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Post by seawell on Feb 1, 2024 16:46:54 GMT -6
That's all fine and good in theory, but why don't plug-ins produce sonically as pleasing sounds as hardware? If hardware is just a bunch of outdated distortion boxes then it seems like it would be easy to surpass. I thought about this for a long time. Poor programming, distortion or lack of it, and insufficient bandwidth. Bad digital compressors cannot detect the signal, only the pcm samples, so they cannot get the real absolute value of the signal or the real rms. This means you must always overcompress with them to compress at all. They have issues with fast attack and release. They cannot switch between attack and release well since they cannot detect the real polarity of the signal. The multiplier aliases in the top (digital only) and bottom ends (analog and digital) because both the control voltage and the audio signal are nonconstant. There are bandwidth issues that only modern computers and old school compressors that limited the bandwidth of the control signal could solve. There are a few digital compressors that solve these issues to cover the full audio bandwidth. Some of them are exemplary even compared to the best analog like the Weiss DS-1 or Kotelnikov. Others are a smacky grand old time like Pro C2, just like many analogue VCA compressors. Another issue is lack of distortion. PCM is linear so there is no harmonic distortion from amplification stages or the voltage controllers amplifier or variable resistor to hide the harmonics of gain reduction so it had better be clean. Digital also has ways to reduce distortion like better rectifiers, thresholds, rms detection, more possible attack/release stages, and most controversially of all: lookahead and the resulting fir smoothing of the sidechain. Now this is about to get super nerdy. Traditional compressors are feedback thus reacting to the processing of the signal. Thus they will over or under react and then overcompensate later. More accurate compressors made with ICs are feed forward, react to the signal itself. Digital compressors can react in advance of the signal and not release prematurely. There is a delay of the side chain, the compressor attacks to the maximum level in the delay period where the level is supposed to go, there is a hold to at least bring it to the length of the delay, and then there is an additional fir smoothing of the signal or the entire attack low pass is a fir with a minimum filter length equal to the delay. Either way it won’t be \_ with \ being attack and _ being the hold to pad it out for at least length of the delay to not release prematurely, it will just be a smoother \ then a normal / for release. The issue is this is not very reactive. Analog compressors are constantly switching between attack and release and the times on the front are infinite rates, describing the slopes of an infinite filter rather than any finite period of time. So even if it says 30 ms, it is not attacking for 30 ms, that’s just a vague description of the rate to compress some amount of decibels of the ratio with a test signal even if the compressor isn't logarithmic like you hear (almost every VCA compressor using DBX or THAT chips) but linear (like an 1176, which wisely doesn't put anything but generic numbers). The lookahead compressor must attack for at least the period of the lookahead. If this period is too long, this means that that the compressor is incapable of compressing certain frequencies if it all. It cannot apply the non-linear transfer curve to the signal and becomes just a controlled fader ride. Some examples of compressors that do not really alias in the top end of the audio path in the box. I don't really want to talk about almost wholly dysfunctional tools though so none of these are that bad given what they do: Kotelnikov cannot really be criticized at all. It pretty much doesn't distort and has working ultra fast, sub millisecond attacks on Insane quality. There is no lookahead on Kotelnikov nor its filthy cousin Molot. They just go fast but Molot is solely a peak detector and can warp the curve into a more sigmoid function like many analog compressors have on certain ratios and attacks, to not really harmonically distort the peaks of the signal at all through gain reduction. If you're going to limit that signal later anyway, this means that you're not distorting the distortion later on.
The Oxford Dynamics has 20 samples of lookahead. This prevents it from massively aliasing in the sidechain and audio path but how long must it attack for? 20 samples divided by 44100 hertz gives us about .454 ms. How long is a .454 wave length? T=1/f so f=T/1 which gives us a time period about the length of a 2.2 kHz sine. Put a test tone into it into span and it doesn't do anything to anything above 3 kHz. This keeps everything from distorting like crazy and attack/release from totally misfiring but doesn't cover the full human auditory bandwidth. It simply acts as a fader rider when triggered by high frequencies, hopes the transients that trigger it are relatively full bandwidth but often they never are. Thus the tendency to get brighter on drums and guitars. A super complex analog dynamic, parallel effect multi-processor might be smoother and sound better but good luck building one. You can take a lot of a vocal with the Oxford but more percussive sources tend to get homogenized by it. It can quickly destroy a drum performance.
The old school Waves stuff, e.g. L1, L2, Renaissance Compressor/Vox/Axx, often has 64 samples of latency. This means it must attack for a minimum of 1.451 ms. They have to stop working above a 689 Hz sign and by 1 kHz they are nothing but a fader rider. They have some clever program dependence to not sound like total garbage though but the limiters cannot physically detect the true peaks and cannot physically compress a 1kHz sine; they just switch between a volume modulator and a clipper from program dependency, L2 with multiple releases for peak and RMS. The Renaissance ones have interesting program dependencies and encourage you to not totally destroy your signal. Renaissance Compressor slows down or speeds up at 3 db of gain reduction. Renaissance Vox has an instant attack, soft knee, slow to slower release and an expander but tends to let some ice picks through that must be true peak limited. Renaissance Axx is more successful because it has an adjustable attack so you can set it slower to not totally misfire. There are much worse analog compressors out there than these. Now to something I like on mixbus sometimes (Adaptive Glue can be SSL auto release like tweaked a bit but cleaner because it's not really compressing) or on a vocal for just some straight leveling but it cannot compress at all: Sound Radix Powair. It has 2205 samples of lookahead at 44.1 kHz. So that comes out to 50 ms, which would mean it cannot do anything like the old Metric Halo Channel Strip not compressors that had a 30 ms hold but Powair is a little more advanced than that. A 20 Hz sine lasts 50 ms. So it cannot compress the audio at all. It doesn't harmonically distort at all.
Goodhertz Faraday Limiter has 512 sample lookahead. So it must attack for 11.6 ms. So the Faraday Limiter is laid out like an 1176 but it cannot really compress above 90 hz at all. It has a built in overshoot that depends on the attack so it's leveling the audio in advance and is just remapping the transients. It sounds cool as an effect but it has little to do with what is fed into it as it levels and overshoots your audio. The same is true with these dedicated lookahead mastering limiters that have far too long lookaheads. They end up just being pumpy levelers into sound garbling maximizing clippers rather than 1176 style peak limiters or even the protection limiters that are typically RMS volume modulators meet peak clippers.
