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Post by drbill on May 23, 2021 21:48:56 GMT -6
Interesting quote by Brian Lucey - mastering engineer. Snagged from elsewhere, but it makes perfect sense to me.... None of use use "one" piece of outboard or plugins..... Hope he doesn't mind me snagging this. I thought it was highly interesting and thoughtful.
Thoughts?
Brian thoughts on plugins vs hardware :
"Plugs are great, yet at best 92-94% of hardware. Transformers, and high shelf boosting in particular are the most tricky to copy.
With 4 pieces of hardware for example: 93% x 93% x 93% x 93% = 75%. That is a HUGE gap."
I hear this - but I never articulated it so mathematically before. Interesting. Little shortcomings add up.
BTW, Brian is promoting an identical mastering rig on Access Analog so you'll be able to check out his mastering rig on AA soon.
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Post by seawell on May 23, 2021 22:43:12 GMT -6
Very interesting way of looking at it. I definitely hear a difference and I've prioritized the areas that make the biggest difference(to me at least) and use hardware there. If it weren't for efficiency and money I'd go completely analog. One of the biggest arguments for analog to me was following some of my favorite mixers as they experimented with going in the box and comparing their work before and after....YIKES 😬. Having said all that, I hope kids starting out today know that the tools they have available to them are so much beyond what I had when I started. In that sense, I'm glad that a professional level of quality is available to the masses. For our industry as a whole though, I really wish we had the budgets to justify continuing to push the boundaries of our craft with the very best tools available.
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Post by the other mark williams on May 23, 2021 23:40:19 GMT -6
Very interesting way of looking at it. I definitely hear a difference and I've prioritized the areas that make the biggest difference(to me at least) and use hardware there. If it weren't for efficiency and money I'd go completely analog. One of the biggest arguments for analog to me was following some of my favorite mixers as they experimented with going in the box and comparing their work before and after....YIKES 😬. Having said all that, I hope kids starting out today know that the tools they have available to them are so much beyond what I had when I started. In that sense, I'm glad that a professional level of quality is available to the masses. For our industry as a whole though, I really wish we had the budgets to justify continuing to push the boundaries of our craft with the very best tools available. Very, very well said, Josh.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2021 5:24:26 GMT -6
Personally I've always thought of it this way, plus there could be bugs in several plugins but because it's all "subjective" some people will still recommend them to the hilt anyway. Also there are so many variables, you stick a tube mic through some transformer based equipment and "flavour" comps OTB then you get the harmonic saturation etc. built in, there's no endless tweaking trying to recreate specific sounds with a slurry of plugins that have their own in depth options, every potential change might sound "better" but could ultimately be wrecking the mix. Also because the options are there I have on more than occasion mixed in ways I never would in an analogue setup, mostly because I couldn't afford to.
The amount of times I've done a bypass on all plugs and the song sounds better for it, also I've spoke to a few highly regarded and awarded engineers, whilst they of course have the talent they still do the same silly things we do. For example I know someone who was blaming an EQ for something wrong on a track only to realise it wasn't even switched on.
IMO it's difficult to get a good sounding track without complicating things several times over with options. For me at least it just became a lot easier following tried and true methodology of those who originally defined audio production. I'm not saying there's a wrong way to work, just that in my hybrid setup I can focus more on the music which is the end result and the most important part.
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Post by svart on May 24, 2021 7:47:54 GMT -6
Overanalyzation..
I had a room full of hardware. Made my best mixes ever. Moved to almost all plugins. Made my best mixes ever. It's almost like it's not the hardware, but my skills getting better.
I listened to a mix from a top studio.. Sounded great. Later on heard a mix from the same studio.. Sounded bad.
I listened to a hardware mix from a producer I liked. Sounded great. Listened to mix he did years later totally ITB.. Sounded great.
I dunno man, I'm just feeling like whatever works for you is what is best for you.
