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Post by viciousbliss on Mar 11, 2024 18:26:19 GMT -6
The Hedd 192 is what Access Analog has in the Magic Garden chain. You should be able to try it for free. Otherwise it's like $100 an hour or something like that to use it. They also have a few things going through the Aurora N. You could always ask Dan or someone else at Access Analog what they think. The saturation in the 192 is quite good, probably one of the best. Are you going to want to use that saturation? If the Hilo's headphone out is on par with the Aurora N's, that's pretty valuable. What are the main saturation devices these days? Hedd, VSM-2, Overstayer MAS, Culture Vultures, Black Box, Looptrotter Sa2rate? Anything else? If I recall, our Dan said something was better in the Aurora N over the Hilo recently.
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Post by viciousbliss on Mar 5, 2024 17:20:27 GMT -6
You can compensate a lot for what plugins lack if you have access to a quality saturation device like a Cranesong Hedd or a VSM-2. Is the general consensus that the biggest differences between hardware and software occur in saturation devices? That's the line of thinking that I've been leaning towards. When I tried the Magic Garden chain at Access Analog, I wasn't feeling it much until I cranked the Hedd some. $12,000 Elysia Alpha didn't make as big a difference. Full, smooth, exciting, you really need quality saturation for that. The quality of the plugins you're using, how you use them, and the combinations you come up with all play a big role too. My mixes are much better since using the UAD Culture Vulture as a starting point on each sub-mix. But you take anything out of the chain and it's a big loss. The one thing I will say is that the hardware saturation really provides a dramatic enhancement to anything I run through it. Just took a demo from a band I used to do some work with over 15 years ago. Using some newer VSM-2 settings I came up with, and the quality is just radically better. This makes a bigger difference than the Fusion or any hardware comp I've tried. With eqs, I'll say it again. I think the PA SPL PQ set a new benchmark. I've also started using the PA Vitalizer just for the soft/tight bass control. If anyone wants to try hardware saturation, the Black Box and Culture Vulture 15 are usually pretty accessible at Access Analog. They may still be giving out some free time to try the Magic Garden chain too.
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Post by viciousbliss on Mar 3, 2024 8:25:42 GMT -6
Anyone else prefer to use one comp and then use saturation type stuff to do the rest?
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 29, 2024 19:12:10 GMT -6
The Acme is my go to snare compressor. It makes them just sound big and punchy more than anything else I've tried. I'm sure everyone has read my comments on the SPL PQ plugin by now. Still blows my mind that I can't tell it apart from the hardware on sections of the song that hit both the plugin and the hardware at different points in the Audio Animals video if I close my eyes. I see that the hardware doesn't have an input knob like the software, so I'm guessing Paul was hitting it with enough level to get the sort of transient popping effect that another mastering guy told me about his hardware doing. The 902 is still what I use over other de-essers. The Vitalizer bass control for soft and tight functions very similarly to the one that Access Analog has, which is a different model. To me, that's very useful across a whole mix. There's a lot of good stuff at PA and maybe I'd use more if I weren't limited by cpu cycles. The Millenia stuff is good but I wish it was more tweakable, Focusrite, Townhouse, Unfiltered Audio, BX Opto, Bax Eq and Museq sounded very close to the hardware on Youtube, Lindell console is great but I don't have enough cpu to put it all over, Purple is pretty good if you want an 1176 with more bite, Sa2rate is decent, Phil's Cascade was pretty cool, there's a lot.
