Hardware v. Software Effects - What's the Difference?

[bongolation]

Someone asked me this the other day and I had no answer:

Ultimately, what is the real difference between using a hardware compressor in the rack or preamp and the software compressors in your recording program? Is it simply a matter of being able to monitor the effect in real time at the front end while you're recording? Is it primarily a matter of convenience? If there is a qualitative difference between the final products using similar hardware and software effects, is it more pronounced in one type of an effect than in another, say reverb and compression?

Thanks for any clarification on this!

[darrin_h2000]

Some Effects arent really That good as software. Some stuff is just too difficult to eminate using dsp.

It also taxes your microprosesor.

I do use stuff like anteres mic modeler because the software version was free for a week,( then you just install it again from you cd copy, till I find a crack) . and the hardware costs 1000.00

But there is no real software that beats having the hardware.

[tubedude]

Neve has a software preamp. Sounds awesome.

[tubedude]

Kinda like a Pultec EQ plug-in. Supposedly, I think the Pultek sound has something to do with ribbons and tubes and shit. I don't see a plug in duplicating it, not for another 10 years anyway. But delays, certain compressors, even reverbs can be great and quiet, and non converted.

[JuSumPilgrim]

In general your bang for the buck ratio is something like 10:1 software:hardware. You can get a decent pre for $5-600 and you can get a comprehensive multitracking software program for $300. Can you get any decent effects units for $300? And on and on like that. The supposed tax that software has on your computer does not even come close to cancelling the value ratio going on here.

[bongolation]

Now...this is sort of starting like the discussion I had hoped for.

A software effect of course is only as good as its code, and just because some, say, software reverb plug-ing has settings for "hall," "large hall," "club" or whatever doesn't really mean anything if the code's primitive.

I was looking at Reason yesterday, which is undoubtedly the program that tries most to simulate actual hardware effects, right down to having a convicing-looking graphic rack. The intuitiveness of this is superb, but I have no idea if the individual plug-ins sound remotely as "real" as they look, a concept taken to the bizarre extreme of having the functional graphic patchcords on the rear of the rack actually swig and flop around realistically when you reverse the screen to the rack's rear-view!

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/main.html

I've been aching for a while to hear some real-world reviews of Reason, but so far haven't.

(BTW, speaking of weird software, am I the only one finding homerecording.com's BBS here a bigger nosebleed to make work with each passing day?)

[bongolation]

Originally posted by JuSumPilgrim
In general your bang for the buck ratio is something like 10:1 software:hardware. You can get a decent pre for $5-600 and you can get a comprehensive multitracking software program for $300. Can you get any decent effects units for $300? And on and on like that. The supposed tax that software has on your computer does not even come close to cancelling the value ratio going on here.

Computer resources are way cheaper to upgrade than rackmount units, too.

I'm in holding pattern waiting to buy the right MB for my DAW, but DDR memory is _very_ cheap, and the CPUs are going down a little every day, or so it seems. I figure that a 1.2GHz AMD T-Bird with 512M of DDR should be pretty hard to tax seriously under any circumstances I can forsee. I could be wrong about this, but I don't see how.

[darrin_h2000]

My computer needs upgrading bad , so I may stand corrected
but still having the hardware feels more real to me than using your computer.

for example I have vegas pro,acid2, sound forge, cool edit. But I prefer to use my stand alone hard disc. because I can touch and tweek things two at a time if I wanted to. I get instant results I dont have to wait a second for and It frees my computer to just do the acid loops for drums, cool edit for tweeking before I do burning,and storage on my hard drive. and that is all my computer does for my recordings.

But I havent used any of the really good software for fx yet so there may be some stuff worth checking out.

[cerealchamp2000]

Originally posted by tubedude
Neve has a software preamp. Sounds awesome.

Get outa here Tube!!! Show me the link

[JuSumPilgrim]

Definitely upgrade your memory bongo I think thats where the most critical gains are to be had in terms of smooth functioning.

Darrin, if the "real" feel is your bag feel free to spend the 10-20 times of what you would on software for "real" gear. I would go with a software multitracker and spend on good mics and pres which you can never have enough of.

[bongolation]

Originally posted by JuSumPilgrim
Definitely upgrade your memory bongo I think thats where the most critical gains are to be had in terms of smooth functioning.