Now a very short lookahead can sound quite good. The Weiss DS-1 has a minimum .02 ms preview time. This means it can compress everything up to 50 kHz. I checked the plugin at 192 kHz myself just now to confirm it. A huge improvement over the Renaissance Compressor that doesn't even go up to 1 kHz. It also has simultaneous peak and rms detectors and other sorts of built in goodies that smooth the action more than all but a handful of analog compressors. Most of the "sound" is just from having attack/release come before the gain calculations. Think about it. If it low passes the signal, the low pass is the attack, before it hits the threshold, then it doesn't see the initial portion of the signal unless you soften the knee up. The same with release where it can release instantly towards 0 db of gain reduction. This can make it sound cool while with threshold dug in and ratio not cranked to almost infinite, attack and release will be smoother like a more traditional compressor.
UAD, the topic of this thread, stopped trying to sell everyone working digital compressors or new design analog ones long ago. They just put a bunch of simplified circuit models running at 192 kHz in their UAD2 and now native plugs and they just don't really work that well in the real world at doing what the analog hardware does. They model the circuits so they can sound quite cool though. They'd have to run their circuit models into the mHz to work well, which would restrict their potential customers. There are some emulations that work a bit better like the Glue but Cytomic choose to emulate a lot less of the hardware to get close to the gain reduction behavior of the hardware digitally. There are also newer optical emulations from UVI with some interesting papers published but the Opal (and the new Neold U2A too) while smoother than the UAD LA2A, again still isn't as smooth as just using the ancient Oxford Dynamics to level and limit different parts of a vocal to me.
I own both Weiss DS-1 & Kotelnikov and I use them a lot, great plug-ins! Having said that, neither is going to give you the sound of a Sta Level, 176 or RS124 for example...not even close. I know that's not what they are designed to be but I'm just saying if those are the two best examples of plug-in technology then I'd still take great hardware over them given the option. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2024 22:22:46 GMT -6
I own both Weiss DS-1 & Kotelnikov and I use them a lot, great plug-ins! Having said that, neither is going to give you the sound of a Sta Level, 176 or RS124 for example...not even close. I know that's not what they are designed to be but I'm just saying if those are the two best examples of plug-in technology then I'd still take great hardware over them given the option. Oh c'mon Josh you gotta give Dan credit for the sheer time and analytics involved in that post. No piece of analog equipment can react via a lookahead which is essential for things like brick wall and no HW mastering limiter sounds as good because it can't physically do what somethlng like Ozone can. So let's start from there yeah? How many 8 point multiband and MS HW EQ's are out there? What would you rather do? Notch out the right stuff or have some non linear sauce? What's going to impact the sound more?
When it comes to Kotelnikov you're talking preferences, I've had some $4K HW compressors that I didn't like so does that make Kotelnikov superior? Maybe so, maybe not but the TDR plug has its purposes without issues with quality and it's not trying to emulate anything from Retro Instruments. Neither is Ozone to be fair and I'm not going to take issue with it as one of the worlds best mastering limiters because it doesn't sound like a Sta level.
The biggest factor for me like a lot of pro's I was reading up on said was tracking HW, as soon as the Shelford / 2A / 1176 was in place life was relatively easy. Just to remind everyone you're not talking to a plugin advocate here. I think most of them are colossal f'ups that sound nothing like what they're trying to emulate and I've poured a great deal of money into them (even my partner said, that sounds like plugins) yeesh, don't even get me started on drum or guitar vst's. However, I could not achieve what I can today without some plugins it would literally be impossible and they do sound great.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2024 23:03:13 GMT -6
I thought about this for a long time. Poor programming, distortion or lack of it, and insufficient bandwidth. Bad digital compressors cannot detect the signal, only the pcm samples, so they cannot get the real absolute value of the signal or the real rms. This means you must always overcompress with them to compress at all. They have issues with fast attack and release. They cannot switch between attack and release well since they cannot detect the real polarity of the signal. The multiplier aliases in the top (digital only) and bottom ends (analog and digital) because both the control voltage and the audio signal are nonconstant. There are bandwidth issues that only modern computers and old school compressors that limited the bandwidth of the control signal could solve. There are a few digital compressors that solve these issues to cover the full audio bandwidth. Some of them are exemplary even compared to the best analog like the Weiss DS-1 or Kotelnikov. Others are a smacky grand old time like Pro C2, just like many analogue VCA compressors. Another issue is lack of distortion. PCM is linear so there is no harmonic distortion from amplification stages or the voltage controllers amplifier or variable resistor to hide the harmonics of gain reduction so it had better be clean. Digital also has ways to reduce distortion like better rectifiers, thresholds, rms detection, more possible attack/release stages, and most controversially of all: lookahead and the resulting fir smoothing of the sidechain. Now this is about to get super nerdy. Traditional compressors are feedback thus reacting to the processing of the signal. Thus they will over or under react and then overcompensate later. More accurate compressors made with ICs are feed forward, react to the signal itself. Digital compressors can react in advance of the signal and not release prematurely. There is a delay of the side chain, the compressor attacks to the maximum level in the delay period where the level is supposed to go, there is a hold to at least bring it to the length of the delay, and then there is an additional fir smoothing of the signal or the entire attack low pass is a fir with a minimum filter length equal to the delay. Either way it won’t be \_ with \ being attack and _ being the hold to pad it out for at least length of the delay to not release prematurely, it will just be a smoother \ then a normal / for release. The issue is this is not very reactive. Analog compressors are constantly switching between attack and release and the times on the front are infinite rates, describing the slopes of an infinite filter rather than any finite period of time. So even if it says 30 ms, it is not attacking for 30 ms, that’s just a vague description of the rate to compress some amount of decibels of the ratio with a test signal even if the compressor isn't logarithmic like you hear (almost every VCA compressor using DBX or THAT chips) but linear (like an 1176, which wisely doesn't put anything but generic numbers). The lookahead compressor must attack for at least the period of the lookahead. If this period is too long, this means that that the compressor is incapable of compressing certain frequencies if it all. It cannot apply the non-linear transfer curve to the signal and becomes just a controlled fader ride. Some examples of compressors that do not really alias in the top end of the audio path in the box. I don't really want to talk about almost wholly dysfunctional tools though so none of these are that bad given what they do: Kotelnikov cannot really be criticized at all. It pretty much doesn't distort and has working ultra fast, sub millisecond attacks on Insane quality. There is no lookahead on Kotelnikov nor its filthy cousin Molot. They just go fast but Molot is solely a peak detector and can warp the curve into a more sigmoid function like many analog compressors have on certain ratios and attacks, to not really harmonically distort the peaks of the signal at all through gain reduction. If you're going to limit that signal later anyway, this means that you're not distorting the distortion later on.