The VSM and Shadow Hills plugins are decent but pretty far off from the real thing. I've tried to get into the DSM but have never taken to it. The mono makers on these are very inferior to Basslane Pro according to Flotown Mastering. Whenever Access Analog allows us to use the Alpha separately I'd love to compare it with the plugin. There's only one comparison video out there that I know of and the guy told me he didn't use dither with the hardware if I recall. With PA it just depends on what you already have. They don't have an answer for a lot of stuff that I regularly use. Reverb is a weak area for them. Tapeface is ok but it's no Satin. I vastly prefer the Culture Vulture sound over the Black Box in hardware and plugin form. You could probably get by using nothing but PA plugins, but I imagine it'd be a lot more difficult than just being able to use everything you usually do.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 26, 2024 3:30:35 GMT -6
On the 500 series side of things, has anyone tried the Roger Mayer 456 units? Or the rack 456HD? I'm definitely curious about the Roger Mayer one too. I forget where I read it, maybe on Youtube comments for the Neve tape, but there definitely were people who think this one is a lot better.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 25, 2024 10:16:13 GMT -6
I had no idea they were going native. That would be great so that I don't have much of anything tying me to Pro Tools. The Hedd was pretty cool too when I tried the Magic Garden rig at Access Analog. Ya I read a rumor somewhere so emailed to see if it was true and Will at Cranesong said "Yes that is correct, we are only waiting on some small issues". Sounds cool enough. Tough call between Phoenix and Satin. The latter is definitely more airy with a wider soundstage. Phoenix is more technically perfect, more digital. Satin definitely introduces more distortion or whatever, sibilant type sounds. The music itself sounds more true to classic recordings with Phoenix, where the harsher frequencies are kinda washed out. There are things I like better about both. But I think I can find a way to set Phoenix in a way where I end up preferring it over Satin. Or maybe mixes where I used it will end up playing well with Fusion's vintage drive. Phoenix is missing all the hiss and other analog stuff. When doing the SRC to 44k from the 96k 16-bit file, it loses a lot of the highs through the RX7 SRC. I've found that to be the most accurate SRC for my tastes. The balance is a lot better on the original 96k file. I'm always trying to consider what will survive SRC better. But you know, when I do an SRC of hi-res albums I vastly prefer the original file. Whether it's an official hi-res download or someone's needledrop, I don't like what SRC does. Maybe I'll try Phoenix and back off the amount or use Luster instead of Dark Essence.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 25, 2024 8:41:28 GMT -6
I'm psyched the native versions of Phoenix II so it can be used outside of Pro Tools, it sounded like they were close when I emailed them back in November. Currently my favorite tape plugin is Ghz Tupe. There's a great video of the lead dev talking about his understanding of "the tape thing" from studying it for emulation. I had no idea they were going native. That would be great so that I don't have much of anything tying me to Pro Tools. The Hedd was pretty cool too when I tried the Magic Garden rig at Access Analog.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 25, 2024 6:24:26 GMT -6
Anyone here use Cranesong Phoenix? I decided to break it out and play around with it. I think I'm liking it better than Satin's Studer A800 GP9 preset now. Just using Dark Essence at 100 and then adjusting the other stuff to taste. It can get bigger and thicker than Satin while also sounding clearer. Dark Essence offers some pretty nice compression too. I'd never used it in mixes featuring Inspirata, UAD Culture Vulture, or UAD Harrison before. On cohesion/glue it's just as good as Satin. CPU is a lot better I'm sure.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 19, 2024 19:52:56 GMT -6
I'll second the Satin recommendation. It provides this sort of tape compression and cohesion that the others don't. Others meaning UAD Studer, Tapedesk, Softube Tape, Analog Channel, Cranesong Phoenix, Avid Reel Tape, IK Tape, Magnetite, Magnetic II, pretty much all the usual suspects. I don't use Satin with the 102 preset or the UAD 102 across my mixes anymore. When I run out of cpu cycles, I'll start putting Phoenix and Tapedesk on stuff like toms and kicks. I don't drive them much at all, so they don't end up mucking up my mixes. Adding Dopamine on tracks following Satin with the GP9 A800 preset and then Satin in Type A mode after Satin with the GP9 A800 preset again is what I've settled on for the moment. Dan is right that you have to gainstage it. Can you chart that last one out? It sounds interesting but I can’t tell how many instances you’re describing there. Two instances. Tracks: Satin A800 GP9 Dopamine A-Type Sub-Mixes/Busses: Satin A800 GP9 Satin Type A This is also a lot easier on the cpu than doing Satin Type A on tracks. Dopamine provides more punch, excitement, and compression than Satin's Type A.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 19, 2024 17:56:25 GMT -6
Some hardware and plugins are extremely close. Go watch the Audio Animals video for the SPL PQ hardware vs plugin. Other eqs like the Curve Bender are not close at all. The PQ plugin rivals the Massive Passive hardware whereas the Massive Passive plugins all fell quite short when I did my comparisons last year. I've compared the VSM-2 and VSM-3. The VSM-3 sounds nice but it comes across like a crude impersonation compared to the real thing. Early serial number Shadow Hills vs the plugins is not close at all either. Fusion plugins are also pretty way off for the most part. You can try stuff like Elysia Alpha and Cranesong Hedd as part of the Magic Garden Chain at Access Analog. That L2 hardware is set to have noise shaping on and you can ask them to turn it off. At the moment you can't use the chain's pieces separately but they told me we'll eventually be able to use the Alpha and others on their own. Do you guys dither before your first hardware insert? That makes an almost radical difference. If you haven't tried Maat Linpro, I'd be curious what you think after using it.
