Slate, Apollo, Hardware... Wiz musing....
Sept 7, 2018 17:41:01 GMT -6
jcoutu1, keymod, and 6 more like this
Post by wiz on Sept 7, 2018 17:41:01 GMT -6
With the release of the Slate VRS and UAaudios new apollos...
It can't help but make a gear head wonder....8)
I think (honestly) half the time I feel like new gear, because I am bored.
New stuff is shiny, you have to reconfigure the studio, it takes a while to learn, you get inspired etc etc
I used to be motivated a lot by the thought of new gear.
Over the last 7 years or so , I have really invested over time, buying secondhand, waiting for deals in really good outboard.
I now own, 1073s, La2as, 1176s,V72, U87, Km184s, STA Levels, Bricasti, LA4, SA4000, DBX 160,Yamaha oak custom kit, great guitars have a Stam 47 coming, and a Stam child, great headphone monitoring setup
My convertor is the 16A and I run Logic Pro X
I am getting the best sounds of my life with this gear. Finally owning things like 1073s and V72 showed me EXACTLY what they brought to the table, vs reading about it.
I think its the best education I could get, actually saving and ponying up the dough to buy good gear. It taught me a shit load about what it means to have good gear, and then capture sounds with it.. and mix it. Rather than playing with an emulation, and still in the back of your mind wondering if its your skillset or is that plug in not really EXACTLY like the hardware and if I only had the hardware..........
My engineering took a huge leap getting hardware, not because of the hardware per se... but because I really put a great deal of effort into getting it in the first place, and then when I got it, working with it to work out how to use it properly and effectively... something that plug ins, I didn't seem to do it with, I would move on to the next zillionth EQ or comp I had available.
The other thing I learnt, I use compressors way more for the resultant tone I get, than the compression action... This is the biggest ( and one other point) difference I found.... I can have say an acoustic strummed guitar part, and put it through the 160, LA2A,STA,LA4, 1176 all very quickly with the patch bay, and level match and within a minute or two, be comparing 6 different compressors on that part, in context of the mix. One will always shine out as being the best one, that never happened with plug ins.
The audio path of each of those bits of gear, really changes the vibe/character of how the track sits and plays against other things in the mix.
Same can be said for the preamps.
The other thing is , console EQ. Well the console in general.
I have (as many of you know) a modified delta console. It has 4 band eq and two are sweepable.
By using two hands you can quickly and without thinking numbers, sweep around and hear how broad changes of EQ effect the track(s) against each other. This is HUGE. Especially noticeable on say Overhead Tracks against kick and snare. You can quickly change the character of the snare, bring it into focus, sit it back etc.
I can't do that with plug ins.
So, whats the point Wiz you ask?
I reckon, NOW after owning all the real gear, I could sell it and make music that sounds really good, being ITB.
I reckon, that when I downsize when I am a bit older, I will be very happy with the level of sound you can get out of something like the VRS8 or Apollo or what ever is the system de jour at the time.
Owning the gear taught me how to be a better engineer.
I think the biggest area for improvement for the ITB area, is in ergonomics.
Someone has to come up with a tactile solution, when you turn a hardware knob, you dont think numbers, you listen... when you turn a plug in knob with a mouse, my brain works differently....
They need to change the scaling of a lot of things within plug ins, no one really needs to be setting something like an EQ using decimal points...its counter productive to the ART of using the brain.
thoughts?
cheers
Wiz
It can't help but make a gear head wonder....8)
I think (honestly) half the time I feel like new gear, because I am bored.
New stuff is shiny, you have to reconfigure the studio, it takes a while to learn, you get inspired etc etc
I used to be motivated a lot by the thought of new gear.
Over the last 7 years or so , I have really invested over time, buying secondhand, waiting for deals in really good outboard.
I now own, 1073s, La2as, 1176s,V72, U87, Km184s, STA Levels, Bricasti, LA4, SA4000, DBX 160,Yamaha oak custom kit, great guitars have a Stam 47 coming, and a Stam child, great headphone monitoring setup
My convertor is the 16A and I run Logic Pro X
I am getting the best sounds of my life with this gear. Finally owning things like 1073s and V72 showed me EXACTLY what they brought to the table, vs reading about it.
I think its the best education I could get, actually saving and ponying up the dough to buy good gear. It taught me a shit load about what it means to have good gear, and then capture sounds with it.. and mix it. Rather than playing with an emulation, and still in the back of your mind wondering if its your skillset or is that plug in not really EXACTLY like the hardware and if I only had the hardware..........
My engineering took a huge leap getting hardware, not because of the hardware per se... but because I really put a great deal of effort into getting it in the first place, and then when I got it, working with it to work out how to use it properly and effectively... something that plug ins, I didn't seem to do it with, I would move on to the next zillionth EQ or comp I had available.
The other thing I learnt, I use compressors way more for the resultant tone I get, than the compression action... This is the biggest ( and one other point) difference I found.... I can have say an acoustic strummed guitar part, and put it through the 160, LA2A,STA,LA4, 1176 all very quickly with the patch bay, and level match and within a minute or two, be comparing 6 different compressors on that part, in context of the mix. One will always shine out as being the best one, that never happened with plug ins.
The audio path of each of those bits of gear, really changes the vibe/character of how the track sits and plays against other things in the mix.
Same can be said for the preamps.
The other thing is , console EQ. Well the console in general.
I have (as many of you know) a modified delta console. It has 4 band eq and two are sweepable.
By using two hands you can quickly and without thinking numbers, sweep around and hear how broad changes of EQ effect the track(s) against each other. This is HUGE. Especially noticeable on say Overhead Tracks against kick and snare. You can quickly change the character of the snare, bring it into focus, sit it back etc.
I can't do that with plug ins.
So, whats the point Wiz you ask?
I reckon, NOW after owning all the real gear, I could sell it and make music that sounds really good, being ITB.
I reckon, that when I downsize when I am a bit older, I will be very happy with the level of sound you can get out of something like the VRS8 or Apollo or what ever is the system de jour at the time.
Owning the gear taught me how to be a better engineer.
I think the biggest area for improvement for the ITB area, is in ergonomics.
Someone has to come up with a tactile solution, when you turn a hardware knob, you dont think numbers, you listen... when you turn a plug in knob with a mouse, my brain works differently....
They need to change the scaling of a lot of things within plug ins, no one really needs to be setting something like an EQ using decimal points...its counter productive to the ART of using the brain.
thoughts?
cheers
Wiz