The Oxford Dynamics has 20 samples of lookahead. This prevents it from massively aliasing in the sidechain and audio path but how long must it attack for? 20 samples divided by 44100 hertz gives us about .454 ms. How long is a .454 wave length? T=1/f so f=T/1 which gives us a time period about the length of a 2.2 kHz sine. Put a test tone into it into span and it doesn't do anything to anything above 3 kHz. This keeps everything from distorting like crazy and attack/release from totally misfiring but doesn't cover the full human auditory bandwidth. It simply acts as a fader rider when triggered by high frequencies, hopes the transients that trigger it are relatively full bandwidth but often they never are. Thus the tendency to get brighter on drums and guitars. A super complex analog dynamic, parallel effect multi-processor might be smoother and sound better but good luck building one. You can take a lot of a vocal with the Oxford but more percussive sources tend to get homogenized by it. It can quickly destroy a drum performance.
The old school Waves stuff, e.g. L1, L2, Renaissance Compressor/Vox/Axx, often has 64 samples of latency. This means it must attack for a minimum of 1.451 ms. They have to stop working above a 689 Hz sign and by 1 kHz they are nothing but a fader rider. They have some clever program dependence to not sound like total garbage though but the limiters cannot physically detect the true peaks and cannot physically compress a 1kHz sine; they just switch between a volume modulator and a clipper from program dependency, L2 with multiple releases for peak and RMS. The Renaissance ones have interesting program dependencies and encourage you to not totally destroy your signal. Renaissance Compressor slows down or speeds up at 3 db of gain reduction. Renaissance Vox has an instant attack, soft knee, slow to slower release and an expander but tends to let some ice picks through that must be true peak limited. Renaissance Axx is more successful because it has an adjustable attack so you can set it slower to not totally misfire. There are much worse analog compressors out there than these. Now to something I like on mixbus sometimes (Adaptive Glue can be SSL auto release like tweaked a bit but cleaner because it's not really compressing) or on a vocal for just some straight leveling but it cannot compress at all: Sound Radix Powair. It has 2205 samples of lookahead at 44.1 kHz. So that comes out to 50 ms, which would mean it cannot do anything like the old Metric Halo Channel Strip not compressors that had a 30 ms hold but Powair is a little more advanced than that. A 20 Hz sine lasts 50 ms. So it cannot compress the audio at all. It doesn't harmonically distort at all.
Goodhertz Faraday Limiter has 512 sample lookahead. So it must attack for 11.6 ms. So the Faraday Limiter is laid out like an 1176 but it cannot really compress above 90 hz at all. It has a built in overshoot that depends on the attack so it's leveling the audio in advance and is just remapping the transients. It sounds cool as an effect but it has little to do with what is fed into it as it levels and overshoots your audio. The same is true with these dedicated lookahead mastering limiters that have far too long lookaheads. They end up just being pumpy levelers into sound garbling maximizing clippers rather than 1176 style peak limiters or even the protection limiters that are typically RMS volume modulators meet peak clippers.
Now a very short lookahead can sound quite good. The Weiss DS-1 has a minimum .02 ms preview time. This means it can compress everything up to 50 kHz. I checked the plugin at 192 kHz myself just now to confirm it. A huge improvement over the Renaissance Compressor that doesn't even go up to 1 kHz. It also has simultaneous peak and rms detectors and other sorts of built in goodies that smooth the action more than all but a handful of analog compressors. Most of the "sound" is just from having attack/release come before the gain calculations. Think about it. If it low passes the signal, the low pass is the attack, before it hits the threshold, then it doesn't see the initial portion of the signal unless you soften the knee up. The same with release where it can release instantly towards 0 db of gain reduction. This can make it sound cool while with threshold dug in and ratio not cranked to almost infinite, attack and release will be smoother like a more traditional compressor.
UAD, the topic of this thread, stopped trying to sell everyone working digital compressors or new design analog ones long ago. They just put a bunch of simplified circuit models running at 192 kHz in their UAD2 and now native plugs and they just don't really work that well in the real world at doing what the analog hardware does. They model the circuits so they can sound quite cool though. They'd have to run their circuit models into the mHz to work well, which would restrict their potential customers. There are some emulations that work a bit better like the Glue but Cytomic choose to emulate a lot less of the hardware to get close to the gain reduction behavior of the hardware digitally. There are also newer optical emulations from UVI with some interesting papers published but the Opal (and the new Neold U2A too) while smoother than the UAD LA2A, again still isn't as smooth as just using the ancient Oxford Dynamics to level and limit different parts of a vocal to me.
I own both Weiss DS-1 & Kotelnikov and I use them a lot, great plug-ins! Having said that, neither is going to give you the sound of a Sta Level, 176 or RS124 for example...not even close. I know that's not what they are designed to be but I'm just saying if those are the two best examples of plug-in technology then I'd still take great hardware over them given the option. tube saturation and transfer curve when pushed. Also as compressors, retro adds in a lot of program dependency from what I’ve read, Varimus are usually soft knee, moderate ratio.. I like the altec style plugs. I imagine the hardware is just better. Overcompression doesn’t sound bad and it speeds up and then has the gel. Of course modern compressors are more accurate. Less distortion. Logarithmic. Rms for the leveling. That + a tube stage could be quite cool. I like tubes. Often sounds realer than real and pushed tube transfer curve adds a sort of halo to voices. A compressor with multiple detectors that pushes the signal into a gentle saturation could be quite cool. |
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Post by seawell on Feb 1, 2024 23:29:39 GMT -6
I own both Weiss DS-1 & Kotelnikov and I use them a lot, great plug-ins! Having said that, neither is going to give you the sound of a Sta Level, 176 or RS124 for example...not even close. I know that's not what they are designed to be but I'm just saying if those are the two best examples of plug-in technology then I'd still take great hardware over them given the option. tube saturation and transfer curve when pushed. Also as compressors, retro adds in a lot of program dependency from what I’ve read, Varimus are usually soft knee, moderate ratio.. I like the altec style plugs. I imagine the hardware is just better. Overcompression doesn’t sound bad and it speeds up and then has the gel. Of course modern compressors are more accurate. Less distortion. Logarithmic. Rms for the leveling. That + a tube stage could be quite cool. I like tubes. Often sounds realer than real and pushed tube transfer curve adds a sort of halo to voices. A compressor with multiple detectors that pushes the signal into a gentle saturation could be quite cool. I think I see our disconnect here. You’re reading about the retro comps & I’m talking about how they sound in real world use. Can’t say I’ve ever looked at technical papers on those to see what they supposedly are or aren’t doing. I just know they create sounds/tones I can’t get out of plug-ins & I’ve spent A LOT of time trying. Believe me, nothing would make me happier than to sell all this out board & put a pool in the back yard 😁 |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2024 23:31:56 GMT -6
I own both Weiss DS-1 & Kotelnikov and I use them a lot, great plug-ins! Having said that, neither is going to give you the sound of a Sta Level, 176 or RS124 for example...not even close. I know that's not what they are designed to be but I'm just saying if those are the two best examples of plug-in technology then I'd still take great hardware over them given the option. Oh c'mon Josh you gotta give Dan credit for the sheer time and analytics involved in that post. No piece of analog equipment can react via a lookahead which is essential for things like brick wall and no HW mastering limiter sounds as good because it can't physically do what somethlng like Ozone can. So let's start from there yeah? How many 8 point multiband and MS HW EQ's are out there? What would you rather do? Notch out the right stuff or have some non linear sauce? What's going to impact the sound more?
