Plugs VS The REAL Thing !

[heathen]

I just do not like the fact every new plugin seems to be a emulation plugin.

I totally agree on this 1.

[heathen]

The other day I was mixing a track for a female vocalist and I wanted to add some eq and compress a little, the vox were sounding great, chain was Apogee out to api 2500 into my avalon 2055 and then back into the daw.

After doing all the backing tracks the same I noticed the main vox was a tad dull, anyway I tried about 10 different plugin eq's and every single one made the vox sound smaller and grainy compared with all the other vox (huge and silky).

So I had to re process the main vox through my outboard gear again to get it perfect. Took me more time screwing with plugs than actually just redoing the main vox.

Was just one of those situations where it was very noticeable. The guy I was mixing with was hearing exactly the same thing too. We both agreed !00%.

I find this is the main trouble with plugs, it can take a long time tweaking to gets things right, where as with analog gear everything just seems to sound right a lot faster with less tweaking.

[davemc]

Not a fare comparison either, the URS stuff sounds good, but does not capture the sound of the electronics like the UAD stuff does. I've compared the URS 550 to a real one & the EQ was hard to tell apart but the real unit has a sound, even with the EQ set flat, that the plug in doesn't.

I think it is a totally fair comparision. If they are going to sell a plugin with a fancy GUI saying it sounds like X. Then it should sould exactly like X. When it is pushed, or just passing signal not sort of like. That is the problem I see with a lot of things in audio now, a lot of people are happy with as good as or sort of like. The magic comes from the real stuff. My Neve 2254 sounded a lot more 3D then the plugin. As said I find a lot of plugins useful, just sick of emulators that have no vibe being passed off as the real thing. Would a plugin sell if it had its own GUI and we just commented on the sound. Many would probably not sell. Has any ampsim sounded right yet?

[Mark Bassett]

....have you ever noticed how CD's mastered in some of the biggest MS's with L2's, constantly light the over lights on a digital meter, it's a brickwall limiter right, overs don't get thru....

A brickwall limiter doesn't let through overs, so therefore any CD that sets off your digital 'over lights' mustn't have been done with a brickwall limiter?

[Chris H]

Over and out.....

[rick]

hey tim
i am sure we all know its not wether something is bolted into the rack its wether its appriopate to use it ,
you know when and when not to use it so i am not arguing with you about how you have decided the waves box sounds
and we both know sterling sound have torn up more records with a l2 then we care to count
there will be no fight about digital stuff around here well not from me anyway

the waves box does have some wierd settings depending on your input and output settings that dont make sense to me but i figured out a setting or two that stands up time and time again
i cannot get the weiss box to make sense to me either
so who knows ..?

good to have you aboard tim

[Howard Jones]

Some years ago when I obviously had nothing better to do, I tested the metering on a number of different devices and found poor agreement between them when it came down to readings just below full scale i.e. where it probably matters the most. From memory, I compared a range of different DAT recorders, mostly Sony, as I thought that checking the same manufacturer's implementation across models might yield more even results.

The various meters showed good agreement up to around -1dBFs. At that point, some would read under and some would read over. I would think that a good rule-of-thumb for whatever system you are using would to allow a possible error in metering of 0.5 ~ 1dB. For example, if you want to peak at -0.5dBFs, then only allow your peaks to go to -1dBFs.

Also be aware that the condition as to when the 'over' LED lights is open to the manufacturer's interpretation (as opposed to when an over actually occurs, which is not). At a sampling rate of 44.1kHz, will the ear hear distortion if just one sample goes over? Two samples? In some of their high-end DAT recorders, Sony allowed the user to set the number of over samples before the 'over' LED would light.

One woman's over may be another's under.

[wez]

I'm widely read & It serves me no purpose to make stuff up.

