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Post by drbill on Jul 9, 2020 7:34:20 GMT -6
I can only speculate about why people do certain things. Especially publicly. But one thing I can trust, that I KNOW to be true (at least for me) is my ears and how things sound. I won't be going fully ITB for mixing any time soon.
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Post by EmRR on Jul 9, 2020 7:42:54 GMT -6
I had a (sadly) rare opportunity to do an analog hardware mix with outboard comps and eq’s on individual tracks. Rarely possible with the demands of recalls. Probably took longer, but sure was easier to get obvious improvements. Bumped all the patchbay returns from console to AD input for a second pass and captured all the tracks at what should be flat fader mix level, also the plate and the space echo. Just in case...wait, no....for the inevitable moment a recall is requested. Spent a lot of time documenting all the hardware settings, because - why? - the recall will have some element rerecorded, or edited, and the safety capture will be obsolete.
......I see where he might be coming from!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 9, 2020 11:32:59 GMT -6
Plug most non-linear plugins into Plugin Doctor and they don’t behave well. Most of the emulations neither behave like the hardware nor behave well at at all. They artifact and alias. Once you hear it, you won’t unhear it. You’ll be like me and ditch entire brands of plugins when you realize that they’re not just hurting to your fuzz box, it’s doing it to everything and the stack up flattens and grains up your recordings. There are some excellent non-linear plugins that behave more like hardware but the amount of them is limited. Many of the guys who make the one sick plug will also make 💩.
Most plugin compressors do not model the even order distortion of gain reduction. I understand that’s the hardware itself distorting but that is what makes compression sound better. Plugins just add odd order harmonics that may make one track more exciting for a slight gr but built up over a mix or in the YouTube mixing tutorial plugin stacks, make metallic digital garbage. Then you have the aliasing killing the sound and crazy as hell artifacts in poor side chains. Of course there are a handful of exceptions but it’s easy to hear it and check.
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Post by christopher on Jul 9, 2020 12:49:18 GMT -6
Magnetic fields turn the electricity back into a physical waveform. Once it’s physical again, it obeys physics. One part of electronic physics is the Faraday law of induction, where a field induces electrons to inherit the charge next to it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday%27s_law_of_inductionScience believes/knows this happens on tape. If you have a small waveform, +/- high frequency... in the area of a large positive waveform, the ++++++ of a Low frequency.. then the - charges will be surrounded by + and induced to switch polarity, becoming positive. Effectively erasing that high frequency event, and leaving and reinforcing only the low frequency. This only happens in strong positive or negative parts of the cycle. As soon as the peak of the wave gets lower in loudness, the induction is less powerful and allows the high frequencies to behave as normal. So you’ll still see the high frequency on a scope, it will sound better. The lows will sound denser too. It will sound LESS ugly, and cleaner, it’s ‘musical’, it filters out the close mic transients..it’s a similar thing that happens in the water and air... watch waves in water... waveforms in air also combine and soften during peaks, with the lows traveling further than the highs, until eventually it’s just lows. Magnets in transformers MUST do something similar on a smaller scale, it’s physics, there’s trillions of electrons doing their thing. Its a lot to ask of a plug-in.
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Post by christopher on Jul 9, 2020 13:05:01 GMT -6
The full video is up, he looks excited and looking forward to the transition. If MB thinks its not a compromise sonically, or that the compromise is so minute that continuing to use all the highest quality analog gear he already owns and knows well doesn't make sense anymore, that speaks volumes. Welcome! ITB works for a certain popular sound right now, and all that ever matters is the end result. If someone can get the desired sound they want from plugins, they will be totally fine. If they want something analog but they are entirely ITB, it’s not going to be easy. Some of the guys on here are probably the best in the world at achieving a great ITB sound that rivals analog stuff. Most on here have found they like at least a few pieces outboard to take it all the way. If a pro gets handed stuff that is tracked and performed to where it already sounds incredible (ie, all virtual instruments+high quality vocal), ITB might be better as any attempt to go outboard might change it too much. Some of these guys might not have recent the hell of trying to improve really awkward sounding instrument setups, recorded on budget equipment. That’s when they might want to dust off some outboard and not really mention that so much, so the can save some face...