Plugins that I think you should try if you haven't would be: Overload Dopamine, Satin Tape, PA 902, SPL PQ, Softube Tube Tech MKII, UAD 480, Eventide SP2016, Softube Atlantis, UAD Culture Vulture, UAD Harrison, and UAD Cooper Timecube. Inspirata was said to be the closest to a Bricasti and I'd agree based on my comparison of it vs the Bricasti at Access Analog.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 19, 2024 17:42:49 GMT -6
I'll second the Satin recommendation. It provides this sort of tape compression and cohesion that the others don't. Others meaning UAD Studer, Tapedesk, Softube Tape, Analog Channel, Cranesong Phoenix, Avid Reel Tape, IK Tape, Magnetite, Magnetic II, pretty much all the usual suspects. I don't use Satin with the 102 preset or the UAD 102 across my mixes anymore. When I run out of cpu cycles, I'll start putting Phoenix and Tapedesk on stuff like toms and kicks. I don't drive them much at all, so they don't end up mucking up my mixes. Adding Dopamine on tracks following Satin with the GP9 A800 preset and then Satin in Type A mode after Satin with the GP9 A800 preset again is what I've settled on for the moment. Dan is right that you have to gainstage it.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 16, 2024 21:30:21 GMT -6
I've been going this route for a while. Just take the 44k mix and upsample to 96k and do the final moves there with a hardware compressor, fusion minus vintage drive, and saturator. Then chain some plugins like Basslane Pro, PQ, Silver Bullet, and Cedar Adaptive Limiter 2. If you've never tried the Cedar, that thing can be incredibly useful if a mix doesn't have the best balance. I've used it to solve issues with mixes done by other people. Cedar allows payments, so you don't have to cough up the full amount. To me, it's 10x more effective than Pro L2. These days we seem to get vinyl releases that have the full dynamics largely intact.
I'm not sure what they do for vinyl mastering, but the needledrop I heard of the new BOC record sounds very, very close to the unmastered mix Don posted a while back. I've been downloading a lot of other needledrops lately because so many albums just sound better at DR10-14 instead of DR4-8. People on forums claimed before that labels would just stick the low DR cd master onto a vinyl disc, but modern vinyl sounds like it came straight from a source with little 2bus processing. I guess that begs the question of what the aim of a lot of 2bus processing is. Cohesion? level? loads of compression and limiting? It may have been a full in bloom Randy Burns interview I was listening to where he said they tried to get stuff right while tracking so that mixing was about levels primarily. He was saying that ITB mixing is completely different from what he did with tape and consoles largely based on how he wouldn't be doing all this processing at the mix stage decades ago. From what I've read about mastering over the years, I guess that used to be a much simpler process too. Simpler meaning less processing. Albini also has that sort of philosophy, I think he called it "mix itself" by putting so much focus at the tracking stage.
