Plugins modeled after vintage gear.

songsj

Member
Everyone,,
I just thought I would toss this out there and see what peoples opinions are on the whole craze of modeling plugins after vintage consoles and outboard gear. I have purchased more than a few mostly from Waves on sale, and I'm curious what the "real engineers" that do studio work for a living think of this craze. Anyone is welcome to chime in, I'm looking for opinions on whether or not people use them or are the standard off the shelf plugins that come with DAW's or are reasonably priced just as good. Frankly when I watch some of their tutorials when they are doing the A/B thing with their plugin sometimes I can't even hear the difference. Maybe it is just me. They are fun to have and cool to play around with but I wonder how many are really needed.
 
Everyone,,
I just thought I would toss this out there and see what peoples opinions are on the whole craze of modeling plugins after vintage consoles and outboard gear. I have purchased more than a few mostly from Waves on sale, and I'm curious what the "real engineers" that do studio work for a living think of this craze. Anyone is welcome to chime in, I'm looking for opinions on whether or not people use them or are the standard off the shelf plugins that come with DAW's or are reasonably priced just as good. Frankly when I watch some of their tutorials when they are doing the A/B thing with their plugin sometimes I can't even hear the difference. Maybe it is just me. They are fun to have and cool to play around with but I wonder how many are really needed.

Wow! I thought it was just me. LOL. I went through the same craze and at the end of the day, I use about 1% of the wave plugins I have purchased. I found that most of the stock plugin that come with Reaper, do just fine. The more I use them, the more I can find other ways to incorporate them for different effects. Like you, I have often hear very little changes if any, when they were a b ing their examples, even when I had headphones on.
 
I am sure that, like everyone, I have a few favorites and that is about it.
I don't use any 'exciters' or amp modelers or anything like that.. but I certainly am a big fan of Eventide's reverbs and pitch shifting... which I think are emulations of their own hardware.

Other than those, mostly stock Cubase stuff is all I use.
 
"Real Engineers" use whatever is necessary to get the job done.

But to your question..... This "craze" you speak of is certainly NOT a 'craze'. It is the evolution of the recording arts gear-wise. Years ago when I first started, you could not afford to equip a small multi-track studio without some serious dough. And all "rooms" had to have some sort of sound to be viable in order to pay for the investment. The 'vintage' gear you referred to had to be maintained in order to work properly. However, most of it was designed by the finest electronics minds and thus stamped forever the sound of music as we know it.

This is why every code writing genius out there is trying emulate the "classics" and they are trying to do so within the boundaries of the given medium ....which in this case is computer-ville. I own now and have owned at one time or another, some of the vintage analog gear that the plug-ins are trying to emulate. I still use a lot of analog at the capture and sometimes even run things back through the analog gear in order to impart that certain 'something' that the plug-ins simply can't deliver for the most part.

Are some plugs better than others? It depends on your needs and the power you have in your system. Some plugs are cpu hogs but they may sound better than another that is the exact same attempt at reproducing a classic or vintage piece of gear. In that case you risk slowing things down sometimes to the point of a crash.

I have ten different manufacturers versions of the LA-2A compressor in plug-ins. I also have a couple a 'real' ones. They are all different. Some are better. Some came with the bundle. Some I've opened up once. Some I use on every session. I use this example in particular because I know that every DAW has some version of it in their stock factory bundle.

The reason is because of the sound of the original and how it makes things sound.

I use a lot of my classic plugs and the vintage stuff simply because its where I grew up. Do they replace my set of analog classic outboard? No. Except when they do.
 
I don't think I have any for processing ?There a ARP 2600 and a Mini Moog, etc..

Ya, very little in my VST folder for processing - couple odd balls and some De La Mancha & Toneboosters
 
I guess I don't really understand looking at it this way. I'd rather look at it like this - it's still a compressor. Regardless of what it's modeled after, it still is what it is in its own right. Maybe it'll sound just like something physical, maybe it won't, but it's still a tool you can use, regardless of whatever name they assign it.
 
I'm not a professional but from what I've seen/heard in video and interviews, professionals have as much fun with plugins as we do. You can make fantastic music with stock plugins though, really. Go with what your ears say, if you can't tell the difference between one plug and the other then no worries, use the one you enjoy more!
 
Great responses, to expand a bit further on my original post, I still am wondering how close most of the plugins are in performance to the original hardware. I imagine there is no one answer and some are probably better than others. I'm 61 and have started what I am calling my "better late than never" project which is going to be as many recordings as I can do of songs I always wanted to record and just never got around to. I almost completely re-equipped my studio for this, new computer, new video and audio monitors all new software etc. and I have taken advantage of Waves huge sales this summer to load up my VST folder. I guess I just wanted everything a my fingertips and this is all so affordable as compared to hardware and the old analog tape days.