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Post by Guitar on Jul 9, 2020 13:20:59 GMT -6
All electricity obeys physics, not just magnetics.
In the field of classic electronic music some converters are prized for their aliasing and poor bandwidth. I'm just saying to some people, it sounds good.
For example the DX7 mark I "brown" synthesizer sound good because of bad conversion. The "clean" ones don't have the same mojo. The TX81Z sounds even "worse" in a good way, to me.
I think the Arturia DX7 nails the emulation though. For some EE's and software programmers a lot of this stuff is well understood.
And as a producer / engineer / mixer you can make these same things happen. That's what Brauer was talking about in the long video. You just know inherently what sounds good, and find how to get there. I think he used the standby metaphor of the person driving the race car being the decider.
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Post by Guitar on Jul 9, 2020 13:49:26 GMT -6
I think Andrew Scheps addressed that myth, or was it Tchad Blake, I don't remember. Both in the boxers. The stuff they get to mix doesn't "always sound good" before they mix it, it's a popular recording forum myth that they have an easier row to hoe.
We think we know so much about these people from the outside, while they quietly toil away at their computers and get paid.
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Post by christopher on Jul 9, 2020 13:51:08 GMT -6
One more post on this, sorry to be hogging the topic ... it’s easy for me to see/hear the transformers and tubes do some of this physics “magic” (tape is a whole other animal- one that also also poops quite often). But I feel you are totally right.. all electronics do their physical thing to a waveform, sometimes a transformerless line amp will do wonders vs ITB. One of my first ventures OTB after being an ITB guy was running signal though an 80s rack effects in bypass. That old line amp was thick and meaty, made snare more dense, and made a fat overdrive harmonic sound better than the plugins did. I figured it must have used an op amp that was used in some guitar pedals.. Ok... I’m done LOL.. enjoy ripping me to shreds everyone (edit: I got a chance to watch some of the full video. Very cool to hear him talk about his past and especially the gear.. I’m glad he’s not being too crazy! He’s basically looking for a setup similar to what I’ve been forced to live with: a few parts of outboard, use them to do a quick revoice and capture, line things up in the box. I now wonder if all the ‘ITB guys’ have their little printing rack? he’ll be perfectly ok.. In a perfect world Dr Bill probably has us all beat )
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Post by Guitar on Jul 9, 2020 14:00:17 GMT -6
that was funny, tearing you apart, haha
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Post by mrholmes on Jul 9, 2020 18:30:29 GMT -6
Plug most non-linear plugins into Plugin Doctor and they don’t behave well. Most of the emulations neither behave like the hardware nor behave well at at all. They artifact and alias. Once you hear it, you won’t unhear it. You’ll be like me and ditch entire brands of plugins when you realize that they’re not just hurting to your fuzz box, it’s doing it to everything and the stack up flattens and grains up your recordings. There are some excellent non-linear plugins that behave more like hardware but the amount of them is limited. Many of the guys who make the one sick plug will also make 💩. Most plugin compressors do not model the even order distortion of gain reduction. I understand that’s the hardware itself distorting but that is what makes compression sound better. Plugins just add odd order harmonics that may make one track more exciting for a slight gr but built up over a mix or in the YouTube mixing tutorial plugin stacks, make metallic digital garbage. Then you have the aliasing killing the sound and crazy as hell artifacts in poor side chains. Of course there are a handful of exceptions but it’s easy to hear it and check.
I no longer give a fuck about ITB vs. OTB.
It all depends on my soundvison - no matter which platform I use for mixing.
The vision starts as soon as I write the song....
There are a lot of catches to screw the fist intension up.....
To stay on track with the song is more important to me as any OTB or ITB discussion......
