What's the one Plugin you can't live without?

UA LA2A . I would like to agree with Glen on principle but in real world seems we all gotta have plugins/hardware to get the sound. In all the articles I have ever read with pro engineers, they always have a favored chain of hardware or plugins they use. I have yet to read anyone relate that they " test the waters" so to speak before applying there norm. Again, I DO agree with you Glen. I will say I only have 1 or 2 I use always. Either compressor or limiter. Only as a "self defense" tool.
 
UAD LA2A
UAD 1176
UAD Precision Limiter
Sonitus Reverb
Sonitus EQ

These end up on everything I do. I have many others but these are the bread and butter effects to match levels, pulse and tone of many of todays CDs.
 
jmorris said:
UA LA2A . I would like to agree with Glen on principle but in real world seems we all gotta have plugins/hardware to get the sound.
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There are times when I really hate text-based forums, there is so much room for misinterpretation - or at least multiple interpretation - on points that are not as obvious as 2+2.

Of COURSE plugins have become fairly standard use, of COURSE they can help create good mixes, and of COURSE I use them all the time myself.

OK, if you really want to know, the one plug I use more often than any other, and use at least once, and probably more than once on average, for every mix is Elemental Audio's Eqium (now known as Roger Nichols' Unequal-izer). Everybody happy now? :rolleyes: :)

I just have a real problem with the attitude and the common real practice behind the idea that plugins - or even outboard hardware, FTM - are something that no engineer can live without. Two observations:

1.) The music and engineering world got along just fine and made great productions not only before plugins existed, but even before stuff like external parametric EQs and compressors existed. Many of these recordings made without the benefit of these tools are ones that are regularly cited almost daily on this board as recordings that most of us aspire to.

2.) Ask most pro engineers and producers who have been around long enough to know if on average the engineering or sonic quality of commercial recordings has gone up, gone down, or stayed pretty much the same in the past 15 or 20 years since all these gadgets have become available, and the vast majority will say that it either has stayed pretty much the same or has gone down.

How have the zillions of plugins helped - other than creating a new economic market and jobs for a handful of software engineers? They certainly haven't helped make recordings any better overall than they used to be. Nor have they helped make things any easier. One month watching this forum, or the extra hour one spends in the studio playing with plug settings before printing and canning the recording are good evidence for just how big bad plugins don't really make things all that much easier.

I love my Eqium. But take it away from me and I'll still be able to make good mixes. I could live without it.

G.
 
SouthsideGlen-"1.) The music and engineering world got along just fine and made great productions not only before plugins existed, but even before stuff like external parametric EQs and compressors existed. Many of these recordings made without the benefit of these tools are ones that are regularly cited almost daily on this board as recordings that most of us aspire to."


Glen, this is a very interesting and acurate statement. My interpritation of the question is more really what "tool, processor" cant we live without rather than "plugin" as today we all mostly use plugins compared to hardware. Seems today a 'plugin" is what the old hardware use to be.
 
I like Equim also. It's one of the only eq plugins I've tried that doesn't mess with the sound in *any way* other than applying the eq. Man is it clean, I love that. And it's very light on the CPU usage too.
 
SonicAlbert said:
I like Equim also. It's one of the only eq plugins I've tried that doesn't mess with the sound in *any way* other than applying the eq. Man is it clean, I love that. And it's very light on the CPU usage too.
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Agreed on all counts. And the flexibility and feature set is unbeatable.

I noticed you had Finalis in you list too, Al. Another one I agree is a very good plug. While I don't limit all that much, when I do, that's likely one I will go to.
jmorris said:
Glen, this is a very interesting and acurate statement. My interpritation of the question is more really what "tool, processor" cant we live without rather than "plugin" as today we all mostly use plugins compared to hardware. Seems today a 'plugin" is what the old hardware use to be.
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Well, not everybody mixes in the box...not yet anyway. You're right, though, most people on our independent level do. But that's not my point. Notice I said "but even before stuff like external parametric EQs and compressors existed."

