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Post by OtisGreying on Jan 22, 2021 14:55:01 GMT -6
If you don't mind the off topic, what are your top 3 or top 5 most used plugins? I'm curious what would be left after your impressive hardware rig has been put to task. Top Plugin Saturation : This is where I REALLY prefer hardware...5 Silver Bullets, 6 Chroma's, a dozen Mr. Focus's with various color modules, comps with great box tone, etc.. - The only one out of dozens that I bought that keeps getting used is Decapitator. It works pretty well for me with the Lp/Hp/Tilt filters. Most of the others NEVER get used anymore. I tried. Honest. I mirror this.
I recently watched the Jacquire King UA hardware vs plug-in video and felt that the plug-in chains w/ the unison pre's were consistently woolier and cloudier. Analog was leaner and more focused, and less overtone-y ESPECIALLY in the low mids, in practically every comparison when I listened through my PMC's. And I started ITB and own an apollo x8.
There's a reason the analog domain is unrivaled in the tracking process of record-making. Because that real analog color on the front end is still king, it's not even a debate as far the tracking stage.
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Post by OtisGreying on Jan 22, 2021 15:02:21 GMT -6
And this is where I had to ask myself back in the day, "am I going for effect, or trying to copy tone". After tons of time trying to copy someone's tones I made the realization that it was impossible. The overall effect is easy. Just add plugin emulation for general EQ and harmonic content and some saturation to gel it together. The effect of source loading through the summing network can probably never be cloned perfectly. There's just too many variables. The difference between a preamp and it's plugin emulation is just as much as the difference between two antique preamps.Or two "clones" of the same preamp, or two plugins of the same preamp. Or two plugin clones of two different antique preamps of the same model. Yeah, I just don't buy it. No sane engineer is dropping their hardware pre's for unison pre's except Jaquire King with a check in his mailbox every month from UA.
Go watch the UA Jacquire plug-in vs hardware video and tell me you what you hear on the vocal passes. ITB is clearly cloudier and less defined/ focused. More overtone-y in the low mids especially.
The plug-ins just leave more processing to be had, they don't sound quite finished mix wise, so more time and more energy and more processing and more plug-ins have to be slapped on to make it sound passable. The analog just gets it done right away and sounds like the sound I want in my head.
So its a workflow thing just as much as its a 10% sonic gain sort of a thing.
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Post by jmoose on Jan 22, 2021 22:20:50 GMT -6
There's a reason the analog domain is unrivaled in the tracking process of record-making. Because that real analog color on the front end is still king, it's not even a debate as far the tracking stage.
For me it's not a debate at mix either. If I have the option to use real tubes & transformers I'm gonna take it. Maybe half of what comes in is tracked mic to interface... full bandwidth to a fault. Or if there was some hardware involved there was very minimal & conservative shaping. Even the projects that sound great faders up I'm going for tone. I think any sort of analog summing is the perfect place & time to integrate physical outboard... In terms of patching things don't get much cleaner then 1 to 1 per signal. I do what I need to in the DAW then it's one patch from converter out to the SSL desk. Also find it way more forgiving with the inevitable recalls. Once I'm out of the converters, in analog land I don't go back into the DAW. What's the point? |
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Post by christopher on Jan 23, 2021 13:58:29 GMT -6
I’m constantly trying to prove to myself summing ITB is king, because laziness and insecurity demand it. But all it takes another ITB session taken as far as it can go, and the endless circle of “its sonically *almost* amazing!”.. then after I hit the wall I’ll go ahead and route to outboard just to see. And of course it hurts, even tired caps and noise, outboard still wins. It takes extra effort to get the noise low enough to pass for modern stuff. And some wiggling in post (mastering) to get all the imperfections reeled in. It’s the imperfections that give it some life though. The engineer brain has to let go and trust it more. Not easy to do.
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Post by superwack on Jan 23, 2021 15:16:31 GMT -6
There's a reason the analog domain is unrivaled in the tracking process of record-making. Because that real analog color on the front end is still king, it's not even a debate as far the tracking stage.
