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Post by smashlord on Oct 6, 2023 15:38:07 GMT -6
One fun thing about analog is that moment when you pull up a different session and the routing goes wonky— that's how you find out that opto compressor that supposedly "isn't for drums" kills on kick or whatever. Had this happen recently mis patching a vocal into a lowly 160XT. It was compressing 20dB in over easy mode and sounded AMAZING. Tried the hard knee...nope. Tried backing down the compression to a sane level... nope.
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Post by thehightenor on Oct 6, 2023 16:22:16 GMT -6
What converters do you use for channel I/O to hardware? My main converters are a Crane song HEDD 192, so that takes care of tracking and mixing through hardware. To come out to hardware for channels I’d need a dedicated system and I’m looking at about 5-6K for an 8 channel Burl mothership 16 AES loaded with an 8 channel AD and 8 channel DA. Not cheap to do properly and preserve the signal I tracked with the HEDD 192. I looked a cheaper ADA’s from Ferrofish but I’ve concluded I’d probably be better staying in the box until I can get something really pro from Burl? I'm using Antelope Galaxy / Mytek 8x192 and Dangerous. I need 40 inputs for tracking. I looked into the Burls, but could not justify the huge price for 40 channels Yikes 40 channels of AD …. Yep Burl would be very expensive! I’d be ok with 8 x I/O - they do a mothership 16 but it’s 5-6K Quality conversation isn’t cheap!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2023 22:35:38 GMT -6
Most of the new compressors, both in software and hardware, seem to be toys though for musicians, mixers, and producers to ruin their sound.
Thanks for the thoughts Dan. As to the above - ^^^^ - interesting. With plugins (at least the ones I have), I'd tend to agree. But with the hardware I have I find quite the opposite to be true. It's hard to "ruin" a sound with them. In fact, for what I'm looking for at least, it's just so easy to make things sound good that I often end up laughing at myself. Maybe I'm just at a point where I relax and embrace the envelope they impose. I can however relate to that concept with pianos. I've never had a piano compressor that I liked - either hardware or software - until I got a Manley Vari-Mu. After that it was all soooo easy. Like butter.... I mean that depends on the compressor. I’ve heard a lot of tracks ruined by bad compression on the way in. A Manley is cool and can release pretty fast but it’s still a slow attack peak detector with little program dependency beyond feedback so the hope is that it just ignores or saturates off the peaks and levels the audio. I used to use MJUC like that to get keys really loud with changeable distortion to try to hide it but a harpsichord type thing it couldn’t do. When something like that works, it’s just luck in my experience while dual detector compressors, which aren’t made in analog anymore, do a much better job of hugging and controlling the material. Of course I’ll try the cool stuff but it’s often a waste when the clock is ticking towards a deadline or the distortion is unwanted. A lot of the cooler or useful behavior of older style compressors was unintended. Like the 1176 ratio tricks or compressors with an auto release like an ssl bus often unintentionally having a much slower auto attack unintentionally slowly leveling the audio with the main attack on the transients. Clones and emulation of these may or may not have those useful behaviors but more modern compressors recognized them as useful and approach them in a more controllable or automatic way.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2023 22:54:29 GMT -6
For me it's an ever evolving landscape that shifts tonally, I've been in the I don't care camp all the way back to HW is a must. The reality is things change, I look back at some of my old productions and they're not what I'd look for today. The way I approach things is different, how I want something to sound is different and the end result is different.
Simply put I don't really have a definitive answer and even if I did it could be invalidated three months down the line, I certainly have observations though. For example most VCA's have a certain sound to me until I met one recently which falls more in line with a typical vocal opto sound. More so than the two other Opto's I have, hmm... For me it has made a massive difference because it's a two way street, it reacts differently to my voice causing me to sing differently then we have both a performance and HW impact. If multiple factors change there's going to be a very notable difference.