Check the prices at www.crucial.com for what I understand is high-quality DDR memory.

Darrin, if the "real" feel is your bag feel free to spend the 10-20 times of what you would on software for "real" gear. I would go with a software multitracker and spend on good mics and pres which you can never have enough of.

What's driving me crazy is trying to figure out how the Antares microphone modeler works. Mathematically, it's conceptually trivial if you have both the funky cheap microphone and the vintage German ribbon microphone to exhaustively suss out - then program the difference between the two - but I can't figure out how they do it without knowing what crummy microphone you have at your end - even if they knew what it was, cheap microphones are totally inconsistent within model anyhow.

Mysterious. Is this just snakeoil?

[MISTERQCUE]

get your own AVATAR!!!! I had it first!!!!!!!!

[Executivos]

Mic modeler is pretty cool. It kinda makes sense.

You mentioned "they don't know what kind of crummy mic you used" When you use mic modeler, You tell it which mic you used to record, and then which mic you wish you used. You select those mics from a list. The problem? If you use a mic thats not in there, you're out of luck. The solution? There's A LOT of mics in there, and they have free updates for new mic models.

It's hard to imagine turning an sm57 into a nice tube mic, but it does help. When I dial in a u87, I couldn't tell you whether it actually turned my sm58 into a u87 or not, but it makes it sound better. I'd almost say it's not so much the model you use, but the fact that you can get some really different sounds out of it.

Here's some interesting ideas:
There's no law that says you HAVE to tell it the actual mic you used. I take samples I download from the internet and run them through mic modeler just to change them. Sometimes I'll spend forever and a day trying to eq something, and it just doesn't sound right, then apply a diff mic, and get exactly what I need without any eq.

Don't expect to get an akg c12 out of a 57 but it's pretty cool software and gives you a lot of cool oppurtunities.

[bongolation]

Originally posted by Executivos
Mic modeler is pretty cool. It kinda makes sense.

You mentioned "they don't know what kind of crummy mic you used" When you use mic modeler, You tell it which mic you used to record, and then which mic you wish you used. You select those mics from a list. The problem? If you use a mic thats not in there, you're out of luck. The solution? There's A LOT of mics in there, and they have free updates for new mic models.

Well, of course that's just nonsense as cheap microphones aren't that consistent and there are tremendous differences between them from one to the next, so _their_ modeled version of crappy mic X is almost certainly severely off for use with _my_ crappy mic X. If you're using cheap mics, you'd have to model the specific one you were going to use for this concept to work.

I mean, if this was a valid approach, you could take ANY two different "supported" microphones makes, run the U47 patch (and, what the heck, a REAL U47 on #3) and they'd sound identical, right?

I'll bet it doesn't work out like that, somehow...

So...this is every bit the snakeoil I intuitively suspected it was as far as doing what it purports to do, but I don't doubt that just as another effect - using it the "wrong" way as you suggest - it can be an interesting addition to one's bag o' tricks. 8-)

[ShakesTheClown]

Has anyone mentioned the noise envolved with outboard gear? Plugins and Eqs are so transparant and in my opinion if you get the good ones they sound much better with better control. AND no friggin patching and fuc&*ing around back behind the rack. ;-)

Not to mention to do the amount of things I can do with my plugins, I would have to have just a sick amount of outboard gear.

Cody Young
YMG Studio

http://www.youngmusicgroup.com

"All the power of digital with the warmth of , , well, analog"

[tdukex]

Waves Native Power Pack and Waves Gold Bundle, from what I've read, are the best effects plug-ins. The Gold Bundle contains the Power Pack's C1 Compressor, L1 Limiter, and EQ, plus contains the new Renaissance Compressor, Limiter, and EQ. I think sounusman uses (and likes) some of the Waves plug-ins, also.

Home Recording magazine had this to say about the Gold Bundle in its December 2000 issue: "The first thing I have to tell you about Waves is that Waves sounds better than just about every Mac-based plug-in suite I've worked with. This is not just my opinion but the consensus of almost every engineer, DAW operator, programmer, and gearhead I know."

Hear are some reviews from ProRec:

http://prorec.com/prorec/articles.ns...2566EC00260DF5

http://prorec.com/prorec/articles.ns...0?OpenDocument

http://prorec.com/prorec/articles.ns...2566E70067B116