For me it's not a debate at mix either. If I have the option to use real tubes & transformers I'm gonna take it. Maybe half of what comes in is tracked mic to interface... full bandwidth to a fault. Or if there was some hardware involved there was very minimal & conservative shaping. Even the projects that sound great faders up I'm going for tone. I think any sort of analog summing is the perfect place & time to integrate physical outboard... In terms of patching things don't get much cleaner then 1 to 1 per signal. I do what I need to in the DAW then it's one patch from converter out to the SSL desk. Also find it way more forgiving with the inevitable recalls. Once I'm out of the converters, in analog land I don't go back into the DAW. What's the point? I’m curious what do you print your mix back to? |
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 23, 2021 15:22:07 GMT -6
I’m constantly trying to prove to myself summing ITB is king, because laziness and insecurity demand it. But all it takes another ITB session taken as far as it can go, and the endless circle of “its sonically *almost* amazing!”.. then after I hit the wall I’ll go ahead and route to outboard just to see. And of course it hurts, even tired caps and noise, outboard still wins. It takes extra effort to get the noise low enough to pass for modern stuff. And some wiggling in post (mastering) to get all the imperfections reeled in. It’s the imperfections that give it some life though. The engineer brain has to let go and trust it more. Not easy to do. In ABX blindtesting it always was a big surprise for me how good modern ITB is. I think the ABX software is still for free.
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Post by christopher on Jan 23, 2021 16:02:28 GMT -6
Thanks I do have it, but I guess I don’t go for light OTB color, I go for pretty obvious? I often start out push faders to +12, needles pinned, and back off enough until I don’t notice distortion. My 1991 console has tells and there’s no way to get around it .. Sub 80hz is less defined thanks to transformers, quiet parts there may be a more obvious noise floor when I blast the headphones if I’m not super careful. The highs don’t “smack” the same.. they are gentler and less painful. If I want to match today’s highs I try to stay ITB. But even then most modern stuff went to a pro mastering place where they may have used some $$$$$$ outboard EQ etc. (or not, if they tracked with enough)
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 23, 2021 16:14:22 GMT -6
Thanks I do have it, but I guess I don’t go for light OTB color, I go for pretty obvious? I often start out push faders to +12, needles pinned, and back off enough until I don’t notice distortion. My 1991 console has tells and there’s no way to get around it .. Sub 80hz is less defined thanks to transformers, quiet parts there may be a more obvious noise floor when I blast the headphones if I’m not super careful. The highs don’t “smack” the same.. they are gentler and less painful. If I want to match today’s highs I try to stay ITB. But even then most modern stuff went to a pro mastering place where they may have used some $$$$$$ outboard EQ etc. (or not, if they tracked with enough)
Just saying I have my doubts if all this is not doable ITB today. But there is also a workflow you love, and you may do not want to miss anymore. I can understand CLA arguments, it is the way he works, and he loves it this way.
Meanwhile, I love both worlds and can imagine doing a lot of crazy stuff in 2021
- special because my singing abilities get more and more stable after practicing for 1,5 years every day.
(BIG SMILE HERE)
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Post by christopher on Jan 23, 2021 17:17:41 GMT -6
My friend uses Reason, all Virtual instruments except for vocal and direct guitar and bass. It’s really impressive! Sounds like it could have been mixed on an SSL maybe? Especially with MP3. Then again most of the VI’s would have been sampled or modeled through great chains. But.. it’s not exactly what I’m going for. Almost all the way where I want to be.. not quite far enough for me.