I'll say again that using Satin on tracks and sub-mixes makes the cohesion thing much much easier, even against another tape plugin like Cranesong Phoenix. Using Dopamine for that Dolby Type A effect also adds some compression too. Satin in Type A mode is a little more pristine and clear-sounding with less of a compression effect, but cpu limitations don't allow me to use two instances of Satin on every track(or even one instance on everything at times). But Dopamine is still very usable if the recorded tracks are solid.
Another thing I'll reiterate is that I'm not a huge fan of all this 2bus processing. I've seen videos where someone has a 10 or 15 piece hardware or plugin chain and they bypass stuff one by one. A lot of the time, maybe most of the time, I preferred it with certain stuff bypassed. One could listen and see that they could just make a couple adjustments on the other pieces and leave the current bypassed piece on bypass and get a better result. It's very easy to take processing to excess.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 16, 2024 21:01:32 GMT -6
I do notice that some older Waves plugs sound better at 96, specifically distortion stuff like GTR. I also tend to mix at 96 just in case, but I will admit that’s just a weird superstitious thing I do for no good reason. But I definitely think recording at 96 sounds noticeably better. With my ADC, that is. Those older Waves plugins don't usually oversample. I've looked at the plugin counts for their Soundgrid servers. Some of those older plugs can get hundreds of instances on computers that don't have a lot of processing. The chips in those servers are really dated and even the one in the Extreme Server probably doesn't even have half the single core power of the best chips today. The multicore is probably 10x better at least. I've looked up the chips in those servers and compared them. Probably made some posts on here or GS where I wrote out the numbers. I'm gonna say those Soundgrid servers use chips that were not even top of the line a decade ago when the 6950x was king. You'll see with the newish Waves plugins like H-Reverb, the plugin counts on those servers are really low. The Extreme could maybe run 7 instances at best. While it could run something like 150 or 200 mono CLA76. With the newer ones, the instance count didn't change regardless of sample rate. But with the older ones, you'll see that you get something like twice as many instances at 44k.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 14, 2024 16:10:07 GMT -6
I tried the Silver Bullet plugin after 3 pieces of hardware(compressor, Fusion, saturator) and then some plugins and it really added the things I thought were still lacking. Punch, more depth and width, and eq balance. The SB is just so versatile. The eq on it really allowed me to sort of rebalance things. On some of these mixes the vocals were a bit low but this allowed me to fix that without having to do a remix. In the videos I've seen, it sounds like the plugin is really spot on. Matty wasn't using any dither before the hardware insert though, so I'm not sure how that changes things. When I add dither before the insert, it definitely changes the sound a lot. So, with the SB hardware, it looks like we get to choose one module for the extra space? Choosing between the Hitmaker 4000 Colour and the Tape79 would be tough. Those WesAudio eqs sound great, but I have a feeling a SB would be a much better investment. And going back to the PQ, I noticed that the hardware doesn't have an input knob like the plugin. No meter on the hardware that I can see which would show you what kinda level you're feeding it. If Paul at Audio Animals was feeding it a good amount of level, then the plugin really is near identical. I still can't tell them apart with my eyes closed. So, that would be a real waste of 5k+ potentially. The philosophy behind the SB is really cool. Sounds like there's always going to be something interesting going on with it. Glad you had a good experience with the Silver Bullet. Just for clarification on your question - yes - there is one (1) C slot that is user configurable in the SB mk2 alongside the standard A and N modules. Traditionally it has shipped with hitmaker 4000, but that is changed now with the addition of more colour modules. All modules except LA-76 (announced at NAMM and available soon) are on the drop down menu at the order point and can be chosen upon purchase. The Silver Bullet hardware isn't $5k+ - its currently $2849. Yeah, it's a lot of $$, but we (and most of our customers) feel that it is a very good value for what it brings to the table. That price includes Hitmaker - so onboard you have the 3 main food groups of consoles over the last 50 years. The other options - Tape•79, Fairi-Mu, Hitmaker Comp, LA-76 add a bit more cost when ordering (between $150 for Tape•79 to $200 for Hitmaker Comp to $250 for Fairi-Mu) - but they are also available on their own for essentially $300-450 each for a stereo compressor. IMO, priced incredibly for what they bring. (My Fairi-Mu is standing alongside my Manley, Locomotive and AudioScape Vari-Mu's and getting used just as much). On the LED side of things - there is an LED - off, green, blue, orange, red - that relates to the C slot gain reduction along with the traditional SB saturation LED on the C slot. You can also see how much you are feeding it via the main meters. Brad mentioned that mk2 will also be available without a C module installed for somewhere around $2600 I'd guess. In addition, for those who want multiple Mojo Modules, we are working on an inexpensive external host that can be dropped into the insert or follow the SB in your signal chain. That's still a few months away. For me personally, the plugin in very good, but not so amazing that I'm selling my 3 mk2's or 5 mk1's. And yeah, we're hoping for a lot more options for the C slot in the future! The options out there are looking very promising. Cheers, bp Thanks for the info! The 5k+ figure I mentioned was for the SPL PQ. It would be something if I got one of those just to find out that I still couldn't tell it apart from the plugin...hah. But there is something special about that plugin. It's roughly in the same league as the Massive Passive hardware and far closer to that sound than other eq plugins. Silver Bullet is really an insane value for the amount of versatility it brings. Not many things can radically change a mix or master for the better like that. And you guys keep coming up with new ways to make it even more versatile. All the modules you guys come up with are going to sound brilliant and if I read correctly, you're looking into creating something separate where you could use multiple modules? That would be something. At this juncture, I can't think of a better idea for a purchase. To get that kinda benefit by going 500 series, I'd have to spend 5k at least. I'm not talking about duplicating the SB sound, more like substituting 2 or 3 things for mojo and another 2-3 for eq. Plus the cost of something like a Wesaudio Titan. I'll have to read up on the Tape79 module and the others and try to narrow down what I think I'd like best!
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 14, 2024 4:09:44 GMT -6
I'm surprised Club Ninja wasn't a bigger seller. Dancin In The Ruins is almost as catchy as Burnin, Perfect Water is really great and classy with incredible guitar work(a sentiment shared by many in the Youtube comments), there's a couple Bob Halligan Jr songs that can compete with the best of that sort of mid-80s hard rock, White Flags has a lot of momentum, and the other tracks are still good with a lot of redeeming qualities. The sound is tremendous and the cover art has a lot in common with the cartoons that were popular at the time. It's a well-crafted and well-produced album. There was an abundance of quality hard rock and AOR in 1986, but so much of it went unnoticed until more recent times. It's been a while since I listened through Revolution and I need to go back and see what else I liked aside from Shooting Shark, Take Me Away, and Eyes On Fire. I've always been surprised that Eyes wasn't the first single released. It has the most in common with Burnin. Everything seemed so hits driven at this point in time. You could have an album like Theater of Pain or most of Ratt's catalogue where everything is very average aside from the 1 or 2 hits and those two hits would shift millions of albums. On the flipside, you could have an album full of B+ grade songs and not even go Gold because there's nothing with the right sound to light up the charts. Like Creatures Of The Night or Psycho City.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 13, 2024 17:14:01 GMT -6
I tried the Silver Bullet plugin after 3 pieces of hardware(compressor, Fusion, saturator) and then some plugins and it really added the things I thought were still lacking. Punch, more depth and width, and eq balance. The SB is just so versatile. The eq on it really allowed me to sort of rebalance things. On some of these mixes the vocals were a bit low but this allowed me to fix that without having to do a remix. In the videos I've seen, it sounds like the plugin is really spot on. Matty wasn't using any dither before the hardware insert though, so I'm not sure how that changes things. When I add dither before the insert, it definitely changes the sound a lot. So, with the SB hardware, it looks like we get to choose one module for the extra space? Choosing between the Hitmaker 4000 Colour and the Tape79 would be tough. Those WesAudio eqs sound great, but I have a feeling a SB would be a much better investment. And going back to the PQ, I noticed that the hardware doesn't have an input knob like the plugin. No meter on the hardware that I can see which would show you what kinda level you're feeding it. If Paul at Audio Animals was feeding it a good amount of level, then the plugin really is near identical. I still can't tell them apart with my eyes closed. So, that would be a real waste of 5k+ potentially. The philosophy behind the SB is really cool. Sounds like there's always going to be something interesting going on with it.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 13, 2024 17:02:20 GMT -6