Here's the other thing, I look at this from a holistic standpoint. I don't really get much information from testing dry mic's with no processing. Even a mildly used comp in the chain might not have a major impact. When it's been through a chain of comps, a desk, a de-esser, EQ etc. then the differences start to stack quickly and that includes the methodology I chose on that day. Sure, in the grand scheme it is the song and arrangement that matters the most. On occasion something that's not all that well recorded (sometimes on purpose) has punched through to the top but that doesn't mean the equipment or approach can't heavily impact the end result. Whether that really matters to the listener or not? Well there's too many opposing anecdotes or observations to ever really find something solid.
Generally though the people putting that much effort in do so at every stage and there is a certain consistency to a lot of mass consumed music. So, ultimately I just try to find things that make life easy for me to achieve the sonic quality or effect I desire, sometimes that's hardware and other times it's software. Whatever it takes..
I think you sort of point out something I was alluding to.. I used to think of sound in terms of "this needs a VCA compressor" or "this needs an opto" and it used to send me down all kinds of rabbit holes studying the different kinds of VCAs/Optos/whatever. I used to take pride in knowing all these little details because it made me feel knowledgeable.. But in the end I was failing to utilize the small details to any effectiveness. It turns out that I simply don't need to know these things. I only need to know which device will give me the envelope that I need. And even then, the program material greatly affects the outcome too, so that opens up even more avenues of chasing geese. For example, I don't *need* to compress my master bus to get the overall level up, but I want the drums to be very obvious. I would choose to use a compressor with a fairly quick attack and fast-medium release. Does it really matter if it's opto or vca or FET if I can adjust these settings to get the desired GR without pumping like crazy? I used to think so, but I no longer believe it's even relevant. The only relevant thing is that it sounds like I want it to sound in the end. I also don't think engineers of yore cared about these things. They used what they had available and made it work, usually because hardware has always been comparatively expensive and not all studios could afford racks full of gear. We have it easy today. Loads of clones, loads of simulators, loads of places for information. We are inundated with so much *audio stuff* that I think a lot of people forget that most of these discussions about which piece of gear is more authentic or which plug has best modelling of a transistor never happened before a handful of years ago. Before then, people just used what the studio had. The point of bus compression is to control your fader movements and make everything modulate everything else. When your fader moves are studied or automated to not pump in this context, your mix comes together faster and better because those moves can be made with more emotion and creativity. Compressing your master bus as a special effect or as a crappier version of a mastering maximizer will not give you this effect. The latter will give you the opposite effect and make your levels way off. Different gain reduction elements have radically different behavior. Compressors are not intended as synthesizer envelopes. Both are amplitude modulators but compressors are at heart automatic volume control systems which are usually far faster than a finger on a fader. The ones that apply an obvious envelope sound like shit.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 6, 2023 22:57:38 GMT -6
One fun thing about analog is that moment when you pull up a different session and the routing goes wonky— that's how you find out that opto compressor that supposedly "isn't for drums" kills on kick or whatever. Had this happen recently mis patching a vocal into a lowly 160XT. It was compressing 20dB in over easy mode and sounded AMAZING. Tried the hard knee...nope. Tried backing down the compression to a sane level... nope. That’s a standard use lost in the “1176 into LA2A is mandatory” clown era. The attack speeds up, release slows down, and ratio increases as you dig in. Then you limit the overshoots afterwards.
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Post by plinker on Oct 6, 2023 23:09:12 GMT -6
Had this happen recently mis patching a vocal into a lowly 160XT. It was compressing 20dB in over easy mode and sounded AMAZING. Tried the hard knee...nope. Tried backing down the compression to a sane level... nope. 20dB of compression, huh? And you call yourself "SmashLord"??
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Post by thehightenor on Oct 7, 2023 0:31:20 GMT -6
I was just testing my Roll Music RMS755 against some of my software VCA bus compressors and the precise rhythmic envelope the RMS 755 can impose on a track just sounds so cool and rock n roll exciting - it’s such a shame Justin stop making that compressor - it’s definitely a secret weapon for me. The bandwidth top to bottom is huge too.