The other limiter was Weiss, often found in MS's with an L2.

the weiss DS1 is indeed an extremely classy digital dynamics unit. and whilst you do see them here and there i would guess that the L2 would outnumber them 10:1. it's a very expensive unit that does a lot of stuff. the L2 used to be a pretty expensive unit that does one thing and does it brilliantly.

of coure i don't think you're making it up, but either your sources are incorrect or the facts have been altered somehwere in the translation for you to post a comment as fact when it is absolutely 100% untrue. sorry to be harsh but that's the way it is.

have you ever noticed how CD's mastered in some of the biggest MS's with L2's, constantly light the over lights on a digital meter...overs don't get thru, & most ME's turn the output down a tad for safety too? and does every MS with an L2 produce CD's as loud as Sterling Sound?

how do YOU know which CDs have been L2'd and which haven't?

you can set the output to 0dB, and 0dB on a CD will push all but the best (ie accurate) digital meters into the red. but that's academic really... because yes the common approach is to leave anywhere from -0.1 to -0.5 as a safety margin, but the L2 is rarely the last step in the chain. it usually feeds the DAW where final CD assembly takes place, and the final level of the CD is often manipulated there. further processing or just a gain change in the DAW will obviously change the result. so you hold back on the L2 output so it's OK when it hits the AD converter (either the L2 AD or another one) but what happens after that is anyone's guess.

a quick note about sterling... although you could argue that there is a "sterling sound", they have 10-12 MEs there who work in different rooms, with different monitors and different gear. anyway, a client recently FTP'd a single for greg calbi to do. they were happy (but not ecstatic) with the result. i did the B-side and final assembly for them, and they asked me to do the single again for comparison. i insisted on not hearing the sterling version as i didn't want to be trying to match it (especially as i thought it was going to be screamingly loud). anyway, the short story is this... i gave it only as much stick as i felt it needed (i'm very conservative with the L2 by the way), but the perceived level was virtually identical to the other version. the client couldn't tell the difference (i could though, i thought calbi's EQ was really, really good).

what was the point of this? oh yeah... i'm not here to say i'm in greg calbis league. tweaking up one song is not really 'mastering'. i'm saying that the "sterling is the loudest house in the world" myth was started on the internet about 4-5 years ago. half of what you see on the interent is incorrect or misleading. and the other half is porn.

[timix]

Also be aware that the condition as to when the 'over' LED lights is open to the manufacturer's interpretation (as opposed to when an over actually occurs, which is not). At a sampling rate of 44.1kHz, will the ear hear distortion if just one sample goes over? Two samples? In some of their high-end DAT recorders, Sony allowed the user to set the number of over samples before the 'over' LED would light.

One woman's over may be another's under.

I agree with this in regard to meters on most digital recorders, however there are several very accurate analyzer programs around now, & some DAW's & souncards, that give you control over the number of samples detected, & these show on some discs max level of .03 e.g, & on others the over indicator is almost stuck on permananetly. Actually SSL just released a free plug in that will show the inter sample peaks which aren't usually detected by most meters, most engineers avoid inter sample peaks by reducing the output of their chosen limiter a fraction.

[Howard Jones]

Sorry, I don't what an inter sample peak is.

[wez]

you know i've heard (on the internet i guess - damnit) of MEs who get "their sound" by actually slamming into the ADC without any sort of limiting. sounds crazy but i believe at one time it was kind popular with R&B guys. i actually hope it's not true but hey if it sounds right to them...

you are LISTENING to this stuff, not just looking at the waveform and reading meters?

[timix]

the waves box does have some wierd settings depending on your input and output settings that dont make sense to me but i figured out a setting or two that stands up time and time again
i cannot get the weiss box to make sense to me either
so who knows ..?

good to have you aboard tim

cheer's rick, I'm just reporting an observation here more than an opinion, & I'm not mentioning any names or telling people what to use or not, it's horses for courses ultimately. This was something I didn't accept 'til I heard it myself. Another engineer whom I respect has independently told me he's heard a similar thing in the software version, this was before hearing my experience with the box.
The L2 can sound good when used sparingly, but the change in sound i heard was with everything set to 0, there was no limiting occuring. The best sounding limiters currently are all software based, there's been a lot of test's & discussion about this on Gearslutz lately.