When it comes to Kotelnikov you're talking preferences, I've had some $4K HW compressors that I didn't like so does that make Kotelnikov superior? Maybe so, maybe not but the TDR plug has its purposes without issues with quality and it's not trying to emulate anything from Retro Instruments. Neither is Ozone to be fair and I'm not going to take issue with it as one of the worlds best mastering limiters because it doesn't sound like a Sta level.
The biggest factor for me like a lot of pro's I was reading up on said was tracking HW, as soon as the Shelford / 2A / 1176 was in place life was relatively easy. Just to remind everyone you're not talking to a plugin advocate here. I think most of them are colossal f'ups that sound nothing like what they're trying to emulate and I've poured a great deal of money into them (even my partner said, that sounds like plugins) yeesh, don't even get me started on drum or guitar vst's. However, I could not achieve what I can today without some plugins it would literally be impossible and they do sound great.
the reason ozone sounds good is it runs a bunch of different detectors in parallel. So it can seem like it has a ridiculous, thousands of samples long lookahead but it’s not modifying the audio by that as part of the attack like a waves limiter. The same is true with the tdr limiter 6, which tells you the lookahead, which is increments of about .1 something ms. Also the analog guys basically gave up. Rip Dave hill. Rip SSL. RIP Aphex. The crazy cool stuff made with modern vcas and and custom vcas made from analog multipliers ain’t flying off the shelves. Guys would rather buy warm bs or the 1176 flava flav of the month than a used daking fet ii for 1k with the clean sound, switches, jensens, and multiple auto releases…… they would rather buy something made by Behringer for 300 bucks than the native cpu version of the Weiss ds-1. Now we got ua going fucking waves or wanting to sell itself to private equity like ssl, plugin alliance, and Stephen slate. And Izotope. At least Harman and flux sold out to Samsung and Sonnox Focusrite |
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Post by seawell on Feb 1, 2024 23:41:16 GMT -6
I own both Weiss DS-1 & Kotelnikov and I use them a lot, great plug-ins! Having said that, neither is going to give you the sound of a Sta Level, 176 or RS124 for example...not even close. I know that's not what they are designed to be but I'm just saying if those are the two best examples of plug-in technology then I'd still take great hardware over them given the option. Oh c'mon Josh you gotta give Dan credit for the sheer time and analytics involved in that post. No piece of analog equipment can react via a lookahead which is essential for things like brick wall and no HW mastering limiter sounds as good because it can't physically do what somethlng like Ozone can. So let's start from there yeah? How many 8 point multiband and MS HW EQ's are out there? What would you rather do? Notch out the right stuff or have some non linear sauce? What's going to impact the sound more?
When it comes to Kotelnikov you're talking preferences, I've had some $4K HW compressors that I didn't like so does that make Kotelnikov superior? Maybe so, maybe not but the TDR plug has its purposes without issues with quality and it's not trying to emulate anything from Retro Instruments. Neither is Ozone to be fair and I'm not going to take issue with it as one of the worlds best mastering limiters because it doesn't sound like a Sta level.
The biggest factor for me like a lot of pro's I was reading up on said was tracking HW, as soon as the Shelford / 2A / 1176 was in place life was relatively easy. Just to remind everyone you're not talking to a plugin advocate here. I think most of them are colossal f'ups that sound nothing like what they're trying to emulate and I've poured a great deal of money into them (even my partner said, that sounds like plugins) yeesh, don't even get me started on drum or guitar vst's. However, I could not achieve what I can today without some plugins it would literally be impossible and they do sound great.
I respect & appreciate Dan, I hope he and everyone else here knows that. I think he brings a unique perspective & I generally find him to be a great dude & an asset to RGO. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of what he’s actually saying because it sometimes sounds like Retro, AudioScape, etc..are making gear that is inferior to Tokyo Dawn plug-ins. It sounded like to me those pieces of hardware were being framed as outdated, distortion boxes for people that have more money than they have sense 🤣. Maybe I misunderstood but this is stemming from multiple posts from multiple threads for quite some time now so all I’m saying is if that is how he feels then my experience with those pieces of hardware and those plugins couldn’t be more different. That’s all ✌🏻 |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 0:13:48 GMT -6
I respect & appreciate Dan, I hope he and everyone else here knows that. I think he brings a unique perspective & I generally find him to be a great dude & an asset to RGO. I’m just trying to get to the bottom of what he’s actually saying because it sometimes sounds like Retro, AudioScape, etc..are making gear that is inferior to Tokyo Dawn plug-ins. It sounded like to me those pieces of hardware were being framed as outdated, distortion boxes for people that have more money than they have sense 🤣. Maybe I misunderstood but this is stemming from multiple posts from multiple threads for quite some time now so all I’m saying is if that is how he feels then my experience with those pieces of hardware and those plugins couldn’t be more different. That’s all ✌🏻 Unfortunately I don't have all the answers, I just compared Toto Africa to a modern song called Tiesto Ritual (2019) and my take away from it was there's not that much difference, the newer track has clearer vocals and more bass, a bit more produced as well I'd say. As a club song I'd suspect it would be mainly ITB then I looked up the engineers involved.. Oh, my word..