No software compressor can come even close - they just found so flat and two dimensional.
I’m following it with a Thermionic Phoenix Mastering Plus which is kinda taking my mixing into real-time mastering but it works for me.
This thread made me give ITB bus compression another spin and it reconfirms to me analog stereo bus processing is far, far superior to any plugin solution imvho.
One day, when I can pony up for a Burl Mothership 16 AES I’m going to go back to some analog channel processing for the important hero elements in the mix.
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Post by smashlord on Oct 7, 2023 8:51:45 GMT -6
Had this happen recently mis patching a vocal into a lowly 160XT. It was compressing 20dB in over easy mode and sounded AMAZING. Tried the hard knee...nope. Tried backing down the compression to a sane level... nope. That’s a standard use lost in the “1176 into LA2A is mandatory” clown era. The attack speeds up, release slows down, and ratio increases as you dig in. Then you limit the overshoots afterwards. Oh good to know! That box always pleasantly surprises me. Had this happen recently mis patching a vocal into a lowly 160XT. It was compressing 20dB in over easy mode and sounded AMAZING. Tried the hard knee...nope. Tried backing down the compression to a sane level... nope. 20dB of compression, huh? And you call yourself "SmashLord"?? Ha! Right? I think this was a vocal that normally wouldn't need/want to be punished, but on a fast rock vocal, 1176 in ABI into an LA3A doing 25-30db GR is certainly typical! ...and after singing the praises of mixing ITB throughout this thread, I will admit that is something that I have not been able to pull off with plugs... plugs just sound small while the hardware gets gross and gritty in all the best ways.
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Post by svart on Oct 7, 2023 8:57:55 GMT -6
I think you sort of point out something I was alluding to.. I used to think of sound in terms of "this needs a VCA compressor" or "this needs an opto" and it used to send me down all kinds of rabbit holes studying the different kinds of VCAs/Optos/whatever. I used to take pride in knowing all these little details because it made me feel knowledgeable.. But in the end I was failing to utilize the small details to any effectiveness. It turns out that I simply don't need to know these things. I only need to know which device will give me the envelope that I need. And even then, the program material greatly affects the outcome too, so that opens up even more avenues of chasing geese. For example, I don't *need* to compress my master bus to get the overall level up, but I want the drums to be very obvious. I would choose to use a compressor with a fairly quick attack and fast-medium release. Does it really matter if it's opto or vca or FET if I can adjust these settings to get the desired GR without pumping like crazy? I used to think so, but I no longer believe it's even relevant. The only relevant thing is that it sounds like I want it to sound in the end. I also don't think engineers of yore cared about these things. They used what they had available and made it work, usually because hardware has always been comparatively expensive and not all studios could afford racks full of gear. We have it easy today. Loads of clones, loads of simulators, loads of places for information. We are inundated with so much *audio stuff* that I think a lot of people forget that most of these discussions about which piece of gear is more authentic or which plug has best modelling of a transistor never happened before a handful of years ago. Before then, people just used what the studio had. The point of bus compression is to control your fader movements and make everything modulate everything else. When your fader moves are studied or automated to not pump in this context, your mix comes together faster and better because those moves can be made with more emotion and creativity. Compressing your master bus as a special effect or as a crappier version of a mastering maximizer will not give you this effect. The latter will give you the opposite effect and make your levels way off. Different gain reduction elements have radically different behavior. Compressors are not intended as synthesizer envelopes. Both are amplitude modulators but compressors are at heart automatic volume control systems which are usually far faster than a finger on a fader. The ones that apply an obvious envelope sound like shit. Nope. Point of bus compression is to impart an envelope to the sound. Whether you're smushing things a bit for "gel" or "cohesion" or wherever the kids are calling it these days, or you're trying to get a little thump/pump out of it, it's all about the envelope. If you're waiting to the master bus to control dynamics and level then you're not doing it right.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 7, 2023 9:14:11 GMT -6