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Post by nick8801 on May 24, 2021 8:17:19 GMT -6
Overanalyzation.. I had a room full of hardware. Made my best mixes ever. Moved to almost all plugins. Made my best mixes ever. It's almost like it's not the hardware, but my skills getting better. I listened to a mix from a top studio.. Sounded great. Later on heard a mix from the same studio.. Sounded bad. I listened to a hardware mix from a producer I liked. Sounded great. Listened to mix he did years later totally ITB.. Sounded great. I dunno man, I'm just feeling like whatever works for you is what is best for you. I’m with you man. I know it’s unpopular in a gear site lol, but I’m at a point where I just don’t really care anymore. Nothing is gonna rewrite the song. Mix it to bring out emotion and have balance, and anything will do.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2021 8:49:06 GMT -6
Overanalyzation.. I had a room full of hardware. Made my best mixes ever. Moved to almost all plugins. Made my best mixes ever. It's almost like it's not the hardware, but my skills getting better. I listened to a mix from a top studio.. Sounded great. Later on heard a mix from the same studio.. Sounded bad. I listened to a hardware mix from a producer I liked. Sounded great. Listened to mix he did years later totally ITB.. Sounded great. I dunno man, I'm just feeling like whatever works for you is what is best for you. Always the case when it comes to a subjective medium like this, my point ultimately was I can get there faster with some decent HW. Anyway if the answer to all this subjective stuff is "you do you" then what are we going to talk about? The weather? I could see the drinks sub-forum becoming a lot more popular ..
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Post by svart on May 24, 2021 9:03:04 GMT -6
Overanalyzation.. I had a room full of hardware. Made my best mixes ever. Moved to almost all plugins. Made my best mixes ever. It's almost like it's not the hardware, but my skills getting better. I listened to a mix from a top studio.. Sounded great. Later on heard a mix from the same studio.. Sounded bad. I listened to a hardware mix from a producer I liked. Sounded great. Listened to mix he did years later totally ITB.. Sounded great. I dunno man, I'm just feeling like whatever works for you is what is best for you. Always the case when it comes to a subjective medium like this, my point ultimately was I can get there faster with some decent HW. Anyway if the answer to all this subjective stuff is "you do you" then what are we going to talk about? The weather? I could see the drinks sub-forum becoming a lot more popular .. I used to think that hardware got me there faster too, until I got used to plugs and now they're faster. Go figure!
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Post by drbill on May 24, 2021 9:33:07 GMT -6
Thanks for the thoughts guys. Brian certainly has an interesting way of viewing it. For me hardware is faster and sounds better - the caveat that I do need SOME plugins to make it happen. I guess that's why they call it Hybrid. . I'm currently having to remix a bunch of stuff for re-release from various seasons of my career. It's pretty easy to trace the threads of ITB vs. OTB through this bunch of songs (100+). The worst batch of songs in the group? ITB where I was trying to get VCC to work. Ultimately I jettisoned it. For good. The closest songs to being "right" - the hybrid stuff. Completely OTB were limited in terms of what gear I had at that point (20 years ago). Positives and negatives to all approaches, but the Hybrid stuff has held up the best. One thing is 100% for sure. Instantiating hardware on an insert is faster than instantiating a plugin.
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Post by Guitar on May 24, 2021 9:56:29 GMT -6
I just wanted to say the math equation is fun but still very much abstract as a rhetorical device. Like plugins plus skill and convenience, efficiency, for me is 2 + 2 = 5, just for fun, it's a Brave New World. But in this case, not a dystopia. Hey, plugin people can make up numbers too. They do sound different, I don't think anyone could make the case that they sound the same. That's the only fact I can find, everything else is up for discussion. I'm with Nick8801, at the end of the day, when playing back the file, I don't hear gear, I hear music. So many of our favorite subtleties are blended into the soup and no longer identifiable, without the faculty of memory. You wouldn't be able to listen to a black box record and name all the gear on every track. That would be a fun blind test, mix up plugs and hardware, too, to make people yell at the sky. Also speaking as a music lover, not as an engineer, I don't categorize my favorite records by OTB/ITB/Hybrid, I just listen to them. So much of this gets left at the station when the music takes off and no longer belongs to the creators, but now the listener. I have a sort of question though. Does your top 5 or so reference album collection contain mostly one kind of production, or the other? Most of my top 5 reference grade records were made in big studios with a lot of hardware. Most of them are likely hybrid. seawell's boundary breaking records, to use the term. But there's at least one on my list that was mixed totally in the box, by Jimmy Douglas. So if I'm being truthful hybrid is probably my ideal also for sonics. Not even close for workflow, plugins are prime. To agree with seawell about the ideal being different than the reality, at least for some people. But drbill I'm glad you've reached your ideals and made them a reality. More over-analysis, so Zarconis doesn't have to drink, haha! The most interesting part of the Brian Lucey quote to me was not the fun number game, but the detail about transformers and high shelf boosts being hard to emulate with digital. That could be useful information.