Yeah, a massive smorgasbord of some of the worlds best engineers and equipment.. I'm just going to disappear into my little corner and do the best with what I have  . |
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Post by ragan on Feb 2, 2024 0:27:11 GMT -6
I think DSP is interesting and cool and I appreciate Dan's passion about it. But, I often don't love the plug-ins he lionizes 🤷♂️. And some stuff he frowns upon with hyperbolic abandon...I think sounds great.
I like gear wonkiness and innovative tech as much as the next dude. I went back to school and changed my career because of it. But I'm with Josh here. I think good hardware generally sounds better than good plug-ins and that's why I bother with it. I like the way it sounds.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 0:29:00 GMT -6
Maybe I just don’t see the point with bands that already have a vibe but I want something I can set to the music rather than set the music into it or that will give me complete control if I basically have to rearrange and re-produce the music as well as mix it. Im pontificating like crazy but I get getting it more done on the way in but many of these compressor have a small sweet spot or need to be set to the band but the band does the song different every time they play it and you have no idea whether you’ll get something laid back in the pocket or machine gun fills like Scott Travis or John Bonham on the Led Zeppelin dvd…
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Post by thehightenor on Feb 2, 2024 6:24:24 GMT -6
realscienceclassonline.com This thread amplifies to me a 1000 fold why I use hardware - usually tube. My ears tell me it sounds better. My artistic instincts tell me it sounds better. As they say, theory will only get you so far  I don’t give a sh*t what my eyes tell me. (Sorry to be crude) Plug-ins sound flat and 2D to me - they did yesturday and they still do today and will tomorrow. My STA level designed in the 1950’s has aways sounded glorious to my “ears” I know this is a crazy idea and a bit out there but everything I do from writing, arranging, playing, singing, mixing and mastering. It’s all done by listening with my ears. Looking at graphs and analysing technical information never comes into it for me - it’s all about making it sound great. Truly fantastic. For me hardware EQ and compression sounds way, way more musical and fabulous than plug-ins. But if plug-ins can get you where you need to go - well that’s great too. I should add, I do use software - lot’s of it but not much in the realm of mix and tracking EQ and compression. |
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Post by seawell on Feb 2, 2024 7:22:19 GMT -6
Maybe I just don’t see the point with bands that already have a vibe but I want something I can set to the music rather than set the music into it or that will give me complete control if I basically have to rearrange and re-produce the music as well as mix it. Im pontificating like crazy but I get getting it more done on the way in but many of these compressor have a small sweet spot or need to be set to the band but the band does the song different every time they play it and you have no idea whether you’ll get something laid back in the pocket or machine gun fills like Scott Travis or John Bonham on the Led Zeppelin dvd… I agree with you if you're doing a lot of fixing like that then plug-ins really excel there. It doesn't negate hardware though, for example one of the reasons I love the 176 so much is that I get so many vocals recorded just mic > UAD interface to mix that have way out of wack dynamics and no vibe at all. For those kinds of problematic tracks, there's nothing better or faster than a great vari mu compressor in my experience to lock it in place(without sucking the life out of it like soothe or a MBC). It makes my life way easier and I end up with a vocal sound that no stack of plug-ins is going to match. Anyway, I just wouldn't write off any gear like Retro in particular if you haven't tried it in person, you may be surprised 👍🏼 |
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Post by jeremygillespie on Feb 2, 2024 8:24:20 GMT -6
I find the differences are in what we call mixing.
Some here are Mixing, and some are Fixing. If you are Fixing, then yeah you are going to need the plugins, straight hardware isn’t going to fix bad playing, dynamics, timing, feel etc from a musician.
If that is what you’re used to doing, then sure - a hardware box designed before a double kick pedal hitting triggers going to clickity clack samples isn’t going to be your bag.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 8:27:50 GMT -6
I own both Weiss DS-1 & Kotelnikov and I use them a lot, great plug-ins! Having said that, neither is going to give you the sound of a Sta Level, 176 or RS124 for example...not even close. I know that's not what they are designed to be but I'm just saying if those are the two best examples of plug-in technology then I'd still take great hardware over them given the option. Oh c'mon Josh you gotta give Dan credit for the sheer time and analytics involved in that post. No piece of analog equipment can react via a lookahead which is essential for things like brick wall and no HW mastering limiter sounds as good because it can't physically do what somethlng like Ozone can. So let's start from there yeah? How many 8 point multiband and MS HW EQ's are out there? What would you rather do? Notch out the right stuff or have some non linear sauce? What's going to impact the sound more?
When it comes to Kotelnikov you're talking preferences, I've had some $4K HW compressors that I didn't like so does that make Kotelnikov superior? Maybe so, maybe not but the TDR plug has its purposes without issues with quality and it's not trying to emulate anything from Retro Instruments. Neither is Ozone to be fair and I'm not going to take issue with it as one of the worlds best mastering limiters because it doesn't sound like a Sta level.
The biggest factor for me like a lot of pro's I was reading up on said was tracking HW, as soon as the Shelford / 2A / 1176 was in place life was relatively easy. Just to remind everyone you're not talking to a plugin advocate here. I think most of them are colossal f'ups that sound nothing like what they're trying to emulate and I've poured a great deal of money into them (even my partner said, that sounds like plugins) yeesh, don't even get me started on drum or guitar vst's. However, I could not achieve what I can today without some plugins it would literally be impossible and they do sound great.
