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Post by notneeson on Feb 21, 2024 21:10:40 GMT -6
Here’s a modern production that I think sounds righteous. He’s great. I need to dig in deeper on his albums. |
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Post by niklas1073 on Feb 22, 2024 1:22:45 GMT -6
Yeah I mean, I could just off the hip lay down dozens of recent productions that are just mind blowing and would never make me question the digital means. Take any Bruce Springsteen album from last few decades, any Adele album, any Rival Sons, any Brandy Carlile, Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton , David Ramirez, War on Drugs, Lucifer, qotsa….. I mean I could go on forever with amazing sounding productions that are both musically, production wise and aesthetically solid. So It’s not about that great music or productions cant be done, vice versa, I think it’s actually better than ever. And most of these artists aren’t even exceptions, they have become sort of main stream. That is the new level to beat, and it’s bloody hard.
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Post by Dan on Feb 22, 2024 8:59:12 GMT -6
Yeah I mean, I could just off the hip lay down dozens of recent productions that are just mind blowing and would never make me question the digital means. Take any Bruce Springsteen album from last few decades, any Adele album, any Rival Sons, any Brandy Carlile, Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton , David Ramirez, War on Drugs, Lucifer, qotsa….. I mean I could go on forever with amazing sounding productions that are both musically, production wise and aesthetically solid. So It’s not about that great music or productions cant be done, vice versa, I think it’s actually better than ever. And most of these artists aren’t even exceptions, they have become sort of main stream. That is the new level to beat, and it’s bloody hard. Chris Stapleton has high production value modern sound that’s not excessively maximized but most of those artists like Rival Sons and Adele use modern equipment that is distorted by design and are eventually clipped from the limiter or pcm file. They end up being more distorted than most older punk and metal albums. Adele’s voice is tuned and clipped no matter how many albums she sold, how many young girls like her voice, how good her voice is in real life, and how angry she got at Tony Visconti for pointing it out. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Feb 22, 2024 11:15:06 GMT -6
Yeah I mean, I could just off the hip lay down dozens of recent productions that are just mind blowing and would never make me question the digital means. Take any Bruce Springsteen album from last few decades, any Adele album, any Rival Sons, any Brandy Carlile, Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton , David Ramirez, War on Drugs, Lucifer, qotsa….. I mean I could go on forever with amazing sounding productions that are both musically, production wise and aesthetically solid. So It’s not about that great music or productions cant be done, vice versa, I think it’s actually better than ever. And most of these artists aren’t even exceptions, they have become sort of main stream. That is the new level to beat, and it’s bloody hard. I've played on some David Ramirez records and the production approach is very old school. So if they sound competitive it's because of good songwriting, good arrangement, and the fact that Ramirez tends to show up with an idea of what he's trying to do. Plus most of his songs are road tested to some degree before they're recorded. So I can't speak for the process on the other ones, but at least in that case the argument can be made that he's basically making records like they did in the 1970s and they sound very modern. |
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Post by niklas1073 on Feb 22, 2024 11:49:30 GMT -6
Yeah I mean, I could just off the hip lay down dozens of recent productions that are just mind blowing and would never make me question the digital means. Take any Bruce Springsteen album from last few decades, any Adele album, any Rival Sons, any Brandy Carlile, Jason Isbell, Chris Stapleton , David Ramirez, War on Drugs, Lucifer, qotsa….. I mean I could go on forever with amazing sounding productions that are both musically, production wise and aesthetically solid. So It’s not about that great music or productions cant be done, vice versa, I think it’s actually better than ever. And most of these artists aren’t even exceptions, they have become sort of main stream. That is the new level to beat, and it’s bloody hard. I've played on some David Ramirez records and the production approach is very old school. So if they sound competitive it's because of good songwriting, good arrangement, and the fact that Ramirez tends to show up with an idea of what he's trying to do. Plus most of his songs are road tested to some degree before they're recorded. So I can't speak for the process on the other ones, but at least in that case the argument can be made that he's basically making records like they did in the 1970s and they sound very modern. Really cool to hear, respect. I have most likely liked a lot what you’ve been doing there 😉. Absolutely, the approach is old school, as I think the case is in most of my references. Most of those plays the albums in live with the band in very old school environments. But I believe they all still take full advantage of the digital and plugs where needed in the mixing phase, for example where quantity of units don’t need to be compromised, or complicated routings becomes a breeze. I do believe Ryan Freeland/Fables (don’t know him, just heard his productions) also takes advantage of the digital world, could be wrong though. My point was never that the approach should not be old school, it’s right down my alley, more that the digital can eliminate the all analog shortcomings and enhance the workflow. As an alternative angle to inspiration where knobs do it for some, the non restrictive, non compromise approach of itb combined with great outboard front end can really open possibilities for inspiration. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Feb 22, 2024 12:54:03 GMT -6
