Replacing Vintage Outboard Gear

[Kingofpain678]

Some of you are going to argue that vintage gear just can't be replaced and that these new digital DAW's are sterile and cold. And that's OK, Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
That said, This thread doesn't apply to you.

Ok, So us young whipper snappers who grew up in the digital age don't know much about analog gear. A trip into the recording world will tell you that analog gear, especially tube driven pieces are preferred. Yet a lot of people are switching to computer based recording because of it's ease of use, productivity, and processing power.

So for someone like myself who never got to tinker with mid-level to high end tube compressors and other outboard gear preferred in the analog world it's not always easy to know what a good compressor, EQ, limiter and such would sound like. So what do you people who have switched to DAW's what digital processors, vst's and such do you find yourself using more and more over your analog gear?

Any particular processors you pick over certain gear? Any specific reasons why you would now prefer processing in "the box" rather than processing before you even hit the A/D converters?

 

[nate_dennis]

Well. I don't have much of an answer for you. But I do have a question.

Are you asking "What programs would I use to approximate the sound of these old pieces of gear?"

If that's your question, I would suggest that you not worry about it. Use a few programs, plugs, etc and find the ones that sound good to you. Find the ones that work they way you want them to. No need to emulate gear that you don't know or haven't used. That's not me being a dick. My point is just, find what works for you.

But I may well have missed the point of the question. So, if so, sorry.

 

[Kingofpain678]

Lol no, I've learned that if there's a company (or person) trying to "emulate" a piece of hardware they are go to fail. Miserably.

I'm just wondering if anyone has found anything digital that they actually feel is worth choosing over their hardware counterpart and why

 

[TeyshaBlue]

Lol no, I've learned that if there's a company (or person) trying to "emulate" a piece of hardware they are go to fail. Miserably.

I'm just wondering if anyone has found anything digital that they actually feel is worth choosing over their hardware counterpart and why

When I made my switch to the dark side, I didn't sit down and say, hey this reverb plug is better than the Roland SRV 330's I had in the rack. And I loved those verbs. Instead I listened to reverb plugs and simply found some that I liked. It wasn't a either/or decision for me even though I did sell off my rack gear. Same thing for the EQ's and other FX processors I replaced. I didn't try to find something to replace them...I just tried to find some plugs I really liked. As it turned out, those that I found work just fine, and a couple of compressor plugs I actually like, but my verbs aren't in the same league as the SRV330, yet. I could list plugs all day for you, but it wouldn't matter. I loved the SRV330, yet some absolutely hated it. I really liked the Behringer Edison stereo expander...it was a dangerous piece of gear, but had it's place in some of the lighter productions...but Behri is almost universally despised.
In the end, find what sounds good to you. If you like it, keep it. If you find yourself using a plug over a rack piece more often, then maybe it's time to get some coin from your rack gear, or just hang on to it.

 

[Kingofpain678]

So you sold your rack gear for money? cause you didn't need it?
Do you ever miss your gear?
Anything you could never live without?

I've seen studios that have switched to digital but still run every track through at least one piece of vintage gear just to give it a little bit of analog sound.

I'm not asking to find vst's, i'm asking to see if there is a balance between new and old, or if people are just going completely to digital.

 

[TeyshaBlue]

So you sold your rack gear for money? cause you didn't need it?
Do you ever miss your gear?
Anything you could never live without?

I've seen studios that have switched to digital but still run every track through at least one piece of vintage gear just to give it a little bit of analog sound.

I'm not asking to find vst's, i'm asking to see if there is a balance between new and old, or if people are just going completely to digital.

For me, the issue was space. The new room I built for my home studio control room was just too snug with 2, 6ft. racks in it. If I could've, I would have like to have kept them..and I've got plenty of storage space in my main room for that. But, the move to digital was one of convenience and space utilization. Digi.vs.Analog is irrelevant as I seem to be able to get whatever sound I want using either. So, after letting them sit in the main room, unused, for a few months, I simply sold them. I wished I'd kept a couple of the preamps tho. I had a couple of really nice Avalons. Didn't think that one out very well....I thought I was done with vocal work. I was wrong.
My next purchase will be some very high quality mic pres. They will be outboard, of course.

 

[TeyshaBlue]

All that aside, I really, really miss the days of walking into the control room, removing the canvas covers over the mixer and racks, and throwing the main buss...listening to the rainfall of relays as they power up and tick over then watch everything light up. That's gone forever.

 

[dintymoore]

So you sold your rack gear for money? cause you didn't need it?
Do you ever miss your gear?
Anything you could never live without?

I've seen studios that have switched to digital but still run every track through at least one piece of vintage gear just to give it a little bit of analog sound.

I'm not asking to find vst's, i'm asking to see if there is a balance between new and old, or if people are just going completely to digital.

I do a hybrid system. I built (am building) a passive mixer that I use to put a few tracks through some outboard gear. The only things I need that aren't in the computer are my SPX1000 reverb, which I would like to shit-can but still sounds better than anything else I have access to, and a Summit tube eq that is expensive and for whatever reason sounds................expensive.

If there's one word that describes the sound I want it's "expensive". I really, really like the sound of expensive!

But I use Cubase, and the eq's are great (I rarely boost, just cut) and the compressors in Cubase are, to me, very good - better than cheap outboards to my ears. And the delays/echoes in Cubase are fine too.

Hybrid in/out of the box is the best of both worlds.

 

[Kingofpain678]

Hybrid in/out of the box is the best of both worlds.