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Post by gwlee7 on Jan 23, 2021 19:11:47 GMT -6
Maybe there could be a fun analog modeling plugin with a 50% random tolerance button labeled, "Fuck my shit up." Who knows, could get you somewhere. The Brainworx TMT thingy is like a baby version of this. This had me thinking of that Far Side (I think) cartoon that had the sound guy with the SUCK button on the mixer. |
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Post by jmoose on Jan 23, 2021 19:16:32 GMT -6
I’m curious what do you print your mix back to? Been using a standalone 2-track at 88.2kHz for the last 10+ years. Though sometime in the next few weeks I'm going to put in a DAW dedicated for that purpose. I don't often mix back into the DAW & print into the multi-track session. Sometimes. The standalone solves two problems for me. One, eliminates potential for feedback loops and makes faster references with dedicated routing to 2-track returns in the center section. Two is bigger... couple times a year something will come in that was tracked at like, four separate sessions and there are multiple sample rates on the same album. Having the dedicated stereo mixdown lets me pick and stick a sample rate. I get confused enough jumping around different rates and its also way easier for whoever's mastering when everything is fixed. Completely eliminates that potential for error & bottlenecks. Good question! |
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Post by ChaseUTB on Jan 23, 2021 23:05:11 GMT -6
My friend uses Reason, all Virtual instruments except for vocal and direct guitar and bass. It’s really impressive! Sounds like it could have been mixed on an SSL maybe? Especially with MP3. Then again most of the VI’s would have been sampled or modeled through great chains. But.. it’s not exactly what I’m going for. Almost all the way where I want to be.. not quite far enough for me. Reason channel strip & mixing workflow is based off an SSL channel strip style workflow. Not sure if or how well it emulates the SSL sound but I know a few beat makers who always swore by their drum mixes in Reason. Not sure if that was due to the sound or what they know best. Now that u mentioned it I’m curious to go check out the Reason manual & see what it says about this lol. |
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 24, 2021 6:39:57 GMT -6
My friend uses Reason, all Virtual instruments except for vocal and direct guitar and bass. It’s really impressive! Sounds like it could have been mixed on an SSL maybe? Especially with MP3. Then again most of the VI’s would have been sampled or modeled through great chains. But.. it’s not exactly what I’m going for. Almost all the way where I want to be.. not quite far enough for me.
We have overwhelming choices today. Pick your poison and don't lock back, because they bring out new stuff every day (distraction).
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Post by Guitar on Jan 24, 2021 7:15:31 GMT -6
Yep, 100%. If you try to "keep up" you will quickly become exhauseted, disgusted, and have no energy left for music making. That's how much new stuff is coming out now. And of course all of it's "The best," or a "Game changer," "Must have."
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 24, 2021 7:42:53 GMT -6
Yep, 100%. If you try to "keep up" you will quickly become exhauseted, disgusted, and have no energy left for music making. That's how much new stuff is coming out now. And of course all of it's "The best," or a "Game changer," "Must have."
Off-topic but I try to let go a lot in my life - which just shows me that I try to control things, outcomes and situations.
ITB vs. OTB is just one of them.
Actually is it important for me?
No - let it go.
Writing music, the fear of not being good enough is a form of controlling things. All songs I wrote with this need for control, not trusting in my higher-self ended up not so great.
Controlling the outcome blocks creativity, momentum, gravity. Letting go opens the gate for creative ideas.
The truth is we can't control the most things in our lives. Passive summing worth or not is that really important when it comes to music. Does this make your song break or is it more important to take your song on higher vibration rate, that it clings with the listener?
Letting go, freeing the space in my soul - filled with garbage believe systems - helps my creativity a lot.
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Post by Guitar on Jan 24, 2021 9:40:11 GMT -6
I agree with that. On a similar train of thought, it reminds me of something I just read, from a wisdom teacher I admire, talking about the importance of "contentment." When I thought about this today, I have the best snare drum in the world, one of the best possible microphones to sing into, not to mention every other thing here. That people would dream of. It's a poverty in our minds that we create that opens this space for wild amounts of spending and gear "problem solving." It becomes a very materialistic pursuit at its core.
Better stop there though since this is a summing thread. But yeah, agree with you on that topic as well, it's something I "put to bed" a while ago. Along with the "digital" thing in general.
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Post by Tbone81 on Jan 24, 2021 10:28:24 GMT -6
You guys all make great points. For myself, hardware is just more fun, and its inspiring to have a few nice pieces sitting my racks. Makes me feel "ready" to make music, and puts me at ease from guessing whether this or that is "good enough". That alone makes it all worth it.