My questions started to arise when I was looking at things like the Abby Road Collection. Which I have and I watched a video about how all of these great recordings were made on their consoles and with their reverb units etc. in the 50's, 60's and 70's and I thought, "Do I really want to make a recording that sounds like it was done in the 60's? I think not. Got me to wondering how much was hype and how much is really still used on today's big name recordings. Again probably not a one size fits all answer. And truth be told many of the really big name producers and engineers are probably still keeping a lot of today's trade secrets pretty close to their vest. Why wouldn't they? It is their bread and butter.

Still I am really interested in everyone's take on plugins vs hardware. I am just a curious fellow,
 
Oh, there was emulation involved with me picking Mixbus to use. That is a generic console emulation
 
I think the code writers for the plug-ins are first, concerned that the emulations of their classic and vintage reproductions don't vary much as to the controls associated with those pieces. And then they go after the sound.

Realize that they are probably modeling a piece of hardware that, since it is old and broken in, has a sound of it's own and that sound may or MAY NOT be anything like it sounded when it was new. But the controls functions will be very close.

One thing the plug-ins don't have that the hardware does have is noise. Now some say that this noise is a part of the beauty of the devices and this is what makes them special. I definitely remeber having to work around this back in the day and was always thankful that the tape compression allowed me to back off of things till they got quieter. But that's just me.

Back to my earlier example of a studio standard compressor like the LA2A. I have lot's of different emulations of it as well as a couple of hardware ones. I also have a UAD Quad card and this comp is part of the basics. THIS is the one that sounds as close to a hardware comp of all of them. And it's like that throughout all the different devices found in any set of plugs.

As to making music that sounds like its from the 60's simply because you might use an older design device on something modern sounding....Surprise! These pieces have NOT gone out of style for a reason. Take a look at ANY Pro studio and look at their gear lists. There are three or four things common to all of them even if they are making the newest Pop music. It's the application of things to the music that makes it sound the way it sounds. I own the Abbey Road Collection and there are things in there that make a track magical in the way it sits in an arrangement regardless of genre .
 
Got me to wondering how much was hype and how much is really still used on today's big name recordings. Again probably not a one size fits all answer. And truth be told many of the really big name producers and engineers are probably still keeping a lot of today's trade secrets pretty close to their vest. Why wouldn't they? It is their bread and butter. Still I am really interested in everyone's take on plugins vs hardware. I am just a curious fellow,

I have watched hundreds of video where they are interviewing big name producers/mixing/mastering engineers and they all seem to have one thing in common. Record Properly & Master Lightly. These are people who have won Emmys for their audio production. They are very up front on how they mixed and mastered their audio. This is the one I just watched today. Their site has a butt load of this type of videos. Most also state less is more.

 
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...I still am wondering how close most of the plugins are in performance to the original hardware.

Depends on the quality of the algorithms...some emulations are almost dead-on, some come close, but have their own sound.
Keep in mind that much of the "name" gear from the past is still owned by someone, by some company...so if it's a plug that actually bears the name of existing hardware, then there was probably more effort to match it with the plug, since it would still carry the name. That said, even in those cases, even when the manufactures of the hardware are also the manufacturers of the plug versions...they will almost never say it's 100% identical....but it may not be that important for it to be 100% identical.

My questions started to arise when I was looking at things like the Abby Road Collection. Which I have and I watched a video about how all of these great recordings were made on their consoles and with their reverb units etc. in the 50's, 60's and 70's and I thought, "Do I really want to make a recording that sounds like it was done in the 60's? I think not. Got me to wondering how much was hype and how much is really still used on today's big name recordings

Actually...vintage gear (hardware or software emulations) is used every day in modern recording productions, and some of the hardware is still more sought after than some current production gear...so just because you are using a vintage compressor or mic or EQ from the '60s, it doesn't mean your music will sound like it's from the '60s.
That's something a lot of people misjudge...they think if they get the gear from a certain period because they are after that sound from that period, it will make them sound that way...but in reality, it's more about the writing, the performing and the production approach, than it is about a couple of specific pieces of gear.

That said...there are pieces that just have "a sound" that nothing else quite matches...it may be very subtle, and you have to really get to that stage where things are measured and heard in 10ths of a dB difference in order to notice that kind of subtlety...but it does make a difference, especially when you're applying that gear or that process to multiple tracks and it adds up into the final sound.

