but sometimes it just isn't possible. Put this with the Ocean Way in remic mode, blend all three tracks, and you'll get as close to real, as a DI'd guitar is going to get.
R. Bowling
Still learning my way around the Plugin
Adding this with the Ocean Way Room type plugins is my starting point...I'm also adding a Live Mic Blend with this....I'm looking for Possibilities as well as putting Air & Resonance in a track
C. King
Awful Results
Mic'd a $1400 Taylor and ran it's pick ups through a Neve RNDI (excellent DI) into my Apollo Quad and thought I'd give the plug a demo run. The results were simply awful...in fact, the DI sound on it's own was way better than the plug! Sure maybe this plug will help some but I'm just glad I was able to demo this because I would have been ticked if I spent money on this one!!
G. Bicalho
Let`s be fair...Beautiful sound..."Unique" Tool!
I not yet bought this plugin, just used the demo, but for those who do jingles and tracks for advertisements will be a very practical tool!! The sound is beautiful for solos!Certainly on my list!
I just have to say congratulations!
N. Emowy
Quack quak
I used it on recent live recordings of Oud and Qanun in a small but loud 8 piece ensemble with choir. Both instruments were DI'd and mic'd in a live concert scenario at the Sydney Opera House..Simple as it is, it does work..just put the effort in.
Essentially
The Oud DI was a Barcus Berry contact mic (used for pianos normally) to cut thru the live mix.
In mixing the show to prepare a CD of the concert, SM Woodworks proved perfect in getting rid of the qwak,allowed the performance to sound more realistic, however it brought into focus the room sounds that were feeding into the Oud.
I ended up combining the Di + SM Woodworks processed DI and a hint of the mic as well to create its final sound
s. bensifi
Yeah!
Verry good with ocean way studio !
T. Abraham
Barely Useable, I'd pay $50 max
I really wanted this plugin to work. I mix a fair number of live concert recordings and piezo guitars are virtually impossible to make sound good, never mind real. This plug works about 20% as well as I hoped. There is a phasey, ringing artifact to all the models. There are only a couple of the models that don't sound dreadful (as in, I'll keep the piezo, this sounds worse). With alot of tweaking, blending, and other fakery, I'd say this plugin can make a piezo recording sounding slightly better. But at $300, this plugin does not deliver the goods. Please make this better, it could be amazing, but it's not there yet.
M. Niemczyk
Gives life to a flat piezo guitar
I tried this one with a Godin LGX SA which is a three-voice guitar featuring electric and acoustic guitar sounds. Actually it was the first time the guitar with a solid body sounded really like a acoustic guitar should sound. So this makes up another cool use case, you can use a solid electric guitar and have a sound of a real acoustic guitar and also not only one, but multiple, regarding the different settings of the plug. The only downside is the price. Actually you can gat a good acoustic guitar for 300 bugs so, well guess i have to wait for a real good discount.
T. Morgan
Really nice
This sounds really nice on an acoustic guitar plugged directly into the DAW when mixing, and that's what it's meant to do. Quite a bit of tonal variation offered. Would be nice to be able to move it forward in the mix if needed though (like moving the mics closer or further away). But very impressed.
W. Easley
Great tool for reworking older recordings
I've used this to enhance older recordings that were less than professionally recorded.... I've never failed to get improved quality over the source material. the level of improved... of course depends greatly on the actual quality of the source.
this adds back some of the natural sounds that you lose when you have tracks that were recorded direct to tape/disk.
s. kgr
most unique plug-in UAD-2
Plug-in, which has been concerned about from the front.It is under purchase consideration. The sound of the acoustic guitar me exquisitely varied, I can UP the presence in the track. Presets rich and intuitive operable. It is be easy to use to be a little more light. I think that it is the most unique plug-in UAD-2.