It's interetsing and funny to observe just how people today take those things for granted when in fact they are relatively recent developemnts in the grand scheme of things. The parametric EQ didn't exist until Massenberg built the ITI in the early 70s, and didn't really become universal in the studios for several years after that. Real time analyzers? You could get semi-useful ones in hardware around 1980 for about $800 each. Needless to say only the biggest studios had them ,and even then it was for more of a client eye candy factor than it was for serious mix debugging. Multiband compression? Fuggedaboudit. That's a child of the hearing aid industry and was first patented in 1989, and didn't become hot shit in our racket until the late 90s.

Even standard wideband compression, while older technology than those mentioned above, took a while before becoming the overused "standard" that it is today; many true fader jockeys still in the business shake their heads and chuckle and maybe even sigh a little when their acolytes immediately jump to their UA boxes and emulators as an "instinctive" reaction.

I just wish that half of the people who swear by their toys that they can't live without (software or hardware, it doesn't matter) would remember all that the next time the inevitably chronic thread crops up asking for the top recordings in history, and they all want to put records like "Pet Sounds", Sgt. Pepper", "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Aja" at the top of their lists :).

G.
 
Oh boy

I havn't seen a Southside book for a while, Go Glen go :D

I recently recorded slide guitar with 3 mics all of the m flat & uncompressed & man all mighty.........I always get a feeling of immense satisfaction when I use no processing at all re EQ or comp. apart from delay or verb according to taste/track needs

BTW I've gone all analog with my P/tools rig so at the mo. I couldn't live without my analog reel to reels for delay or the 2 echoplexes, re201 space echo & binson echorec 2 that are going & have already been in my possesion. My ol' man's had a fling with ebay recently and OMIGOD it's such good fun

they need serviced. Like old people I must treat with care :D

the whole needs delay everywhere all the time (take me seriously & I'll hit ye wi' a brick laddie)

HEHE boing boing
 
slidey, have you checked out Steve Massey's plugins for TDM and RTAS? Really good stuff, even if you are into the analog thing at the moment. The demos are non-time limited, with no beeps or audio dropouts, so you can give the plugin a good workout--a few features have been limited, but nothing that affects the sound. Worth taking a listen to.
 
Glen.

I would really love to see you write a some kind of book on mixing and recording.

Everytime you post something you leave me drooling for more. Simply Brilliant!!:D



To answer the post:

I guess currently I my favourite thing to do, not neccessarly best way to do thing just how I do it:
1. Record my level dry

2. Set levels
- If my recorded track levels are too bouncy and I can't get the guy back in the studio. I'll use a little bit of compression to level out the volume.

My favourite plugins right now for doing that are probably Wave C1 and Waves Renaissance Compressor.

Usual I have to EQ most of the time, but I prefer to use it before the compressor

For EQing:
Waves Renaissance EQ

3. Make my panning adjustments using the DAW

4. Go back to 2 make sure nothing isn't to far out of whack maybe readjust my EQ levels and check on different monitoring system. I have one loud system, one small stereo system and my regular flat monitors for comparing.

5. Add effects. Usually for me I almost always use a simple reverb, simple delay and simple chorus effect in very modest amounts.
Classic Reverb -> This is a free plugin
Classic Delay -> This is a free plugin
Classic Chorus -> This is a free plugin

6. Go back to step 2 make sure nothing is to for out of whack and compare it my different monitoring systems. Making sure it sounds good on all of them is key point here for me.

7. At this point I kinda pick whatever seem to be appropriate to the song. So it more important to listen and figure out what you want to hear and then try
to obtain that sound.