AFA how much difference between some "name" plugs VS the freebies that come with your DAW...it depends.
Something like a basic parametric EQ will/should be about the same from one to the next...but, there are ones that have their own vibe, and not all EQ do exactly the same thing the same way....especially when you look at the analog stuff or the plugs modeled after it. The circuits can vary quite a bit, and if the hardware was modeled well, then those things will be carried over to the plugs. That way, some EQs sound better on some sources than they do on others. It's not like you want to or can use just one EQ on everything all the time and it doesn't matter.
Same for comps...for reverbs...etc.
 
I have the T-racks classic pack and the 670 as a separate add on, I like the way they give discount on add ons etc. Check this out released offer today, look very interesting.

Alan.
 
I have the T-racks classic pack and the 670 as a separate add on, I like the way they give discount on add ons etc. Check this out released offer today, look very interesting.

Alan.

Very interesting. I already have the Max and I don't really do any mastering here on the ranch. But I do love these plugins. I recommend them and the reverbs are really good.
 
Everyone,,
I just thought I would toss this out there and see what peoples opinions are on the whole craze of modeling plugins after vintage consoles and outboard gear. I have purchased more than a few mostly from Waves on sale, and I'm curious what the "real engineers" that do studio work for a living think of this craze. Anyone is welcome to chime in, I'm looking for opinions on whether or not people use them or are the standard off the shelf plugins that come with DAW's or are reasonably priced just as good. Frankly when I watch some of their tutorials when they are doing the A/B thing with their plugin sometimes I can't even hear the difference. Maybe it is just me. They are fun to have and cool to play around with but I wonder how many are really needed.

Well I'm not a big fan of plugins, but they work (to an extent) when I don't have outboard gear. Using real compressors and eqs and limiters before it hits the a/d converters seem to give me a better track to mix with. The plugins that are clones of real hardware somewhat represent that hardware, but its not the same when its compared to a track that was tracked with the real hardware in the signal chain. Plugins are neat and convenient. but sometimes you have to parallel bus the track and add more instances of eq and compression to get the desired results when mixing purely in the box.
 
I'd rather look at it like this - it's still a compressor.
Well, an analog compressor is also at least a couple of filters and probably some distortion. There's also the noise as cavedog101 said, and yes some emulations do include that. I always say that what people like about analog gear is the ways that it fails to do exactly what it's supposed to do without some other side effects.

Me, I don't like the emulations much because I don't get enough (if any) control of those filters and non-linearities. I'd rather have the compressor do its compressing and let me decide how to distort it and when. With an emulator, If I like the compression but not the filtering, I have to just pick another compressor, but maybe I don't so much like the way it compresses, so I try another one...

So instead I use simpler plugins in combination to get what I want and need, rather than whatever somebody else hardcoded. It allows for a lot more flexibility, more subtlety, and for me at least a lot less headache. In a way it is like modular synthesis, but I think of it a little more like building a more complex device out of "sub-circuits" represented by the individual plugs. Yes, that means tweaking two or three or five plugs instead of the one, but when that one plug doesn't give you access to the one parameter that you need to tweak... I personally will just go ahead and build my own. It's a lot easier in digital than in meatspace with all the breadboards and solder. I'm never actually trying to emulate anything specifically, not trying to fool anybody, I just want it to sound good...or I guess more often to sound less good in a good way. ;)
 
I've bought a few and I do mean a very few plugins, and always at the lowest price I can find. I'll wait until the price comes around again. I'm a frugal Yankee and there's no way I'd ever pay those laughable 'retail' prices. The Waves CLA-76 is listed at 249 if I'm not mistaken, is usually on 'sale' for 49 and I've seen it for 29 dollars. I almost bought it but I've been buying a fair bit (Abbey Road reverb, API 550 A&B, and SSL-G and didn't want to over spend my budget for the month. So I downloaded the demo for the CLA-76. Guess what? it sounds effing fantastic and the main reason why I think the Waves stuff is worth buying over the stock Garage band stuff is the presets they come with. You're getting actual modeled examples of classic and great sounding hardware as they are commonly used for specific purposes. Yes the stock garage band has presets but they're based on a generic compressor and not a known quantity.

I'd buy the Waves stuff but only at the rock bottom cheapest prices because I'm a skinflint. I'll also not buy everything because I frankly won't use it all. Just the basics aka the classics because that's the sound I want. Based on my experience with Waves, any other good emulation of a classic piece of commonly used studio gear is fair game as long as the price is right. I've upped my game tremendously in just the past month fiddling around with old recordings I've made. Last night I did some tracking for the first time using the compressor demo. I know this. I want that plugin, I've never had my guitar sound like that before, like it should have all along. There's just no way I'd be able to buy all the actual hardware nor is there any way I'd have the place to put them.

Less is more, just use the good shit when you do use some and you'll not be sorry.
 
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