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Post by notneeson on Jul 9, 2020 18:41:08 GMT -6
I think Andrew Scheps addressed that myth, or was it Tchad Blake, I don't remember. Both in the boxers. The stuff they get to mix doesn't "always sound good" before they mix it, it's a popular recording forum myth that they have an easier row to hoe. We think we know so much about these people from the outside, while they quietly toil away at their computers and get paid. I would hope anything with decent tracking budget sounds good. But also, why would you skimp on tracking a band and then hire Tchad Blake? I suppose some self-recorded band stuff probably sounds bad to their discerning ears but I kind records like that with a lot of off beat charm.
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Post by seawell on Jul 9, 2020 22:25:36 GMT -6
Interesting....he's actually keeping a good bit of outboard.
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Post by mattbroiler on Jul 10, 2020 9:17:06 GMT -6
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Post by drbill on Jul 10, 2020 9:28:43 GMT -6
OK....so let's pretend I'm smart, and a big time mixing engineer.... (both of those would not be true but this is just an exercise... ) I get an album in to mix that is recorded below the level that I would hope for - sonically. And I HAVE to stay and mix ITB because of delivery requirements, recalls, and the need to mix on my laptop, etc.. But I'm also sitting in a studio with a couple hundred thousand in rare and fantastic outboard gear that I've accumulated over the years..... Am I going to : A.) Struggle for days trying to get it to sound like I want ITB with plugins; or. B.) Take a trip OTB BEFORE mixing, and re-amp thru my racks of fantastic outboard in PREPARATION for mixing. Which would you do? What's the smart thing to do? If you choose "B" are you really mixing ITB? DISCLAIMER - this is ALL just a theoretical exercise - of course. I wouldn't expect any pro to actually do this.....
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Post by EmRR on Jul 10, 2020 9:50:05 GMT -6
Am I going to : A.) Struggle for days trying to get it to sound like I want ITB with plugins; or. B.) Take a trip OTB BEFORE mixing, and re-amp thru my racks of fantastic outboard in PREPARATION for mixing. Which would you do? What's the smart thing to do? If you choose "B" are you really mixing ITB? B, but rearranged. And probably what you mean also. I do the forensic stuff and get basic pans and levels, HPF's if needed. Then to outboard, print the best mix possible for the moment AND capture the tracks coming back. Then I can't call it purely ITB because anything that changes at a track edit level necessitates that track passing back through processing again. People re-record a vocal line. Or they want the vocal comp revisited, and.....you didn't analog process all 27 vocal takes. Etc. Many of the recall benefits of ITB are still there, but you're not knocking it out on a laptop at the coffee shop either, you're interfacing again.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jul 10, 2020 10:45:51 GMT -6
OK....so let's pretend I'm smart, and a big time mixing engineer.... (both of those would not be true but this is just an exercise... ) I get an album in to mix that is recorded below the level that I would hope for - sonically. And I HAVE to stay and mix ITB because of delivery requirements, recalls, and the need to mix on my laptop, etc.. But I'm also sitting in a studio with a couple hundred thousand in rare and fantastic outboard gear that I've accumulated over the years..... Am I going to : A.) Struggle for days trying to get it to sound like I want ITB with plugins; or. B.) Take a trip OTB BEFORE mixing, and re-amp thru my racks of fantastic outboard in PREPARATION for mixing. Which would you do? What's the smart thing to do? If you choose "B" are you really mixing ITB? DISCLAIMER - this is ALL just a theoretical exercise - of course. I wouldn't expect any pro to actually do this..... Probably C Sell all that stuff while I can make a profit and then stay in the box. While I don’t talk to many top level AE’s on a daily basis I do talk to a lot of mid level guys and this is what’s happening. The world of free lancers is pretty much no more, tracking work has disappeared and what mix work there is pays crap. Most are finding nobody at the label, if there is a label cares and recalls for the countless revisions don’t pay for xtra. The problem is this in a nutshell: the other guy is pretty much ITB so nobody understands why your complaining about all the work and time for that simple change. I know one guy who swore me I would never say his name, who got a bunch of freebies and maybe some cash for saying a vendors plugins sound as good as the real thing. He admits in private they are damn good but still not quite there, but when he figured out the time recalls were taking he was working for Starbucks wages without insurance! Suddenly those plugins sounded much better. If you have clients or other income streams that mean you can justify the expense great go for it, but fewer and fewer professionals do. It’s hard to explain to your landlord that you can’t make the rent but you have to keep the that rack full of gear because it sounds better.