Well here my list:
Waves Renaissance Compressor
Waves Renaissance EQ
Classic Reverb
Classic Delay
Classic Chorus
 
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SonicAlbert said:
slidey, have you checked out Steve Massey's plugins for TDM and RTAS? Really good stuff, even if you are into the analog thing at the moment. The demos are non-time limited, with no beeps or audio dropouts, so you can give the plugin a good workout--a few features have been limited, but nothing that affects the sound. Worth taking a listen to.
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I might just do that, I always like a new plugin to fool around with. & the analog thang has just come back into my life after an absence of about 7 years

I'm awaiting a B77 revox for mastering purposes & the odd bit of delay
 
I can't live without a (real) SSL mixbus compressor, so I would imagine in the event that I'm ever away from a real one, I'd have to resort to the plugin.

Other then that, Renasaince compressor would be my 2nd (or first) loved plugin. I wouldn't say I couldn't live without plugins, but they're sure nice to have especially on lower-budget projects where renting 1176s and other outboard gear are sort of out of the equation!
 
I can't say I have one favourite plugin. I use many extensively.

I'd like to add one thing to this debate. I agree that music (or the mixing of music) has not gotten better because of plugins. However, to those dedicated to their craft, but without the option of using lots of (expensive) outboard gear, plugins are great. They do not suck. That is not to say they are just as good as outboard gear, but like most will agree on, they can be very very usefull in the right hands.

That's why I use plugins a lot. They are cheap, and do a pretty damn good job. Just not an amazing job (yet).
 
Halion said:
IHowever, to those dedicated to their craft, but without the option of using lots of (expensive) outboard gear, plugins are great.
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Those dedicated to their craft managed to make better recordings than we can without even the option of outboard gear.

Machine is slowly replacing man, and frankly, machine just doesn't do a very good job. The problem is we're just too lazy or too impatient to care; we're happy to believe that a great recording is just an EQ away and that with the right compressor we can get a good recording Right Now without actually taking the time to learn how to record or mix. Our mePods or meSpace pages just can't wait that long.

The irony is that fucking around with all these plugins and getting them right actually takes more work than just doing it right without them in the first place. Our laziness just gives us more work and our impatience just makes the process longer.

That's the paradox. If people got off their asses and managed to learn how to actually engineer sound; how to mic things within a set environment for optimum effect, how to set the gain structure in their signal chain properly, how to actually mix tracks and not just lay them on top of each other, and most importantly, how to train their ears to listen as an engineer and not as a groupie, they could/would cut their plugin (or outboard gear) usage by at least half and still have better-sounding recordings than they do now.

In the right hands, plugins can do some great things. But they are no replacement for actually learning the craft (which is how they are mostly used now.) And that's the other paradox; the ones who benefit the most from outboard gear or plugins are the ones who need them the least.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Machine is slowly replacing man, and frankly, machine just doesn't do a very good job. The problem is we're just too lazy or too impatient to care
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Machines only do what we tell them to do. That's where the laziness comes in. The problem with having machines take over human functions is that we then lose the ability to do those functions. It's like a muscle that doesn't get exercised, after a while it is no longer useful.

This is the problem with zero-tolerance laws--they remove the element of human judgement from the equation. As a result, people lose the ability to make judgements.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
...The problem is we're just too lazy or too impatient to care; we're happy to believe that a great recording is just an EQ away and that with the right compressor we can get a good recording Right Now without actually taking the time to learn how to record or mix. Our mePods or meSpace pages just can't wait that long... If people got off their asses and managed to learn how to actually engineer sound; how to mic things within a set environment for optimum effect, how to set the gain structure in their signal chain properly, how to actually mix tracks and not just lay them on top of each other, and most importantly, how to train their ears to listen as an engineer and not as a groupie, they could/would cut their plugin (or outboard gear) usage by at least half and still have better-sounding recordings than they do now...
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Some frustration there and I sympathize. I've seen a different situation since I hang out a lot in the mp3 clinic. Regarding the HR community as a whole, there's wide cross-section of people, and a certainly lot of misuse of tools. However, since the clinic is based on listening to specifics of individual productions, it has a very different scenario than the typical threads in other forums that ask things like, "How can I get my mix LOUDER?"... followed by serious discussions of mixing skills, followed by the OP's, "yeah whatever, but how do I make it L-O-U-D-E-R?"