For years Dan advocated working at 44 or 48 because of IMD. He said there was no way to get rid of it. Then he got a new computer and went up to 96k and never answered my question as to why he did that as far as I can remember. The Dan Worrell video about sample rates showed that 44k with upsampling plugins was perfectly fine. That's what I do until I want to do a final master with hardware. At 44k, I don't think I'm using a lot of plugins that don't upsample. Satin, UAD 1176 blue, some UAD FX, PA 902, UAD CV, UAD Harrison. Not sure if Softube Trident A Range upsamples. Basslane Pro is linear phase and I imagine it does whatever it needs to do. There are a lot of plugins that still alias pretty noticeably at 96k if I recall. But it all boils down to if you like the way something sounds in the way that you're using it.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 13, 2024 3:23:05 GMT -6
Fire Of Unknown Origin is just tremendous from beginning to end. Got it for Burnin during Xmas 95 and it was a pleasant surprise how great the whole thing was. My next favorites have always been Club Ninja and Revolution. There's a few albums I need to revisit.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 18:29:51 GMT -6
It was always about saturation and "nuking" stuff - which I have to be honest - I didn't really get...I chalked it up to him being in a completely different genre. But it's making more sense what aliasing was such a big topic for him - he was putting distortion on everything... BTW - I'm not disparaging him...it's just making more sense. Does anyone remember if Dan ever went into detail on his plugin chains? I'd love to know how many plugins he was using per session. A lot of plugins have a lot of problems and it will definitely pile up if you're using dozens of things that are introducing stuff like aliasing and phase issues.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 18:13:48 GMT -6
I like to say that everyone needs to follow their own path and that's what we have to keep in mind. Dealing with people nowadays requires a lot of patience because so many are into denying facts and reality like some MLM cult member. With a lot of subjects across a lot of avenues of communication, I'll share tips, advice, etc. But I know a lot of people won't listen or even acknowledge it. And that's ok, it's what I expect. People I know have gotten Covid or into other problems because they didn't listen to me. It was their choice to make. All you can really do is put your best info out there, give people a chance to hear it, and remember to save yourself. Interesting point and I have to agree that many people nowadays are very magnetic, both positively and negatively. Meaning, easily pushed towards things they resonate with and easily in resistance to things they don't. I don't know if this is due to larger societal polarization or some sort of shift in the collective consciousness, but it does seem to be happening more often. Sometimes even just mentioning something that is "out of resonance" with someone else nowadays can result in an unpredictable reaction, there is literally a war against or for everything nowadays. I guess the internet was always a bit like that, but nowadays it seems to be in every corner. That being said, I tend to be more attracted to positive attitudes, even when critiquing, judging, or discerning different components of audio. The best is when people with different points, pros and cons of something can come together and say, 'cool I see your perspective and respect that, but also this is why it doesn't work for what I'm doing.' Everyone hears music differently, everyone uses gear differently, and that should be fundamentally understood. If you are rigging up an online ego, all sorts of weird situations can arise and people maybe get a bit carried away sometimes with how they respond emotionally to this type of environment. Humans are weird as shit. There is a lot going on. The people who wield the power and have the biggest spheres of influence want society engineered socially in certain ways. Most of this revolves around corporations. They want us miserable so we'll consume. They minimize and deny that we still have a level 3 biohazard circulating so that we'll consume. Our increasingly disastrous and polygamous dating market is the result of targeted attacks on women aimed at manipulating them into turning against the