you are tracking you. As soon as a performer knocks the 1176 or the la2a out of their sweetspot, the units will fuck up the sound. And I like those compressors as concepts, the concept of tracking through them is a recipe for disaster if the music has anything crazy going on. There are so many recordings ruined by an 1176 dug in too deep. They can never be made more realistic or cleaner. The hands were already tied. Now we have an entire plugin that started off for how to “fix” the non-linear pumping of an 1176 rather than convincing the world to use a better compressor. If you, the engineer turns the knobs as the performer plays to keep them in the sweetspot, they often won’t be enough to control the signal. The 1176 will dig in too much and pump or not limit enough, the la whatever will level things too aggressively or refuse to release. Why should the performer have to keep the performance something that 1960s volume modulators could handle? If you turn the knobs to keep them in the sweetspot, they often won’t be doing enough to control the sound to what is needed to fit it into the record. Serial compression causes more intermodulation distortion than necessary. If you can do it with one process, you save on distortion. Thus the move to build more program dependent compressors, fet compressors with better distortion cancellation, vca compressors that are logarithmic and consistent, rms detectors to take the true average of the signal, multi-detector compressors using technology from the broadcast industry cleaned up a bit, and eventually digital to replace the complex side chains vulnerable to heat that needed regular calibration. There are bus compressors I like more than an ssl that sound way cooler on a lot of music that cannot take the snare snap and guitar fizz enhancement but they need regular calibration in the real world because they use less consistent parts than vcas and opamps. Yet a digital ssl model exists that has similar action without the tonal coloration. I can see the Weiss to be similar to that but more accurate slower attack and leveler than the ssl auto release, can choose when the slower rms takes over and it is rms, not just a slower envelope bleeding into the signal, have a way more interesting initial envelope, can set a huge knee at higher ratios, can have a much bigger sweet spot without it trying to speed up like crazy and ride faders into it. I just used the MDWDRC2 over a peak detector, feedback, auto release compressor on mix bus too. It speeds up to prevent the pumping and holding down of the audio and is pretty clean with its own very slight tonal dulling from minute aliasing in the two detectors and frankly a lot in the auto release but that’s nothing compared to the distortion of older circuitry or serial compression. The main thing is it has issues switching between the various detectors so can pump a bit more than the Kotelnikov or the DS-1 but that can be cool because more zip, more room, more bleed. It can really compact something to fit better or shove it into something cooler than a compressor like an older line stage being pushed to its limits like older Tascam/teac mixers, inflator tweaked slightly, the starts of the non-linear transfer curves the A and 4000 in the ltl silver bullet plug, u-he satin pushed in vintage mode, where louder pumping tonal content could sound horrible in them or transients too dulled or distorted if everything is not controlled beforehand. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 8:40:54 GMT -6
Maybe I just don’t see the point with bands that already have a vibe but I want something I can set to the music rather than set the music into it or that will give me complete control if I basically have to rearrange and re-produce the music as well as mix it. Im pontificating like crazy but I get getting it more done on the way in but many of these compressor have a small sweet spot or need to be set to the band but the band does the song different every time they play it and you have no idea whether you’ll get something laid back in the pocket or machine gun fills like Scott Travis or John Bonham on the Led Zeppelin dvd… I agree with you if you're doing a lot of fixing like that then plug-ins really excel there. It doesn't negate hardware though, for example one of the reasons I love the 176 so much is that I get so many vocals recorded just mic > UAD interface to mix that have way out of wack dynamics and no vibe at all. For those kinds of problematic tracks, there's nothing better or faster than a great vari mu compressor in my experience to lock it in place(without sucking the life out of it like soothe or a MBC). It makes my life way easier and I end up with a vocal sound that no stack of plug-ins is going to match. Anyway, I just wouldn't write off any gear like Retro in particular if you haven't tried it in person, you may be surprised 👍🏼 i mean those compressors look to have a far wider sweetspot than an la2a or 1176. Big soft… knees. Multiple time constants, program dependent behavior switching between them. Pretty clean sound I guess but so is a dbx 160 whatever on overeasy, dug in a ton limited afterwards and it’s more controllable. Same with a a digital compressor set like that, that can take a higher ratio and treat the peaks entirely differently than the body to not pump like the emi comps do. I’m guessing waves, psp, and little labs got that part right from hearing ringo. MBC? Soothe is really meant for fixing bad mics ime with tons of small micro resonances in the treble. Dug in, doesn’t work really. Cannot fix capsule overload either from them. Spiff for fixing 1176 or whatever other non-linear vintage feedback compressor (or modern multiband bullshit) type non-linear pumping where a standard transient shaper doesn’t work. I wonder what bloom is good for. I would pick them up if necessary but they tend to be hyper specific and otherwise make things worse or don’t fix the problem. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 9:04:08 GMT -6
I find the differences are in what we call mixing. Some here are Mixing, and some are Fixing. If you are Fixing, then yeah you are going to need the plugins, straight hardware isn’t going to fix bad playing, dynamics, timing, feel etc from a musician. If that is what you’re used to doing, then sure - a hardware box designed before a double kick pedal hitting triggers going to clickity clack samples isn’t going to be your bag. why do you need compression then? If you do, Why not use a compressor that can hug the performance or be set to do it. A feedback, voltage linear peak compressor cannot really that well if it’s complex or all over the place. Something like the various altec style comps are incredibly brutal guitar, bass, vocal, and overhead fixers ime. I don’t use sample replacement really or clicky mics. I hate the Audix stuff and it needs a lot of work to sound normal. Same with clicky condenser mics on drums like earthworks and those flexi tom mics. Slate type samples need the top end taken off and transient shaping, limiting, or saturation to just distort it more than whatever Slate thinks sounds good. The superior drummer stuff often needs way more eq than raw or aggressively processed tracks on the way in too. The problems aren’t solved and the processing they think their users want or need makes them problems worse. Same with the Alesis samples you still sometimes hear. Yet we can hear countless productions with them uneqed, unprocessed, and sounding like shit because the developers won’t serve it up raw because they correctly assume their users cannot mix at all and if they didn’t premix them, they would be even worse. |
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Post by seawell on Feb 2, 2024 9:39:18 GMT -6
I agree with you if you're doing a lot of fixing like that then plug-ins really excel there. It doesn't negate hardware though, for example one of the reasons I love the 176 so much is that I get so many vocals recorded just mic > UAD interface to mix that have way out of wack dynamics and no vibe at all. For those kinds of problematic tracks, there's nothing better or faster than a great vari mu compressor in my experience to lock it in place(without sucking the life out of it like soothe or a MBC). It makes my life way easier and I end up with a vocal sound that no stack of plug-ins is going to match. Anyway, I just wouldn't write off any gear like Retro in particular if you haven't tried it in person, you may be surprised 👍🏼 i mean those compressors look to have a far wider sweetspot than an la2a or 1176. Big soft… knees. Multiple time constants, program dependent behavior switching between them. Pretty clean sound I guess but so is a dbx 160 whatever on overeasy, dug in a ton limited afterwards and it’s more controllable. Same with a a digital compressor set like that, that can take a higher ratio and treat the peaks entirely differently than the body to not pump like the emi comps do. I’m guessing waves, psp, and little labs got that part right from hearing ringo. MBC? Soothe is really meant for fixing bad mics ime with tons of small micro resonances in the treble. Dug in, doesn’t work really. Cannot fix capsule overload either from them. Spiff for fixing 1176 or whatever other non-linear vintage feedback compressor (or modern multiband bullshit) type non-linear pumping where a standard transient shaper doesn’t work. I wonder what bloom is good for. I would pick them up if necessary but they tend to be hyper specific and otherwise make things worse or don’t fix the problem. MBC meaning multi band compressors that get overused on a lot of modern vocals. A 176 sounds nothing like a DBX160. I’m actually surprised you haven’t used the retro stuff based off the way you’ve talked about it. Just my 2 cents but the way you post comes across like you’ve used the stuff you’re discussing. To find out you’ve only read about the Retro stuff is kind of baffling to me. Maybe it would be best not to knock gear you haven’t actually used? I consider it a common courtesy to not chime in on threads about gear or software I haven’t used because I wouldn’t want to steer someone towards or away from something that I don’t have direct knowledge & experience with. |
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Post by thehightenor on Feb 2, 2024 9:59:07 GMT -6
It’s a completely pointless debate.