A common thing that happens with newbies posting music for review in the clinic is:

1) there are problems in tracking, arranging or monitoring that have been masked by over-processing
2) feedback given by those more experienced
3) remixing or retracking by OP
4) their next post is higher quality production

There are some very fine productions in the clinic and a lot of sharing of knowledge about specifics. Anybody who hasn't checked it out, listen to (just to name a few in no particular order, and there are many more) Rami, xfinsterx, Supercreep and Incanus, DavidK, Wireneck, tonio, Bulls Hit, Lee Rosario, macle, Metalhead28. And like I said, there are many more who are very good. Some have current projects in the clinic, others have in the past and you can hear most of them just by following their sig links.

There's a lot of skill around here.
 
SonicAlbert said:
Machines only do what we tell them to do. That's where the laziness comes in. The problem with having machines take over human functions is that we then lose the ability to do those functions. It's like a muscle that doesn't get exercised, after a while it is no longer useful.
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Exactly!

As for that first sentence, Al; how long do you think it will be before someone programs in an "Auto-mix" feature into PT or another DAW?

Heck, your average 5th grader proficient at VC++ could today write code that would read track names supplied by the user, such as "SNARE", "BASS", etc., automatically apply panning and compression to each track based upon some common preset values (LCR, git doubling, etc.), sum the tracks, and normalize the result. Your average college grad programmer could extend that to automatically recognize the track type based upon waveform pattern recognition - no need to even supply names - and could even potentially do some automatic tounge-and-groove EQing based upon a fourier analysis (a-la Hairball), and apply limiting to the two mix based upon a simplified RMS-to-crest factor formula.

I hate to say it, but my bet is that by 2010, if not before, we'll see something like that crop up. If not in PT, then in someone else's DAW software. We have the technology now, which means that someone, somewhere has GOT to be working on it already.

While I personally disdain such automation, I'll also bet you there's a HUGE market for it here. Heck, it's what all the newbs are doing already - always pan this here and that there, always compress this with that plug and EQ that with this frequency, always go to this plug or that no matter the tracking, etc.

It's just getting the computer to automate what is already becoming a robotic human process that's dependent amost entirely on the software to do any actual processing of the tracks into a mix. The muscles are not atrophying so much as are not being used at all.

G.
 
have some faith in us youngsters Glen...................

I have the advantage of a musician father who is heavilly into sound & gear so you could say I was broght up in heaven & to the old school ways IE I first had an electric guitar, a lead & an amp. I'm also a firm believer in getting things to sound right before I record & I tend (as much as possible) to treat a DAW like a tape machine in so far that editing etc etc is avoided at almost any costs

having said all that I'm not adverse to EQing the seven bells out of something, but I do learn a lot from reading about production techniques of old

BTW I've got a friend who recently picked up a DVD of "the making of Aja" for me................can't wait

I do find that a lot of people I'm involved with get to caught up in numbers & forget what ears are for

DOES IT SOUND RIGHT................the big question of all time
 
xfinsterx said:
Waves C4.

My second cant live without would be drumagog.
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Hey, Fin!! Good to see you!!!

OK, back on topic...

The one I use most often would probably be the Studio Reverb that comes with Adobe Audition 2.0. It's defaults are aggressive, but you can easily pull back, and I like the tunability. It seems the most transparent of the ones I've tried. Other things I use are the Waves L1 maximizer (I mostly use it as a more sophisticated limiter to nudge some things around by 2 or 3 db), and on my keys and guitars I like to fuss about with the Waves MetaFlanger.

I used to be very enamored of the C4, but it's so twitchy, very hard to keep it subtle with acoustic stuff... I just need to learn it better, I suppose.
 
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