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Post by drbill on Jul 10, 2020 12:25:32 GMT -6
I'm mixing kind of a modular synth thing this morning. Hybrid. Using both hardware and plugins and summing ITB before outputting to a sweet 2 buss chain.
You don't have to agree with me. You don't have to follow what I do. You can think I'm crazy, biased or losing my mind......
But as I switch back and forth between hardware and plugins - looking for the "right" sound - I'm having a difficult time actually believing that folks are touting plugins as sounding better, the same or even close to hardware. A really difficult time. Makes me kinda loose faith in audio engineering in the 2020's.
The same experience follows for the recent projects I've been working on. For me at least, it spans across lots of genre's that I've been working on this year : Americana, EDM Dance, Southern Delta Blues, Ambient Guitar, Pop, Modular Synthy Retro Underscore, Orchestral.
I completely get the need to move to an ITB workflow due to delivery requirements, time schedules, money, etc.. I still find it hard to believe people thinking that plugins are "so close".
My $0.02 devalued to $0.00001537 for streaming.
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Post by chessparov on Jul 10, 2020 13:02:24 GMT -6
Give up my outboard. Not when I have NanoComp/Nanoverb/Aphex Type C Exciter/Bellari LA-120 and the like! Great thread guys. Grasshooper returns to following. Go Dr. Bill! Chris
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2020 13:14:23 GMT -6
B) but Time is money but there’s no MONEY in all caps in it for anyone but the poppiest of pop. You need to work fast and cheap. Plugins are mostly more fucked up than all but the cheapest hardware and clones. You can do less research with hardware. Nothing can save bad plugins. Not even running at a higher sample rate. Half the oplugins that come with your daw will be totally fucked up. More people can hear hardware than hear aliasing, the build up of odd order harmonics, and weird side chain artifacts ime. Jim Williams called this “The Grind” and many records that sound “clean” are nastier than punk demos and 60s music on decent monitors. You need to get flexible gear and cut costs everywhere that don’t affect the sound. So no clones, no real API/Neve, no 1176/la2a, no flavor of the month, no 300 dollar plugins. Brauer is Brauer but a lot of other people who are hyped up by the Internet never made any records that sounded good or even cool. They are not Butch Vig, Andy Wallace, or our own Nobtwiddler.
Drums: hardware? For speed, I want to build a small, fairly cheap 500 series drum processing rack hooked up as plugin hardware inserts to print tracks through. Cheaper stuff like an RND 542, FMR RNC and RNLA 500, Speck EQ, SPL transient designer 500, for bus. Speed is essential. Plugins you can fiddle with for hours. Here I have a declipper, snapper, fattener, and you can be cool and add in something like an SB4001, Arnold Schwarzeneggered up SSL for the bus if you do rock or need more punch. The Drawmer 1978 is a great alternative problem fixer and you can add in some money pres but the diode clipping in the 68, 69, and 78 is very rough sounding. Modded DBX 160 is awesome and dirt cheap. Even the A with Jensen soldered in.
Guitars: transformer coupled tube line stages are unduplicatible but $$$$. Plugins can do some good stuff but IRON and TUBES and the storied API/Neve pres do more! I would kill for one of drBill’s LTL silver bullet but it costs more than the bands’ guitars on the last few records I did combined.
Bus and mastering: stuff that can basically remix the record without stems. Drawmer 1978 on drums, API 2500 on 2 bus (When it works it destroys), Good parametric eq and plugins. Even the RNC can work and Kotelnikov GE is godly.