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Post by drbill on Jan 24, 2021 11:06:05 GMT -6
Makes me feel "ready" to make music, and puts me at ease from guessing whether this or that is "good enough". That alone makes it all worth it. Anything that makes you feel "at ease and ready to go" is worth its weight in gold when it comes time to release the creative muse!!! |
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Post by phantom on Jan 24, 2021 13:38:41 GMT -6
There's no difference using a mic preamp for gain vs a 1272...Gain is gain. And yeah, this and more is in a console. If you're using a large format console with virtual earth summing for best noise each subgroup might be summed in each bucket, 6 or 8 at a time, before dumping into the main bus. Or even 6:4:2 in some very large desks. This gives a noise advantage over all-into-one because of the way the noise adds from bucket to bucket. One thing is that all amps have a preferred input impedance for best noise performance. The 1272 in a Neve uses an input transformer from the bus for this reason. Depending on how you set up the resistor network you may or may not be giving the "right" impedance for good noise. As an easier solution to do what he did, I'd be strongly tempted to sum in the box to stereo stems, sending out of the DAW at, say, -40 dBFS or something into your preamps. Sum in the DAW, introduce an artificial loss, and makeup in analog. Then maybe a passive 4:1 mixer or something in the analog domain - or use hardware inserts and do this once more for the stereo bus. You could do this in a bounce situation for a real nice comparison between your final mix with and without the cascade treatment by busing in the DAW, using a level-controlled hardware send from each bus, and printing the final sum separate from the 2track mixdown. Then any fader automation you have on your groups faithfully carries through automatically. If I want to do that with a preamp that does not have line inputs, and no way to change the impedance, should I worry too much, or just lower the level coming from the DAW and it should be fine? I mean, how much the impedance mismatch will affect the sound? |
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Post by matt@IAA on Jan 24, 2021 14:01:46 GMT -6
Source impedance will be low from your output, which is what a preamp generally wants. The harder challenge is that the input impedance of the preamp so also usually low - 2k or so - so your interface may have a hard time driving high signal levels into the low impedance. But you’re talking about low levels so it shouldn’t matter much.
I wouldn’t worry about it unless there’s some problem.
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Post by OtisGreying on Jan 24, 2021 16:08:09 GMT -6
Yep, 100%. If you try to "keep up" you will quickly become exhauseted, disgusted, and have no energy left for music making. That's how much new stuff is coming out now. And of course all of it's "The best," or a "Game changer," "Must have." This is a huge factor in my preference in just getting the hardware. The search will be over. Don’t need to pay attention to some new emulation that everyone is hyping. Convo is put to bed. Nothing more to do other than focus on the music. Huge amounts of time saved that end up actually paying for a lot of the price tag - if you really value your time. |
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Post by mrholmes on Jan 24, 2021 22:44:37 GMT -6
Yep, 100%. If you try to "keep up" you will quickly become exhauseted, disgusted, and have no energy left for music making. That's how much new stuff is coming out now. And of course all of it's "The best," or a "Game changer," "Must have." This is a huge factor in my preference in just getting the hardware. The search will be over. Don’t need to pay attention to some new emulation that everyone is hyping. Convo is put to bed. Nothing more to do other than focus on the music. Huge amounts of time saved that end up actually paying for a lot of the price tag - if you really value your time. Did you try the new stuff by fuse labs audio for example? Yeahhhhh the search is over in software land too. Try his take on varimu-compressors and don’t forget to close the yaw... |
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Post by brenta on Jan 25, 2021 10:54:59 GMT -6
I haven't had a chance to watch the Valentine video yet, but this sounds like a somewhat similar process to what I do.
I often will run my two bus through a Radial JDI Duplex, which has a configuration that converts line level to mic level while running the signal through the Jensen transformers. I then run the signal through one of my stereo mic preamps to color the sound and bring the signal back to line level.
I had previously tried doing this without the JDI, just using preamps' pads to bring the level down, but that always sounded like crap to me. I don't know if it's the Jensen transformers that make this technique sound better or if it has something to do with impedance, maybe both.
Some mixes sound better through certain preamps and sometimes they sound best clean. I'm actually mastering an album now and have some examples run through different preamps, I wish I could post them. Taking a look at the preamps, they are set to 35db of gain, same as Valentine's setup.
You could potentially get multiple JDI's if you wanted to separately send drums, vocal bus etc through different preamps like he is.
Obviously the Silver Bullet would also be an ideal solution since it is specifically designed for the task. In my case I already had a bunch of nice preamps anyway and needed a stereo DI, so I tried this and was really impressed with what it was adding.