That’s a standard use lost in the “1176 into LA2A is mandatory” clown era. The attack speeds up, release slows down, and ratio increases as you dig in. Then you limit the overshoots afterwards. Oh good to know! That box always pleasantly surprises me. 20dB of compression, huh? And you call yourself "SmashLord"?? Ha! Right? I think this was a vocal that normally wouldn't need/want to be punished, but on a fast rock vocal, 1176 in ABI into an LA3A doing 25-30db GR is certainly typical! ...and after singing the praises of mixing ITB throughout this thread, I will admit that is something that I have not been able to pull off with plugs... plugs just sound small while the hardware gets gross and gritty in all the best ways. A cool point is you’re not really doing 20 db off and amplifying 20 db up raising the noise and distortion with a vca compressor because the makeup gain adjusts the dc control voltage generated by the compressor’s control path to the vca modulating the audio. Makeup gain is bringing the vca back towards unity where it’s ideal for the circuit’s noise and distortion figures so just the overshoots and undershoots are deviations from that, bringing the vca away from unity but less so than if it had to take 20 db off like the meter said. You still have the behavior of 20 db of gain reduction but without the noise and distortion. That’s not to say that the VCAs do not add noise or distortion, that the dbx 160xt is clean, or that the dbx 160xt is as clean sounding as better, more modern optical designs.
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Post by thehightenor on Oct 7, 2023 11:07:42 GMT -6
The point of bus compression is to control your fader movements and make everything modulate everything else. When your fader moves are studied or automated to not pump in this context, your mix comes together faster and better because those moves can be made with more emotion and creativity. Compressing your master bus as a special effect or as a crappier version of a mastering maximizer will not give you this effect. The latter will give you the opposite effect and make your levels way off. Different gain reduction elements have radically different behavior. Compressors are not intended as synthesizer envelopes. Both are amplitude modulators but compressors are at heart automatic volume control systems which are usually far faster than a finger on a fader. The ones that apply an obvious envelope sound like shit. Nope. Point of bus compression is to impart an envelope to the sound. Whether you're smushing things a bit for "gel" or "cohesion" or wherever the kids are calling it these days, or you're trying to get a little thump/pump out of it, it's all about the envelope. If you're waiting to the master bus to control dynamics and level then you're not doing it right. Exactly, I’ve always felt there’s a real art to setting a hardware stereo VCA bus compressor on the mix bus, the great units have very precise attack and release controls and it’s all about using your ears and balancing the threshold, ratio, attack and release with the tempo and harmonic rhythm of the track to impose just the right envelope and groove - when you get it right it sound so exciting and …. I guess Rock n roll On my chain the following vari MU is far more forgiving and I use one for mainly tone and size, but it’s the VCA that adds the vibe imho. I love stereo bus compression - it’s half the fun of mixing for me!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 9, 2023 10:57:25 GMT -6
Had this happen recently mis patching a vocal into a lowly 160XT. It was compressing 20dB in over easy mode and sounded AMAZING. Tried the hard knee...nope. Tried backing down the compression to a sane level... nope. That’s a standard use lost in the “1176 into LA2A is mandatory” clown era. The attack speeds up, release slows down, and ratio increases as you dig in. Then you limit the overshoots afterwards. Actually it's usually a LA2A into a 1176, one to grab strong input and pin the other to stop overshoots from happening.
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Post by niklas1073 on Oct 9, 2023 11:13:54 GMT -6
That’s a standard use lost in the “1176 into LA2A is mandatory” clown era. The attack speeds up, release slows down, and ratio increases as you dig in. Then you limit the overshoots afterwards. Actually it's usually a LA2A into a 1176, one to grab strong input and pin the other to stop overshoots from happening. I prefer the 1176 first, then la2a. Knocking off the peaks with the fet, leaving a more even signal for the slower la2a to hug. If you run the 2a first you will likely have to run it in limiter mode, which kind of defeats the purpose of the character of both of the units. But i do know some run them opposite what I do, never really just got the point of it myself.