I've played on some David Ramirez records and the production approach is very old school. So if they sound competitive it's because of good songwriting, good arrangement, and the fact that Ramirez tends to show up with an idea of what he's trying to do. Plus most of his songs are road tested to some degree before they're recorded. So I can't speak for the process on the other ones, but at least in that case the argument can be made that he's basically making records like they did in the 1970s and they sound very modern. Really cool to hear, respect. I have most likely liked a lot what you’ve been doing there 😉. Absolutely, the approach is old school, as I think the case is in most of my references. Most of those plays the albums in live with the band in very old school environments. But I believe they all still take full advantage of the digital and plugs where needed in the mixing phase, for example where quantity of units don’t need to be compromised, or complicated routings becomes a breeze. I do believe Ryan Freeland/Fables (don’t know him, just heard his productions) also takes advantage of the digital world, could be wrong though. My point was never that the approach should not be old school, it’s right down my alley, more that the digital can eliminate the all analog shortcomings and enhance the workflow. As an alternative angle to inspiration where knobs do it for some, the non restrictive, non compromise approach of itb combined with great outboard front end can really open possibilities for inspiration. Well nobody is dogmatic about it that's for sure. Not in the circle I run in. I think these guys that are actually working musicians are much more focused on outcome versus process. That's when it comes to mixing. But when it comes to tracking I think they want a process that is not distracting. So it's kinda like you were saying a few posts back, if analog means swapping out stuff that's broken all the time, digital all the way. But if digital means fiddling with settings endlessly when I could also just punch in the chorus, no thank you. |
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Post by drbill on Feb 22, 2024 14:12:21 GMT -6
My point was never that the approach should not be old school, it’s right down my alley, more that the digital can eliminate the all analog shortcomings and enhance the workflow. We're having kind of a silly conversation here. In my world, the old school approach is up my alley too. But since I'm no longer using tape (thankfully) - the analog gear I use eliminates all of the shortcomings of digital and enhances MY workflow.  |
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Post by nicksteinborn on Feb 22, 2024 16:33:30 GMT -6
In regards to the title of the thread, my KT 76 and EQP sound fine. The 76 is definitely decent, but I like my Audioscape 76D more. The EQP definitely EQ'd. I don't know that it ever blew me away, but I don't think it necessarily ruined anything. I think I like my DIYREs more, but I haven't sat down and done an extensive comparison. Been too lazy getting my racks fully wired up.
RE: Outboard vs plugins, I can't begin to really care. It's certainly a cooler story when it's real or whatever, but use what inspires you or makes the magic happen. There are so many records I LOVE that objectively sound kinda bad, but I'm not sure how much I'd want to change most of them. At the end of the day, the song and performance are everything.
I also grew up on Blink 182 and bad local hardcore bands so what do I know.
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Post by Shadowk on Feb 22, 2024 16:47:17 GMT -6
Well nobody is dogmatic about it that's for sure. Not in the circle I run in. I think these guys that are actually working musicians are much more focused on outcome versus process. Exactly, I don't care how something is made and the process behind it. It just needs to be good and dare to have some seperation to declassify it from the drone of thousands who in a mediocre fashion copied the original standouts. Whether melodyne, VST's etc. are involved is sorta irrelevant, good music is good music period.. If that's a modern or vintage approach it also doesn't matter.. We don't get into audio engineering just to be a stereotyped stagnant pusher, we do it because we love audio and the outcome no matter what that is (within reason). Don't know about others but I could hardly afford to pick and choose jobs so I just got into it.. |
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Post by earlevel on Feb 23, 2024 19:09:25 GMT -6
Yes, I bought the KT outboard gear to try it out—how can I tell if that LA-2A plugin really does the same thing if I've never even used a cheap clone of one? But I wasn't about to spend several $k for that experiment. Going cheap, if I only liked the '2A, for instance, I could shoose to replace it with something better if needed. Spending $847 plus tax for '2A, '76, and EQP trio of clones would not keep me up at night if I didn't find them useful.