Never the Twain shall meet.
Nobody is going to change the tools they use unless their ears tell them something new.
Maybe one day plug-ins will have the mojo, vibe, depth and musicality of high end hardware.
If that’s happens, I’d be happy to use them.
Sound comes first for me, I’m not wedded to any particular brand or type of processor.
I just like (where possible) to use the pinnacle of sonic excellence!
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Post by jeremygillespie on Feb 2, 2024 10:01:16 GMT -6
I find the differences are in what we call mixing. Some here are Mixing, and some are Fixing. If you are Fixing, then yeah you are going to need the plugins, straight hardware isn’t going to fix bad playing, dynamics, timing, feel etc from a musician. If that is what you’re used to doing, then sure - a hardware box designed before a double kick pedal hitting triggers going to clickity clack samples isn’t going to be your bag. why do you need compression then? If you do, Why not use a compressor that can hug the performance or be set to do it. A feedback, voltage linear peak compressor cannot really that well if it’s complex or all over the place. Something like the various altec style comps are incredibly brutal guitar, bass, vocal, and overhead fixers ime. I don’t use sample replacement really or clicky mics. I hate the Audix stuff and it needs a lot of work to sound normal. Same with clicky condenser mics on drums like earthworks and those flexi tom mics. Slate type samples need the top end taken off and transient shaping, limiting, or saturation to just distort it more than whatever Slate thinks sounds good. The superior drummer stuff often needs way more eq than raw or aggressively processed tracks on the way in too. The problems aren’t solved and the processing they think their users want or need makes them problems worse. Same with the Alesis samples you still sometimes hear. Yet we can hear countless productions with them uneqed, unprocessed, and sounding like shit because the developers won’t serve it up raw because they correctly assume their users cannot mix at all and if they didn’t premix them, they would be even worse. You pick a compressor that fits the performance and the instrument if you need one. You use them for movement, for holding things in place, for tone, etc. I mean, amazing sounding records were made before plugins…. End of the day - use what works for you to get the results you need. |
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Post by kcatthedog on Feb 2, 2024 10:40:51 GMT -6
Famous Buzz Gearhead quotes:
“To the pinnacle of sonic excellence and beyond!!! ”
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 10:43:19 GMT -6
i mean those compressors look to have a far wider sweetspot than an la2a or 1176. Big soft… knees. Multiple time constants, program dependent behavior switching between them. Pretty clean sound I guess but so is a dbx 160 whatever on overeasy, dug in a ton limited afterwards and it’s more controllable. Same with a a digital compressor set like that, that can take a higher ratio and treat the peaks entirely differently than the body to not pump like the emi comps do. I’m guessing waves, psp, and little labs got that part right from hearing ringo. MBC? Soothe is really meant for fixing bad mics ime with tons of small micro resonances in the treble. Dug in, doesn’t work really. Cannot fix capsule overload either from them. Spiff for fixing 1176 or whatever other non-linear vintage feedback compressor (or modern multiband bullshit) type non-linear pumping where a standard transient shaper doesn’t work. I wonder what bloom is good for. I would pick them up if necessary but they tend to be hyper specific and otherwise make things worse or don’t fix the problem. MBC meaning multi band compressors that get overused on a lot of modern vocals. A 176 sounds nothing like a DBX160. I’m actually surprised you haven’t used the retro stuff based off the way you’ve talked about it. Just my 2 cents but the way you post comes across like you’ve used the stuff you’re discussing. To find out you’ve only read about the Retro stuff is kind of baffling to me. Maybe it would be best not to knock gear you haven’t actually used? I consider it a common courtesy to not chime in on threads about gear or software I haven’t used because I wouldn’t want to steer someone towards or away from something that I don’t have direct knowledge & experience with. I didn't knock it. I said it uses tubes. It is what it is. Feedback peak compressor with multiple time constants and those will vary too because of feedback, soft knee so ratio varies with level, probably partially half-wave rectification in the sidechain which will ease up on the compression a bit because building a perfect rectifier with diodes was difficult. There is nothing special about old compressors except for their distortions. They're dependent and beholden to the transfer curves of older parts. Nobody in their right mind should think that they need XYZ to make money from this or that only something expensive because it uses parts that are rare is capable of solving problems modern things are unable to do.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 10:49:09 GMT -6
why do you need compression then? If you do, Why not use a compressor that can hug the performance or be set to do it. A feedback, voltage linear peak compressor cannot really that well if it’s complex or all over the place. Something like the various altec style comps are incredibly brutal guitar, bass, vocal, and overhead fixers ime. I don’t use sample replacement really or clicky mics. I hate the Audix stuff and it needs a lot of work to sound normal. Same with clicky condenser mics on drums like earthworks and those flexi tom mics. Slate type samples need the top end taken off and transient shaping, limiting, or saturation to just distort it more than whatever Slate thinks sounds good. The superior drummer stuff often needs way more eq than raw or aggressively processed tracks on the way in too. The problems aren’t solved and the processing they think their users want or need makes them problems worse. Same with the Alesis samples you still sometimes hear. Yet we can hear countless productions with them uneqed, unprocessed, and sounding like shit because the developers won’t serve it up raw because they correctly assume their users cannot mix at all and if they didn’t premix them, they would be even worse. You pick a compressor that fits the performance and the instrument if you need one. You use them for movement, for holding things in place, for tone, etc. I mean, amazing sounding records were made before plugins…. End of the day - use what works for you to get the results you need. So then you need 20 different compressors. I prefer to just use ones I can set quickly to the music with my ears to get them to do what I need them to do. Those older records were made by people who could play and they didn't have the benefits of consistent, mass produced integrated circuits, couldn't afford the equipment that used them, and didn't have powerful digital plugins to fix their problems with basically magic (RX. Drum Leveler. Trigger. Amp sims. Reverb removers). so they had to record them well enough in the first place and play them well enough in the first place. lots of older bands have the live and demo stuff be way better than the studio because they get scared in the studio or they are beholden to antiquated technology so the live records have the good performances and demos the interesting production. |