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Post by nick8801 on Oct 9, 2023 12:30:34 GMT -6
One thing I’ve found is that my time spent with analog gear better informs the way I use their digital counterparts.
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Post by thehightenor on Oct 9, 2023 14:35:52 GMT -6
One thing I’ve found is that my time spent with analog gear better informs the way I use their digital counterparts. …. and the other way around has proved to be expensive! I’ve bought plugin emulations and thought this sounds great and knowing that the hardware will be sound even better I’ve try saved up and bought the hardware
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Post by niklas1073 on Oct 9, 2023 14:50:30 GMT -6
Experimented a little the other day as I thought I’d take some mixes home to work on. Laptop, headphones and an apollo twin. As I use a vari mu hw mixbus comp I thought i’d try to replicate it with a plugin close enough to keep it there during mixing and then tweak it eventually in the studio. Damn, I was able to get close enough with both UA fairchild plug and arturia STA, not really to be able tell the difference if I were blind tested… I think. They are obviously not identical, but close enough for me to mix into, and as an end product, would actually not make a difference which I used, though I like my hw comp, but that is likely couse I’ve built my palette on it being one of the unchanged elements in my chain.
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Post by svart on Oct 10, 2023 7:08:15 GMT -6
Experimented a little the other day as I thought I’d take some mixes home to work on. Laptop, headphones and an apollo twin. As I use a vari mu hw mixbus comp I thought i’d try to replicate it with a plugin close enough to keep it there during mixing and then tweak it eventually in the studio. Damn, I was able to get close enough with both UA fairchild plug and arturia STA, not really to be able tell the difference if I were blind tested… I think. They are obviously not identical, but close enough for me to mix into, and as an end product, would actually not make a difference which I used, though I like my hw comp, but that is likely couse I’ve built my palette on it being one of the unchanged elements in my chain. That's pretty much been my experience. People get hung up on hearing "a difference" but rarely do we also hear someone note that a slight change in settings could be made to make it identical if desired.
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Post by niklas1073 on Oct 10, 2023 8:56:22 GMT -6
Experimented a little the other day as I thought I’d take some mixes home to work on. Laptop, headphones and an apollo twin. As I use a vari mu hw mixbus comp I thought i’d try to replicate it with a plugin close enough to keep it there during mixing and then tweak it eventually in the studio. Damn, I was able to get close enough with both UA fairchild plug and arturia STA, not really to be able tell the difference if I were blind tested… I think. They are obviously not identical, but close enough for me to mix into, and as an end product, would actually not make a difference which I used, though I like my hw comp, but that is likely couse I’ve built my palette on it being one of the unchanged elements in my chain. That's pretty much been my experience. People get hung up on hearing "a difference" but rarely do we also hear someone note that a slight change in settings could be made to make it identical if desired. Exactly. Yes, I can a/b them and go, yes there is a difference. And I used to be dead on that the hw is just better…. but now I could say maybe that yeah, with the settings I’m used to and how I am used to mix into my mix bus I do like my hw. But then again I could set it up from the beginning with plugin mixbus comp, mix into that and I am 100% sure I end up with an equally good mix. And I am sure there are songs I probably should have gone down that road and adapted the mixbus comp to the song rather than the song to my work flow.
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Post by drbill on Oct 10, 2023 10:19:28 GMT -6
Serious question - not trying to offend anyone. Why is "it's different and I can tell the difference, but it doesn't matter" OK with ITB vs Hybrid mixes, while when it comes to microphone clones or other pieces of gear - it MUST be identical or it's a fail. It can never be "this new clone is different than the OG vintage mic, but it's just as good." It has to be closer to that - or it's considered junk Just askin' the rhetorical question.......