And on the more practical side, even though I was used to singing without a compressor and adjusting my voice level and mic distance, it seems that a little compression on the way in might safe an otherwise good take some day. That meant outboard, to avoid latency in monitoring, and the only compressor I had in my rack is DBX 166 that probably hasn't been powered up since the '80s. I wasn't about to run my nice mics through that.
Plus, my old bandmate and friend who's worked with a lot of the classic geared assured me that I should be monitoring with some of that old magic, and it would influence my performance. Not essential for me, but it is kind of cool.
Otherwise, I'd rather do everything in the box.
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Post by honkeur on Mar 4, 2024 10:37:40 GMT -6
OK, that made me curious about trying to get the same sound with The Klark Teknik pieces and UAD plugins. Possibly it just seems like a no-brainer with the hardware, because you pretty much arrive at the proper gain staging naturally, so I wanted to see how it would work out if I tried to get the same settings. My source is Soyuz 017 though Great River ME-1NV. I'm not a pro at singing and recording vocals, this is newer experimentation for me (a keyboardist). I just did one unedited pass through a karaoke song, chosen for starting in my resting vocal range, not going a lot higher—was looking for texture. I recorded that directly, then for one path, piped it back out to 76-KT, through 2A-KT, back in to a track. The other path was through UAD UA 1176LN Legacy and UAD Teletronix LA-2A Legacy. Just working with what I have here. I grabbed a middle stretch with verse and chorus: View AttachmentView AttachmentI normally record through the 2A-KT only, lately, 5-7 dB max gain reduction. For the '76, the compression was light, like 3 dB reduction on most, maybe it hit some more on loud parts, wasn't really watching. It was more about going through the gear than doing a lot of compression. I tried to match the levels as closely as I could, added some reverb because it seemed to make the tone stand out better. Let me know if you think one sounds better than the other. Take a guess at which is which, if you would. Seems like no one bit on this blind test. I prefer A, seems less obviously squashed. Of course, there's a lot of variables here: even if the knobs are set the same, we don't know if they are scaled the same way, etc etc. One test can't "proove the superiority of hardware over software" or vice-versa. |
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Post by earlevel on Mar 6, 2024 12:39:09 GMT -6
OK, that made me curious about trying to get the same sound with The Klark Teknik pieces and UAD plugins. Possibly it just seems like a no-brainer with the hardware, because you pretty much arrive at the proper gain staging naturally, so I wanted to see how it would work out if I tried to get the same settings. My source is Soyuz 017 though Great River ME-1NV. I'm not a pro at singing and recording vocals, this is newer experimentation for me (a keyboardist). I just did one unedited pass through a karaoke song, chosen for starting in my resting vocal range, not going a lot higher—was looking for texture. I recorded that directly, then for one path, piped it back out to 76-KT, through 2A-KT, back in to a track. The other path was through UAD UA 1176LN Legacy and UAD Teletronix LA-2A Legacy. Just working with what I have here. I grabbed a middle stretch with verse and chorus: View AttachmentView AttachmentI normally record through the 2A-KT only, lately, 5-7 dB max gain reduction. For the '76, the compression was light, like 3 dB reduction on most, maybe it hit some more on loud parts, wasn't really watching. It was more about going through the gear than doing a lot of compression. I tried to match the levels as closely as I could, added some reverb because it seemed to make the tone stand out better. Let me know if you think one sounds better than the other. Take a guess at which is which, if you would. Seems like no one bit on this blind test. I prefer A, seems less obviously squashed. Of course, there's a lot of variables here: even if the knobs are set the same, we don't know if they are scaled the same way, etc etc. One test can't "proove the superiority of hardware over software" or vice-versa. Thanks for checking. I forgot about this one. Yes, you picked the hardware, I believe it was A. Yes, limitations in a test like this, just wanted to see if anything jumped out to anyone. On the one hand, the plugins seems to get the same basic sound and behavior. That's about all we can ask of plugins emulating hardware that itself varies. And on top of 1176 and LA-2A differences from unit to unit and era to era, my hardware is a clone...and might well be a clone of a clone (did Klark Teknik use the Warm as a model? Somewhat seems that way for their EQP clone). Listen now, over my computer monitors (IK MTM), I distinctly hear the hardware version vocal blending in better with the reverb. And there seems to be a little polish on the vocal. All this could be minute differences., in settings or otherwise. About classic hardware in general—and something we hope the plugins relay as well—the stuff that survived the years not only has a good sound that we like, but most are forgiving in their settings. Hard to get a bad sound. |
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