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Post by jmoose on Jan 25, 2021 17:32:43 GMT -6
This is a huge factor in my preference in just getting the hardware. The search will be over. Don’t need to pay attention to some new emulation that everyone is hyping. Convo is put to bed. Nothing more to do other than focus on the music. Huge amounts of time saved that end up actually paying for a lot of the price tag - if you really value your time. There's always something. The only way out is to hop off the bus entirely. If anything its worse with analog gear based on the cost factor alone. I've easily spent more on patchbays and cabling then plugins. Its not even close. As for focusing on music, a lot of perspective is based on what your doing... and what your doing will often be the intersection of what 'ya need vs what actually makes a difference. For where I sit as a mix guy for hire there's a pretty clear path. While there's absolutely a creative element in mixing there's also a massive technical element which is why I still prefer the classic triangle of a multitrack, console and 2-track. For me there's a certain flexibility and freedom with tonal options and being able to handle projects with massively different needs. Like I could the cookie-cutter thing and jam every single vocal through an 1176 or whatever... but that's not doing anyone any good. My needs as a musician are completely different. And from that viewpoint, if I was only ever working on my own songs I'd certainly own a whole lot less gear. It'd be really easy to whittle things down to a core group of equipment. If my focus is writing songs then I don't need a whole lot do to that and cut a few tracks. I'd concentrate on having an excellent group of songs and then figure out how or who's going to mix them. End of the day it doesn't matter if the mix was ITB or OTB as long as it doesn't get in the way of the song. And there are a million ways to accomplish that... |
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Post by EmRR on Jan 25, 2021 17:53:45 GMT -6
There's no difference using a mic preamp for gain vs a 1272...Gain is gain. And yeah, this and more is in a console. If you're using a large format console with virtual earth summing for best noise each subgroup might be summed in each bucket, 6 or 8 at a time, before dumping into the main bus. Or even 6:4:2 in some very large desks. This gives a noise advantage over all-into-one because of the way the noise adds from bucket to bucket. One thing is that all amps have a preferred input impedance for best noise performance. The 1272 in a Neve uses an input transformer from the bus for this reason. Depending on how you set up the resistor network you may or may not be giving the "right" impedance for good noise. As an easier solution to do what he did, I'd be strongly tempted to sum in the box to stereo stems, sending out of the DAW at, say, -40 dBFS or something into your preamps. Sum in the DAW, introduce an artificial loss, and makeup in analog. Then maybe a passive 4:1 mixer or something in the analog domain - or use hardware inserts and do this once more for the stereo bus. You could do this in a bounce situation for a real nice comparison between your final mix with and without the cascade treatment by busing in the DAW, using a level-controlled hardware send from each bus, and printing the final sum separate from the 2track mixdown. Then any fader automation you have on your groups faithfully carries through automatically. If I want to do that with a preamp that does not have line inputs, and no way to change the impedance, should I worry too much, or just lower the level coming from the DAW and it should be fine? I mean, how much the impedance mismatch will affect the sound? There's two things I've seen, and you'll have to try them and see what your ears like ultimately. 1) converters that are straining to drive a true low-Z preamp input. Some things are 150 source Z, others are very low. Very low (50 ohm) may cause some ancient preamps to re-EQ themselves to a smiley face curve; those actually need some series resistance or a standard pad to be sure they see a happy Ω loading. 2) 40-50dB line pads that cause treble losses. People want to argue about this one, but I see it when taking measurements frequently, have tried a bunch of tests to rule out various factors. Capacitance in the layout between parallel resistors? I dunno what it is exactly. I haven't seen any practical commentary about the difference in using a pad versus trimming gain to a lower level (bitrate). I'd be inclined to split the difference, use a 20dB pad (usually 1400-1500Ω) AND lower the level from the DAW as needed. Offhand it looks like turning down to -40dBFS is like turning a 24bit signal into a 17ish bit signal, FWIW. Does that matter? I dunno. I just like the idea of windowing things in optimal ranges as much as possible. Having said that, I've built a number of racks for people like this with -20/-30/-40 pad options to cover anything from mics to line inputs, and they've worked out well in all to date. groupdiy.com/index.php?topic=52903.msg675338#msg675338 |
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