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Post by svart on Oct 10, 2023 11:08:19 GMT -6
Serious question - not trying to offend anyone. Why is "it's different and I can tell the difference, but it doesn't matter" OK with ITB vs Hybrid mixes, while when it comes to microphone clones or other pieces of gear - it MUST be identical or it's a fail. It can never be "this new clone is different than the OG vintage mic, but it's just as good." It has to be closer to that - or it's considered junk Just askin' the rhetorical question....... I have clone mics and preamps and effects and whatnot and I use them because they get a certain price/performance balance. I used to think about their tones and all the little details like if they're using specific transistors or whatever, but now I realize it doesn't matter one bit. For example, if I'm after a tone, I've found that it's usually a sum of the parts and a sum of the signal chain. A mic hitting a preamp a certain way which hits a compressor a certain way matters infinitely more than if the preamp is using NOS Motorola transistors or if the compressor has GE tubes VS. JJ tubes. But I think that most folks who think "it must be identical or it's a fail" are actually looking for the same things I was.. To buy into a myth with the hopes of leapfrogging further along... And maybe a little bragging rights.
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Post by christopher on Oct 10, 2023 11:34:51 GMT -6
Eh I dunno.. we haven’t seen Bluegrass Dan since he got his Klaus 47.
And he sure has big smiles on those YouTube videos
(I get what you mean tho, we are all sort of forced into compromises, some new things I view as close enough to what I want)
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Post by ab101 on Oct 10, 2023 12:27:14 GMT -6
Serious question - not trying to offend anyone. Why is "it's different and I can tell the difference, but it doesn't matter" OK with ITB vs Hybrid mixes, while when it comes to microphone clones or other pieces of gear - it MUST be identical or it's a fail. It can never be "this new clone is different than the OG vintage mic, but it's just as good." It has to be closer to that - or it's considered junk Just askin' the rhetorical question....... I have clone mics and preamps and effects and whatnot and I use them because they get a certain price/performance balance. I used to think about their tones and all the little details like if they're using specific transistors or whatever, but now I realize it doesn't matter one bit. For example, if I'm after a tone, I've found that it's usually a sum of the parts and a sum of the signal chain. A mic hitting a preamp a certain way which hits a compressor a certain way matters infinitely more than if the preamp is using NOS Motorola transistors or if the compressor has GE tubes VS. JJ tubes. But I think that most folks who think "it must be identical or it's a fail" are actually looking for the same things I was.. To buy into a myth with the hopes of leapfrogging further along... And maybe a little bragging rights. Well written!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2023 12:27:41 GMT -6
Serious question - not trying to offend anyone. Why is "it's different and I can tell the difference, but it doesn't matter" OK with ITB vs Hybrid mixes, while when it comes to microphone clones or other pieces of gear - it MUST be identical or it's a fail. It can never be "this new clone is different than the OG vintage mic, but it's just as good." It has to be closer to that - or it's considered junk Just askin' the rhetorical question....... Because people insist on using shitty ersatz emulations of analog hardware that do not work as anything but usually pretty crappy distortion devices. They won’t even use the modeled plugs that copy the interesting (mis)behaviors of the hardware like the glue or the fuse varimus modeled for their nutty behaviors when pushed but don’t get the tone down because how could they? I verified the programmers’ claimed behaviors were present in the plugins. You’ll find the “digital isn't as good” or “plugins are the same” guys using some waves or uad stuff that’s so far off in behavior and sound or something like the ssl native and claim it’s an ssl bus when it’s an updated port of the c200 digital console algorithm that’s probably even older than that console. I’ve ran into people who insisted that one behaved the same because ssl said so when that couldn’t be further from the truth. Also there’s no mention of how a vintage piece is old, often physically decayed, and is not like it sounded new and many of the new items still aren’t perfect because they’re made with parts with tolerances. This is very evident with tubes, diodes, coupling caps, and mos transistors and the original manufacturer is gone or doesn’t repair the Nobody wants to talk about how the cloners don’t know the original manufacture’s specs and tolerances, often aren’t binning parts (very necessary for some), muntzing constantly, and for mics, well some of those capsules are still made or have modern equivalents and they may vary in frequency response or tensioning but the Chinese clone capsules are so far off from the current new Western ones in any “stress test” recording situation that a cheaper Shure sdc or ldc will usually outperform the Chinese Neumann clone mic every time in anyway unless someone wants a bunch of distortion or the capsule shitting out. It’s just a pair of SM81 or KSM 137/141 or a KSM32 or 44 on vocals are mass produced and fairly high quality. They want to feel special.