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Post by seawell on Feb 2, 2024 10:55:41 GMT -6
MBC meaning multi band compressors that get overused on a lot of modern vocals. A 176 sounds nothing like a DBX160. I’m actually surprised you haven’t used the retro stuff based off the way you’ve talked about it. Just my 2 cents but the way you post comes across like you’ve used the stuff you’re discussing. To find out you’ve only read about the Retro stuff is kind of baffling to me. Maybe it would be best not to knock gear you haven’t actually used? I consider it a common courtesy to not chime in on threads about gear or software I haven’t used because I wouldn’t want to steer someone towards or away from something that I don’t have direct knowledge & experience with. I didn't knock it. I said it uses tubes. It is what it is. Feedback peak compressor with multiple time constants and those will vary too because of feedback, soft knee so ratio varies with level, probably partially half-wave rectification in the sidechain which will ease up on the compression a bit because building a perfect rectifier with diodes was difficult. There is nothing special about old compressors except for their distortions. They're dependent and beholden to the transfer curves of older parts. Nobody in their right mind should think that they need XYZ to make money from this or that only something expensive because it uses parts that are rare is capable of solving problems modern things are unable to do.
No one said you need any of it to make money. I’ve actually stated more than once that I completely understand anyone not wanting to invest in hardware in the current state of our business. This isn’t even a hardware vs plug-ins debate to me. What I am taking issue with is you posting such authoritative statements about gear you have never used. You can’t be an expert on something you don’t have real world experience with. |
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Post by enlav on Feb 2, 2024 10:59:45 GMT -6
So then you need 20 different compressors. So I should keep buying more?
I know armchair psychiatrists do way more worse than good in the world, but it honestly sounds like you just need an inspiring session with some good musicians. They're still out there. It's easy to think as pessimistically about musicians as a whole, but I think it's because so many more people can pursue their musical aspirations now that it feels like the overall quality of players as a whole has dipped. I hope you can find something that makes you happy.
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Back to UA topic for a second. Since this is all about how UA is not doing well to the pre-existing userbase and catering to newer clientele -- Are there still crazy deals available or to look out for as someone who is interested in a few UAD plugins? Or is the roughly $30-50 USD sale range as good as it gets?
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Post by Johnkenn on Feb 2, 2024 11:08:52 GMT -6
I’ve toyed with selling it all and trying a new approach. Just because I like pain and suffering.
I could probably sell the x6 for $1400-1500…then if I charge say - $20/plug, that would be $1200. So if I could find someone that wanted an x6 with 60ish plugs for like $2500…wonder if that person exists?
Then just spend $500 or whatever and get back some (native) essentials that I use. Add my Burl DA and I’ve got $3500 ish total to play with. I could get an Aurora n and call it a day.
What a pita…but fun. I think.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2024 11:28:08 GMT -6
I didn't knock it. I said it uses tubes. It is what it is. Feedback peak compressor with multiple time constants and those will vary too because of feedback, soft knee so ratio varies with level, probably partially half-wave rectification in the sidechain which will ease up on the compression a bit because building a perfect rectifier with diodes was difficult. There is nothing special about old compressors except for their distortions. They're dependent and beholden to the transfer curves of older parts. Nobody in their right mind should think that they need XYZ to make money from this or that only something expensive because it uses parts that are rare is capable of solving problems modern things are unable to do.
No one said you need any of it to make money. I’ve actually stated more than once that I completely understand anyone not wanting to invest in hardware in the current state of our business. This isn’t even a hardware vs plug-ins debate to me. What I am taking issue with is you posting such authoritative statements about gear you have never used. You can’t be an expert on something you don’t have real world experience with. I'm sure it's nice but all of these vintage compressors work the same way where you push them into the part of their gain reduction, input, or whatever where they're program dependent based on their smoothing filter and ratio. Think an LA2A or SSL but of course it will vary massively ime but they're all just compressors that do not let you set what parts of the program will be influenced and often it is an unintended consequence of the hardware that they worked with like the secondary release charging time bleeding into the primary attack low pass that slows down the gain reduction to smooth the filter as the compressor approaches its target gain reduction or will slow it down drastically, providing a sometimes intentional secondary leveling effect that later compressors and broadcast compressor recognized as positive and recreated in an often more controllable way. You cannot control the amount of wanted gain reduction you want beyond a certain point with the same behavior because the amount of good gain reduction where it respects the material will vary with the ratio (or amount of dc offset to push it further along the transfer curve) and attack rates meaning that less or more gain reduction with the same behavior can only be accomplished by re-setting the compressor where the new settings will have a different sweet spot and you must set it by ear regardless of the markings on the meter or front. the couple of knob compressors like the LAs and DBX (way more modern but still a few knobs compressor) sort of make this easier on the user to not change them out of sweet spots where they have beneficial modulation but this of course greatly limits overall utility, reduces creativity in envelopes, etc. they often force you to over compress or under compress the signal and have their flaws fixed by hand or further processing and often this is not as simple as shoving a limiter before the la2a or after the dbx 160. I've had to deal with that multiple times to the point of parallel compressors into limiters and then upward compressors to fix the suck down and pumping. After being forced by an artist to recreate his performance the Old Style compressors had ruined with automated expanders and fader rides, I have soured on things.
MBC usually ruin things if used more than a couple db. It almost sounds like in your face, spectrum filled with harmonics that don't really relate to the original weirdness and full ness to me. Even DynOne, which has the nice peak/rms blend, program dependent attack/release per band, killer sheen but it almost sounds better to me in single band, which I guess negates its reason for existence.
I'm wasting a lot of time posting here.
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