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Post by christopher on May 24, 2021 10:30:52 GMT -6
I can’t find a plugin that does a good low shelf too. I wonder what he likes?
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Post by howie on May 24, 2021 10:49:06 GMT -6
Oh man, listening to all you dudes talk - I wish my ears could belly up to the bar and hear/evluate the nuances you guys go on about ' low shelf' etc- I'm not a pro, just mixing my own musical forays- and came to this from left field (visual artist- and left handed) - and am 60+ years old ears)
Neverthelless If I was 20--30-40 years younger what might I be hearing? I do prefer whatever hardware stuff I do have over my assorted plugins.Hardware - Which means a mic - my guitars, banjo, bass and pedals - and a Silver Bullet... because, for me, hardware = less fussing around & tracking with reverb, overdrive or a pedal compressor - setting the dials on the Silver Bullet - that's OK - but then goes into Logic Pro - and the tweaking commences...
Oh boy.
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Post by schmalzy on May 24, 2021 10:54:05 GMT -6
To me it's so much more about workflow than it is about the specific gear.
Sure, if I had an endless number of the best hardware things and no revisions I'd probably be happier with my output. Maybe not.
I DO know for certain that the rough mixes I do with standard channel strips of plugins aren't as good as my rough mixes I do with Console1 plugs. Are the Console1 plugins better than Waves, UAD, Boz Digital, Kush, etc.? I don't care.
My results ARE better when I emulate the hardware workflow as much as possible (Console1 to mix with my hands and trackpad to ride faders) and if we're going further with the mix I'll pull out the specialty plugins like the Boz and Kush stuff for the special things they do. I LOVE how the Electra EQ sounds (it's pretty flexible in an SSL EQ sort of way). I also love how the Kush/Sly-Fi Axis (much more API 550-like in usage) sounds. Console1's SSL and "American Class A" (API, basically) get me better results.
If I had a pile of hardware channel strips would I get better results? My results using Console1's SSL EQ is better than when I tried to EQ a pile of channels through my Allen & Heath GL4 console for a rough mix. They're all decent enough EQs and I like 'em for tracking but didn't give me a rough mix result I liked as much as the Console1 rough mix.
Workflow.
Would a pile of super high-quality hardware channel strips sound so good that it overcomes the workflow advantages of Console1? Maybe? Possibly? But we're talking a lot of money for a maybe.
Maybe my brains and emotions are more attached to the physical actions I take than to small wrist moves and numbers on a screen. I truthfully don't care. If my artists are happy, I'm happy, and I continue to get better then I'll do whatever I can in my budget to make it work.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2021 11:18:43 GMT -6
I'm with Nick8801, at the end of the day, when playing back the file, I don't hear gear, I hear music. So many of our favorite subtleties are blended into the soup and no longer identifiable, without the faculty of memory. You wouldn't be able to listen to a black box record and name all the gear on every track. That would be a fun blind test, mix up plugs and hardware, too, to make people yell at the sky. Also speaking as a music lover, not as an engineer, I don't categorize my favorite records by OTB/ITB/Hybrid, I just listen to them. So much of this gets left at the station when the music takes off and no longer belongs to the creators, but now the listener. So if I'm being truthful hybrid is probably my ideal also for sonics. Not even close for workflow, plugins are prime. To agree with seawell about the ideal being different than the reality, at least for some people. But drbill I'm glad you've reached your ideals and made them a reality. More over-analysis, so Zarconis doesn't have to drink, haha! The most interesting part of the Brian Lucey quote to me was not the fun number game, but the detail about transformers and high shelf boosts being hard to emulate with digital. That could be useful information. That old saying, 95% of all statistics are made up. I understand and I agree it doesn't matter what you use really IF the end result has the production value to relay the emotional depth and pleasantry a song deserves without any obvious issues. Now I can usually tell the difference ITB vs. OTB mix (I'm happy to accept any challenge on that like I did with Steven Slate). As for specific components? Well