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Post by niklas1073 on Oct 10, 2023 15:03:35 GMT -6
It looks to me as it often does within tech talk. This is not only regarding music and recording but other subjects too.
There is an interest in being able to reproduce something legendary. And for many perfecting this tech is a hobby or profession in itself. Others don’t care a rats ass what they are using as long as it takes their production where it needs to be. Most here are probably somewhere in between. Want’s to produce great music but can appreciate stellar gear that is connected to something historical that sparks the inspiration and offers some security in that you are gear wise in the ball park of what should result in awesome.
It’s unrealistic to expect a hw and plugin to to be clones of eachother no matter how much they are meant to replicate each other. Man it’s unrealistic to expect two U47s, LA2a’s, Fairchilds or what not with following serial numbers to sound the same. Due to, as Dan mentioned, tolerances. You can make a clone of one unit. Congratulations, now you have 10000 other original units that will sound different. Harnessing a character is as close as we need to get at the end of the day, and hopefully make it slightly better than the originals. Anything less would be retardation of the art of recording.
I don’t believe it’s really that interesting to debate wether we can replicate a production made on on hw only in itb only, or vise versa. We cannot. There will be variables that most likely will come at the cost of the production if our sole aim is to replicate a sound with other tools than it was produced with. But can we make a production as good as, relying on the strengths of the tools we’ve chosen to use and minimize our week spots. That is what we should focus on in a constructive manner I think.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 10, 2023 15:26:19 GMT -6
It looks to me as it often does within tech talk. This is not only regarding music and recording but other subjects too. There is an interest in being able to reproduce something legendary. And for many perfecting this tech is a hobby or profession in itself. Others don’t care a rats ass what they are using as long as it takes their production where it needs to be. Most here are probably somewhere in between. Want’s to produce great music but can appreciate stellar gear that is connected to something historical that sparks the inspiration and offers some security in that you are gear wise in the ball park of what should result in awesome. It’s unrealistic to expect a hw and plugin to to be clones of eachother no matter how much they are meant to replicate each other. Man it’s unrealistic to expect two U47s, LA2a’s, Fairchailds or what not with following serial numbers to sound the same. Due to, as Dan mentioned, tolerances. You can make a clone of one unit. Congratulations, now you have 10000 other original units that will sound different. Harnessing a character is as close as we need to get at the end of the day, and hopefully make it slightly better than the originals. Anything less would be retardation of the art of recording. I don’t believe it’s really that interesting to debate wether we can replicate a production made on on hw only in itb only, or vise versa. We cannot. There will be variables that most likely will come at the cost of the production if our sole aim is to replicate a sound with other tools than it was produced with. But can we make a production as good as, relying on the strengths of the tools we’ve chosen to use and minimize our week spots. That is what we should focus on in a constructive manner I think. Spending 10k to 30k on a Fairchild in 2023 is like buying a horse and buggy to go to the store. You can buy Cinderella's carriage to go buy toilet paper. You can also ride your horse without stirrups like the Roman Empire and wipe your ass with a sponge on a stick dipped in industrial vinegar also like the Roman Empire. Why would you? Some things should remain historical.
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