Plugins will come in the next post.
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Post by craigmorris74 on Jul 10, 2020 13:34:14 GMT -6
So if I posted files of say, a drum mix done with 1176s and la-3as and replicated the same mix with plugins, someone could Identify the mix that went through the plugins?
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Post by Guitar on Jul 10, 2020 13:38:56 GMT -6
Some of my releases or recordings of other people in the past have been "hybrid" or completely in the box, and I don't think anyone could reliably tell the difference. I couldn't. I can't even totally remember sometimes.
The difference is not significant, to me. I'm not sad about making music the way I do, either, it brings me great joy. I hope other people feel the same way.
The fact that things change doesn't bother me too much.
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Post by drbill on Jul 10, 2020 14:06:57 GMT -6
So if I posted files of say, a drum mix done with 1176s and la-3as and replicated the same mix with plugins, someone could Identify the mix that went through the plugins? I have no idea. And I don't put stock in those types of A/B comparisons. But when I have the hardware and plugins in front of me, and I can A/B between them, then yeah, I can hear it all day long. Who knows, maybe my hardware is just super duper great, and maybe I have crap plugins. There is one thing though - a lot of the hardware I'm rocking has no plug in emulating it. So maybe there is that.....
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Post by EmRR on Jul 10, 2020 14:21:38 GMT -6
I think drbill is right, those after the fact A/B are asking a different set of questions than the ones answered during drive time. If one has an experience driving one way versus the other that seems consistently definitely more satisfying in sonics, one should stick with that if possible. People may not land on the same side of that fence. I think too, that replicating a mix done on one with the other is NOT the same as mixing, inevitably comparison creeps in and the comparison aspect starts to rule the day versus the act of trying to get the best mix, which is what drives the analog mix. I've yet to see the question asked "can my hardware duplicate this ITB mix?"
All of that from someone who captures as much hardware as possible on the way in the first time, knowing recall world will make using it later a total PITA, outside of their money budget and my free time budget. Expecting to stay ITB on mix aspects, with some hardware on the mix bus when it prints. Lately 2-3 stereo submix busses into hardware, into a passive summer, then back to the DAW. Entropy!
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Post by Guitar on Jul 10, 2020 14:38:17 GMT -6
I really like this idea of extra hardware on the front end during tracking, or a single pass to print some hardware. I'm going to have to try that more when I eventually build up my racks, if it ever happens. In the past decade they got smaller rather than bigger.
There was one sound I got on a bass synth that was very specific with a Midas EQ that I couldn't really recreate later when I sold the EQ's away. Like drbill said I don't think anyone has bothered to emulate the Midas EQ in software. I'm going to go back now and try to get a better digital mix.
I don't know why but when I try to mix with hardware I end up doing tons of recalls, or print multiple mix versions. It's hard to land at a final place. I do the same thing with plugins but it's obviously so much easier. Mixing with plugins is more fun to me because it's faster. I think both ways sound good.
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Post by mrholmes on Jul 10, 2020 14:39:18 GMT -6
So if I posted files of say, a drum mix done with 1176s and la-3as and replicated the same mix with plugins, someone could Identify the mix that went through the plugins? I have no idea. And I don't put stock in those types of A/B comparisons. But when I have the hardware and plugins in front of me, and I can A/B between them, then yeah, I can hear it all day long. Who knows, maybe my hardware is just super duper great, and maybe I have crap plugins. There is one thing though - a lot of the hardware I'm rocking has no plug in emulating it. So maybe there is that.....
IMO opinion it also has to do with waht you like. If you love driving real gear it will have an impact on your sound perception. No one is to 100% free form this.
And this is one reason why I think the debate is useless.
If somone can create a good sounding mix ITB... fine ... he can do it. I general I agrre using some hardware in some spots can make live easier. But some plug ins of today can imaprt magic too.
For me I also calculate in that I use hardware more intutive, compared to the mouse. Thats why I can imagine a real desk is a blessing.... touching things, but no longer an option in 2020.
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