[heathen]

you know i've heard (on the internet i guess - damnit) of MEs who get "their sound" by actually slamming into the ADC without any sort of limiting. sounds crazy but i believe at one time it was kind popular with R&B guys. i actually hope it's not true but hey if it sounds right to them...

you are LISTENING to this stuff, not just looking at the waveform and reading meters?

Sad but true. Also internal clipping is another one I've heard of people using. Most clipping really sux badly, to me anyway.

[rick]

something i discovered with the waves box ( l2) years ago is that if you set the input to -2 db and the output to minus 2.1 db and leave in auto mode it is a very different beast to when you leave it set on odb which is where you would logically set it
of course this cuts your master with a 2.1 db headroom which turns out to be a real bonus because it gives you a smigin to play around with in the daw when you are putting the album together.

the thing is the waves box is not nearly the same box at -3 or -4 or 5 etc and not even at at all -1
if you get my drift.

i suggested this to wez when he first bought his waves box and i think he thought i was mad

there is another setting i use sometimes , but if i let that out on the net you would all know i was mad .

and i should mention of course we do not have the waves plugin versions so i have never put that bit of software through its paces.

and to put the thread back in some kind of track , there is no way that the bomb factory pultecs sound like our pultecs but then our pultecs sounded very different before i put matched telfeunken tubes in them and they sound different whenever you change the tube rectifiers ( the hardest working tube in the box) and i bet my pultecs dont sound like yours or in fact our matched pair doesnt even sound like the other single ones we have . electric avenue have 6 ( maybe 7?) and no two of them sound them same , so just which perfect pultec did they copy ...?


so again with the idea that i think plugins are science fiction stuff , just show me any 2 analog compressers made two weeks apart that respond the same .
err... and i will show you a studio with a busy tech room :)

btw
i heard from an interesting source that WAVES now have a mobile "lawyer" who travels around the world booking sessions in studios that should know better , when in the middle of the first session he finds the computers are full of waves cracks , he documents the evidence , ends the session for some reason or another and then returns with the authorities and a short and fairly uncomplicated law suite.

one very high profile australian studio owner has apparently felt the waves sting, more to follow i presume.

[timix]

Sad but true. Also internal clipping is another one I've heard of people using. Most clipping really sux badly, to me anyway.

It seem's that some equipment does this better than others, & the better stuff will tolerate a surprising amount before you can hear it.You won't find much discussion about this, US ME's admit to doing it but never discuss the details. It appears that they choose some of their equipment for reasons other than it sounds better than the other brands.

[Kris]

I've heard that about Waves too... if you have cracks, beware.

[heathen]

Don't use waves kids, oops I mean crack.

[wez]

i suggested this to wez when he first bought his waves box and i think he thought i was mad

mad, but right ;-)

i've tried on a number of rick o'neil bespoke suggestions and have kept a few. the L2 setting was a good one... not only does it make more sense when you come to do the final edit, it has eliminated virtually all the random distortion that used to drive me insane. and i'm talking distortion so low that you would never, ever hear it in the real world, but only in the mastering room (where once it's heard, has to be dealt with).

i've said before that i don't want to be seen as a rick clone/wannabe/worshipper in the same way that many people are a bob katz clone/wannabe/worshipper... oh hang, now that i think about it, probably not such a bad thing.

i love my L2. and i love knowing how to use it. it's really important to be able to choose where to get your gain from in your system - sometimes the L2 does a little, sometimes a bit more. or in other words, "it's not how loud you make it... it's how you make it loud" (and i forget where that quote comes from, someone remind me).

and that's probably enough about the L2.

[heathen]

I adopted Ricks setting (-2 & =2.1 )also a while back after reading something about it somewhere I can't remember, I've found the Timeworks master comp works very well at that setting also, I just set it like that and do my gain boosting in the stages before it and boost into it & just let it do its thing. Then just turn up the master output about 1.5 db.

It just made sense after working that way for a while.