besides the use of an LA-2A (sometimes) no, not really.. I'll simply state that I've never had good results ITB only and for the life of me I can't understand why, how could I possibly mess up with an LA-2A plugin? Especially considering there ain't much to them and I use one OTB without issue. The same goes for EQ's etc., if you use them OTB why should it be different vice versa? I've had people get tetchy with me over my stance on ITB, but end of the day who in their right mind would pay tens of thousands to buy HW when they don't really care? Consider me in that category, if plugs were the answer for me then I wouldn't touch a piece of HW with someone else's barge pole. Maybe I've come across some ITB mixes that I thought were great and never even knew, the one's I did know were ITB only though I've never much cared for. You can call it confirmation bias but the key signs for me have always been, closed in, a little unintelligible and something odd going on in the upper frequencies. Kind of a shadow of the production values they should be.. Now, I've mainly worked in metal / rock and my references were Lamb of God (Something to die for etc.) / Opeth (Still Life Era), early Dimmu Borgir and Early Slipknot. I'm sure one of you will tell me that they're ITB, which would be cool because then I could pay off a hefty chunk of my mortgage.
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Post by ragan on May 24, 2021 11:22:06 GMT -6
I get a kick out of Lucey's claim to being able to quantify the squishiest, most blatantly subjective thing (how "close" is this plug to the hardware? Well, let me just get out my Closeness meter here...) and his extreme specificity ("we estimate the difference in Closeness to lie between the lower bound of 92% and the upper extreme of 94%...). It's funny.
That said, I mostly agree with the sentiment. Things do accumulate and I love the sonics of (good) hardware. Software is really great too and I don't think the inherent differences in sonics are anywhere near what hardware purists would have us believe. How "close" a given plugin and a given piece of hardware are is hopelessly subjective and the person twiddling the (real or virtual) knobs' skill trumps anything else by a country mile.
Lucey is a good mastering engineer (I hired him for one of my band's records) and has good ears. But quantifying stuff like this is a fool's errand in my view.
Plus, I think his Closeness meter is off because I show The Closeness Of Plugins to be as high as 94.378% and I calibrated my meter with test tones.
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Post by christopher on May 24, 2021 11:47:53 GMT -6
I’m realizing it’s all very genre specific, like if I want to sound like a car thumping down the road with some tuned vocal layers, really doesn’t matter and just stay ITB. I do believe even in that case mastering with analog pieces can help translate into a little extra depth and immersion. Some genres, like jazz, blues, acoustic... ITB often ends up not fitting the genre, not at all. It’s like a giant disservice to the musicians. Yeah it’s extremely clean, articulate, detailed, just like a funeral parlor. Everything is picture perfect and there’s no soul. Now... don’t get me wrong, some guys understand how to overcome that! And there’s emulators that help. I feel most people though are satisfied with the dry sterile clarity thing, which in digital is there by default... in analog you’d have to work like hell to get to that clean dry place. This is just another facet that what works for some, won’t work for others at all.
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Post by Guitar on May 24, 2021 11:50:41 GMT -6
I once told a guy his RCA mic preamp sounded "soulful" and he laughed in my face. I thought that was a good reaction, LOL! If your plugin mixes are too clean, time to add some saturation.
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Post by schmalzy on May 24, 2021 11:52:05 GMT -6
Are there any modern records you like? LOTS of people are still using hardware. I'm curious if it's the era of sounds/songs your like or if it is the sonics of the hardware. Spot the ITB mixes?
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Post by christopher on May 24, 2021 11:54:04 GMT -6
I once told a guy his RCA mic preamp sounded "soulful" and he laughed in my face. I thought that was a good reaction, LOL! If your plugin mixes are too clean, time to add some saturation. Yes.. but for acoustic music, it’s not that satisfying, ime. How much is enough? Why do I want to bypass the distortion and like it more?
