Daily affirmation and reality mantra

The pre performance prayer of Sound and light;
Help, please, thank you.

More gear or plugins can actually make things worse. Some things have a lot of capability, but also a high learning curve. Stuff like Unisum, Weiss, Vertigo VSMs. There's that comparison of the Serban ITB mix vs one done with hardware. Weezer I think it was. The Serban mix lacks the fullness type quality you get with good hardware, but the hardware mix goes way out of balance at times. The bass just seems to disappear in the chorus if I recall. First time I heard it was last night. I've made my ITB mixes sound worse when first learning a piece of hardware. Going through that over and over doesn't appeal to me. What I've been able to do by dipping into hardware is get an understanding of what is possible to do with an ITB mix once you have a chance to treat it with hardware. Like I said in another thread, various pieces of high-end hardware across a finished mix can't recreate the effect of having Satin all over everything.

This Black Friday season I didn't buy anything. I've been finding it much more productive to just work with what I have or have access to. One of these days I'd love to see what I could come up with using a console and hardware on a mix instead of Pro Tools, but that's not a viable idea. Probably what I'll do is build a better computer. Maybe try this new Console 1. Access Analog will eventually have stuff like a Curve Bender. They keep adding. It'll inevitably make more sense to just pay them $100 a month than to worry about more hardware. The sound of the Portico II is something I find highly satisfying and their cheaper subscriptions allow unlimited use of their two. That's the one hardware piece I've tried that I feel can most dramatically enhance an ITB mix on its own. I've not tried their Master Buss Transformer yet though. Just using dither as people on here have suggested is a major enhancement. Or using Basslane Pro to convert frequencies to mono. There's usually something new you can discover to maximize ITB mix quality before going into hardware.

I do think a lot of the desire to own new hardware and plugins stems from not knowing what things are capable of. That's how it is for me anyway. At this point, I think I have a pretty good idea of what a plugin or hardware piece will do for me and what the limitations of working with digital audio are. It's probably not possible to 100% recreate the sound of a lot of classics made before the DAW even if you have all the best hardware. But the hope is always that someone will invent a real gamechanger. I'm just not sure that anything tons better than what we already have can be invented using current technology.

Unloading gear from my last room into the new Hedback room and thinking along the same line as Mr. Smalley. (God, what a genius he was. Gone way too soon.) Have five units still in boxes that I'm not sure I really need that are going in the storage closet for now.

I was having a moment today (er, and yesterday..and the day before...been a grumpy week). Anywho, been working on an album mix, and I realized that how I perceive my mixes depends largely on my mood. If I'm grumpy, I really hate everything I do. Once I chill out a bit, things actually can sound sort of OK. And when my mood is happy, I am a damned mix genius. Haha. For better or worse...

I need to remember all that...

More and more people recently seem to be coming to this conclusion.

There are reasons.

With not much money floating about in the industry, $3000 for a tube "thingy" is very hard to justify - nigh on impossible.

Computers are so flippin' fast these days - they last 10 to 15 years!!

Even buget gear has got amazing - I can't beleive how fantastic the Audioscape LA2A clone is for the $750 I payed for it .... amazing!

And finally, how many plugins can a man eat!

How many f**king Toontrack SDX Drum kits, Bass libraries and Piano libraries, Organ libraries, String libraries, Soft Synths do we need!

They only keep making them becasue they want more of our MONEY! .... not coz the world needs them.

If I see another EQ, Compressor, Saturator, Reverb or delay PLUGIN .... I'll scweem .... scweem, scweem and scweem  .... full Diva meltdown - enough already!!!!

John - I too am done.

Yes, I've stopped at a nice place - but I have stopped!

I can totally get behind this. The one area where variety does seem to serve me well is in time based effects and virtual instruments. The more “special sauce” plugins that can be wild cards in terms of really creating a vibe.

"IT'S ALL ABOUT FREQUENCY RESPONSE, AND EVERYTHING IS EQ" is a phrase that I used to say 20 years ago to myself to cope with the fact that I could only afford $100 microphones (and what junk they were!).

Little did I know that the magic lives in the time domain.

So, yeah, living is easy with ears closed.

I’m going to disagree, the area where variety makes the biggest difference is mics. Being able to grab something different when your first choice doesn’t quite fit can do more than anything else.

Man I have heard that for almost 35 years! Still Hardware has its place.

Yep.
Either at Paul G's/Dr. Bill's/or Ward's place.
Maybe all of them-on rotation.
Kinda like them ancient Egyptian Mummy artifacts.
Chris

You’ve earned 75 cents??!!