men in various ways. As a result of that, we now have a huge industry of shows and podcasts aimed at the 30% or more of the men who have been frozen out of the dating market. And a lot of that is about bringing on women who have very high standards that only 5% or less of men can meet and then letting the audience beat up on them by paying to have the host read their verbal tirades. But the women don't know that these new standards are only met by a miniscule percentage of men or that a lot of this 5% is gladly taking advantage of their new found abundance of options and putting something like 20% of women in polygamous situations without them knowing. There was just something where a mob-connected guy sued 27 women for talking about him on "are we dating the same guy?" right when he got indicted. I've heard other stories of men "dating" someone and then they go on dating apps and can instantly have a woman in their bed the second their "girlfriend" doesn't do what they want. And these guys would go through several women a week. Then we end up with a lot of angry women who think the other 95% of men are exactly the same. When certain people are reminded about the level 3 biohazard still circulating, they snap. "It's over" or "It's a mild cold" and "why are you still wearing a mask". Used to hear that a lot until this current ongoing wave. Now just about everyone who said that to me had to concede that I was correct even if they haven't changed their risk-taking behavior. Denying this made denying other things into a normalized idea. You don't like a fact, just deny it exists. Create your own version of reality. On a lot of social media, long Covid advocates get censored, shadowbanned, you name it. It's in the interest of governments and corporations to downplay all this. Kick the can down the road and see who survives. It's like eugenics. All over social media, it's rampant narcissism. People taking pictures and video of themselves like they're "The Narcissist" Lex Luger in 1993. Zealotry used to be confined to small circles. Now it has become the norm. People who haven't been exposed to cult behavior in something like Amway or Primerica can be very susceptible to brainwashing campaigns. I've already seen people become brainwashed and do crazy stuff like stay at a meeting from 7 pm to 7 am routinely and lose their jobs as a result. It's tough to fathom the mindset of supposed "leaders" who think that basically forcing people to do that after spending thousands and thousands to tour the country at company conventions is a rational idea. Of course, the point was to get you further enmeshed in the brainwashing. This is what we see with a lot of politics too. One side is always leaning towards authoritarianism based on claiming to have the moral high ground, it just depends what year it is. What I've noticed is that people don't really scrutinize what politicians say if they agree with what they're saying. Doesn't matter if it's based in fact or not. Internet groups do become radicalized. We go back 25-26 years ago, and it's a lot of people into pop culture stuff that was frozen out of the mainstream market venting their grievances at the things that were on MTV and radio. People have been prone to zealotry since the beginning of Internet discussion. With our audio, I think we can hold companies accountable without being zealots. If someone wants to use a plugin or piece of hardware with objective flaws, all you can do is present your case. It's on them if they want to invest their money in it. People are gonna do what they want to do. It's often a fine line between a passionate expression and being a zealot. But a strong expression directed at a harmful action is never really a bad thing. Like speaking out against record labels and exploitive contracts the way someone like Steve Albini does.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 16:41:19 GMT -6
Over the years I spent a decent amount of time studying this over on the plugin analysis thread with guys like Andy from Cytomic. And I've tried to commit a lot of what Dan said to memory while also saving a lot of discussions he was involved in. He said minimum phase filters for oversampling were bad if I recall. And that this was something in Softube plugins aside from the FX. He also said Tapedesk was an "aliasing nightmare" or something like that. CLA76 was also one he hated for various flaws and I'd say the UAD 1176 is tons better. But Dan was using settings I never used. These insanely fast attack times. For all I know he had completely different taste and goals from me. But I always appreciated his deep technical analysis. Over the years I've kept sort of a mental list of plugins with aliasing issues and other objective flaws. Compressors not oversampling the sidechain was another Dan pet peeve. Often he was the only one who dissected them enough to find this stuff.