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2021 12:04:48 GMT -6
Are there any modern records you like? LOTS of people are still using hardware. I'm curious if it's the era of sounds/songs your like or if it is the sonics of the hardware. Spot the ITB mixes? LOG - I know what they use so it’s cheating (OTB) BMTH - I’ve actually met BMTH, they record in Steel City Sheffield and they are without a doubt OTB. WAGE WAR - I’m guessing periphery style ITB Axe FX stuff. While She Sleeps - I mean it’s powerful but it does have that closed in sound, it’s either ITB or a not so great OTB mix. I didn't look it up so go for it ..
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Post by ragan on May 24, 2021 12:20:04 GMT -6
Heheh. Man this is just blatant genre bias on my part but I don't know how ya'll can tell what the hell is going on with those kind of tracks. It all sounds like a Line 6 POD and Steven Slate Drums V1 with the dry/sample mix knob set to 500% to me. <acknowledges metalheads are coming for him, put's flamesuit on>
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Post by nick8801 on May 24, 2021 12:28:12 GMT -6
Heheh. Man this is just blatant genre bias on my part but I don't know how ya'll can tell what the hell is going on with those kind of tracks. It all sounds like a Line 6 POD and Steven Slate Drums V1 with the dry/sample mix knob set to 500% to me. <acknowledges metalheads are coming for him, put's flamesuit on> Lol! I was on Warped Tour for a few years....Imagine hearing that stuff from noon to sunset for a whole summer. On multiple stages. At once.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on May 24, 2021 12:29:07 GMT -6
Heheh. Man this is just blatant genre bias on my part but I don't know how ya'll can tell what the hell is going on with those kind of tracks. It all sounds like a Line 6 POD and Steven Slate Drums V1 with the dry/sample mix knob set to 500% to me. <acknowledges metalheads are coming for him, put's flamesuit on> I'm with you here. And this is no knock against the genre. Plenty of people listen to the music I like and say "couldn't they find someone who has at least had a guitar lesson?" and they're not totally wrong. Haha. Hey man, it's SUPPOSED to sound like that. And I guess for the modern metal, it's supposed to sound like that?
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Post by Guitar on May 24, 2021 12:58:04 GMT -6
I once told a guy his RCA mic preamp sounded "soulful" and he laughed in my face. I thought that was a good reaction, LOL! If your plugin mixes are too clean, time to add some saturation. Yes.. but for acoustic music, it’s not that satisfying, ime. How much is enough? Why do I want to bypass the distortion and like it more? I think you have a point there. I don't know why, maybe it's the plugins, but I struggle more with acoustic mixes than I do with other kinds of material, in my daily mixing work. I guess I should try a hybrid setup for acoustic and see if it gets any easier. I find acoustic music challenging to mix, I have an easier time with rock/electronic styles. Usually get to the finish line but there's a feeling out process during the mix. There are fewer tracks, but they are more difficult to nail sound wise.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2021 13:12:19 GMT -6
Heheh. Man this is just blatant genre bias on my part but I don't know how ya'll can tell what the hell is going on with those kind of tracks. It all sounds like a Line 6 POD and Steven Slate Drums V1 with the dry/sample mix knob set to 500% to me. <acknowledges metalheads are coming for him, put's flamesuit on> I'm with you here. And this is no knock against the genre. Plenty of people listen to the music I like and say "couldn't they find someone who has at least had a guitar lesson?" and they're not totally wrong. Haha. Hey man, it's SUPPOSED to sound like that. And I guess for the modern metal, it's supposed to sound like that? ragan, imagine working with that for a decade and being expected to make it sound good? No wonder I'm so analytical to the point of slightly mad. Don't get me wrong the amount of sonic space you have in metal is severely limited by the instruments themselves and it does tend to have a "sound to it" because you're essentially squishing everything into a square wave so it doesn't fall apart in a second. When dealing with seven string guitars / 5 string basses and a never ending slurry of bass building from double kicks it's difficult at best, if you just rip it out then the song has no punch. Also heavily distorted guitars are ugly sounding instruments at the best of times, trying to get them to compliment a song ain't easy. It's a very difficult genre to work with because everything just fights with everything.
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