But what it really boils down to is your ears. If something has aliasing issues, you probably won't like the way it sounds. High-end hardware is classy. It's full and smooth, but clear too. Plugins that are well-engineered like Satin, have this sort of quality about them. But it also runs at 384k. Overloud Gem stuff can give you a ton of instances and there's apparently a price to pay for that. But you could still get a good sound out of it, you just have to find out what settings create problems. So, you experiment and find the strengths and weaknesses of each plugin. Dan seemed to get frustrated when he wanted to use a plugin a certain way and then just couldn't without aliasing, cramping, or some other issue popping up. Plugin compressors routinely seemed to drive him up a wall aside from the TDR stuff, Fuse, and the Weiss. There was probably a couple others in there.
I'd have to go back through old notes I've made and threads I've read in the past to contribute to a list of problematic plugins. It's been a while since I checked out the plugin analysis thread.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 16:20:22 GMT -6
I like to say that everyone needs to follow their own path and that's what we have to keep in mind. Dealing with people nowadays requires a lot of patience because so many are into denying facts and reality like some MLM cult member. With a lot of subjects across a lot of avenues of communication, I'll share tips, advice, etc. But I know a lot of people won't listen or even acknowledge it. And that's ok, it's what I expect. People I know have gotten Covid or into other problems because they didn't listen to me. It was their choice to make. All you can really do is put your best info out there, give people a chance to hear it, and remember to save yourself.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 9, 2024 16:11:22 GMT -6
Lately I've been liking to use the UAD Culture Vulture in parallel at the top of my sub-mixes along with Satin in Studer mode followed by Satin in Type A. And I've got Softube Trident A-range before Satin for the filters and the saturation. Eqs with less saturation can't play that role. If the UAD Harrison has saturation, guess we can count that too. On tracks, the saturation of the UAD 1176 and the PA902 are both very helpful. When I run out of UAD DSP, I'll swap in Decapitator since it got pretty close to a hardware Culture Vulture in one of those saturator shootouts on Youtube. Maybe when I build a better computer I'll be able to run the Silver Bullet on sub-mixes. Right now I can't get enough cpu to pull it off. Never heard of Klanghabitat and I will take a look for sure. Dopamine can be a decent substitute for Satin's type A, but it creates a thicker, more compressed sound.
There's probably a decent amount of saturation in FX like Softube Atlantis.
Using plugin saturation the way I am now allows me to make a lot of moves that make my ITB mixes way better than they ever were. It's what I use instead of bus compression and I don't run anything across the whole mix until I go into a master session. Then it's hardware, the PA PQ, and utility plugins. Having access to hardware has made me understand the different stages a lot better and how to better maximize the potential of plugins. You realize what can't be done by slapping hardware across a mix. And you get a good idea of what top notch hardware sounds like and can then better understand the quality of plugin emulations. The hardware is sort of a measuring stick. You could even look at investing in it as you would investing tens of thousands in audio school. The hardware might actually be cheaper and give you a better rate of return if you apply yourself, actually.
With that said, there is some quality saturation with plugins. They are faithful enough to the hardware that you can utilize them for the same purposes. The character is retained pretty well. Then you can get creative with chains of saturation plugins mixed with utility plugins to achieve some really good results.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 7, 2024 6:14:30 GMT -6
The SPL PQ plugin does some natural widening too I've noticed. Try pushing the input some though.
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Post by viciousbliss on Feb 6, 2024 17:32:26 GMT -6
The Fusion is cheaper used now than it was when I got mine in 2022, sometimes I've seen them at near $1600. Try using Affirm or Klarna if you can get access. Or 48 months on VK if you got a card. My guy there was willing to do 48 months on anything. Access Analog has two as well, I think. The plugins are not all that close if you watch the multiple videos comparing them. My experience corroborated what I saw on Youtube. But I also have very limited hardware experience. What other hardware wideners are there? The Drawmer, one of the Vitalizers, and the Overstayer piece that Access Analog has in the Magic Garden chain? There's probably some I don't know about. I'm not sure if I consider the Portico's SFE to really be a widener. It can get phasey and I've heard it's just a mid-side eq simplified. I've never had the Fusion's SW get phasey on me.
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