Right and that's something I'm planning on aiming for. Like I said, I've seen studios that still run every track through an outboard compressor to softly smooth off some transients rather than digitally hard clipping them. But as I also said, it's hard for me to find a good balance as I haven't gotten to experience the best of both worlds growing up in an all digital age. I'm not sure what I'm aiming for and I'm kind of shooting in the dark which is why I've started this thread to get some insight on the different components of a digital/analog studio, or even of an analog studio gone digital.

Not only does analog gear sound good, but for me the novelty of outboard gear adds to the feel of a studio. It's just kind of a cool/neat thing to have to draw some inspiration from.

I've also read that digital EQ's just can't compare to analog eq's because the algorithms get a little screwier with each Db your boost or cut.
Have any of you experienced any loss by choosing digital over analog when it comes to EQ?

 

[TeyshaBlue]

Right and that's something I'm planning on aiming for. Like I said, I've seen studios that still run every track through an outboard compressor to softly smooth off some transients rather than digitally hard clipping them. But as I also said, it's hard for me to find a good balance as I haven't gotten to experience the best of both worlds growing up in an all digital age. I'm not sure what I'm aiming for and I'm kind of shooting in the dark which is why I've started this thread to get some insight on the different components of a digital/analog studio, or even of an analog studio gone digital.

Not only does analog gear sound good, but for me the novelty of outboard gear adds to the feel of a studio. It's just kind of a cool/neat thing to have to draw some inspiration from.

I've also read that digital EQ's just can't compare to analog eq's because the algorithms get a little screwier with each Db your boost or cut.
Have any of you experienced any loss by choosing digital over analog when it comes to EQ?

No and I had good outboard eq's.
Unless the flaws are extremely present, you probably won't hear them and they will likely be irrelevant to the home recordist' budget sensibilities anyway.

 

[loveofjazz]

All that aside, I really, really miss the days of walking into the control room, removing the canvas covers over the mixer and racks, and throwing the main buss...listening to the rainfall of relays as they power up and tick over then watch everything light up. That's gone forever.

That paints a very cool picture in my mind.
Awesome.

 

[dintymoore]

... Have any of you experienced any loss by choosing digital over analog when it comes to EQ?

Except for expensive analog eq's, I like digital better.

I read once that "Eq is the work of Satan" and there's something to that and I always try to use as little as possible - just record a track the way you want it to sound in the first place if you can.

For me if I cut and don't boost eq's work. Boosting usually sounds funny. The best eq is passive, like on a guitar, but you lose volume so there's always color when you make that volume loss up. Passive eq is pure.

There's been very, very few eq's on mixers that I tried that I didn't kinda hate. The eq's on Cubase, even 10 years ago Cubase and Cubase LE sound light years better than any of the analog eq's I've tried except a Neve. Way better than any Yamaha, Soundcraft or any of the other pretty good ones.

I've got a Summit tube eq and that's a totally different animal. Expensive and sounds expensive! It's a passive eq and then a tube amp to make up the loss. I love that thing and wish I had several.

My ultimate studio at this point would be a passive homemade console with tons of outboard Summit (or whatever's out there in high end tube gear) on each channel.

 

[grimtraveller]

The first piece of outboard gear I remember buying {in 1993} was a little phaser. I often bought stuff second hand coz in those days there were all kinds of these little used gear shops all over London, often in seedy little streets with suspiscious looking dudes scowling.....and then asking for a cigarette ! I would often find that what I bought wasn't quite what I wanted so I got into the thing of buying and selling and exchanging and trying out different bits of gear and to be honest with you, I wasn't even aware of the analog vs digital debate regarding equipment. I thought that was just in terms of CD and vinyl. I had analog stuff and digital stuff and I never perceived any great divide between the two. Some effects and reverbs were good digital, some good analog. I was just hopeless at using them in a way that really brought out whatever differences there may have been.
The same applies nowadays, I think that Teysha and Dinty are right. Perhaps there is more made of this issue than is there when really, like so many things, it comes down to personal preference. For me, I'm in the final analog multitrack stage, just finishing off a load of tracks on a Tascam 488. I've made the jump to a digital recorder, an AKAI DPS12i, and it has on board FX, some of which are neat, some of which I don't particularly like. But I still aim to record using both digital and analog in one way or another. It's always been that way for me, though it's only your original post that's got me thinking about this. Funny how you sometimes never give any thought to what you've been doing till someone says something that makes you articulate those thoughts.

 

[Bristol Posse]

I'm Moving to Hybrid too. I'm having a PM8 summing box modded by Black Lion Audio as I write this for that very purpose.

As far as plugs go, aside from a tape, 4 track Tascam portastudio when I was a kid, I really don't have analog experience and I'm using plugs.
What I like about plugs is that you can very easily try before you buy to see if you like I have a feeling that would be a lot harder with a couple of hundred grands worth of mixing desk. Personally I have no idea what an SSL desk sounds like but I do like the sound from the Waves 4k bundle (whether it would sound the same as running my crap through an SSL desk I have no idea though) plus the convenience of having gate, compressor, EQ and filters all on a single channel strip is very nice for workflow and consistency.

I'm really, REAAAALLY loving the Softube CL1B compressor emulation free trial. It's almost expired so I migh have to buy it next week but again I have no Idea if it's how a real CL1B unit would sound. I julst like how the plug works for me.

Now that I'll have a somewhat analog mixing /mixdown capability I may start looking at a hardware stereo compressor to throw onto the 2 bus to mix into, that could be an interesting experiment.

For me I'm starting to try and challenge myself to be less reliant on plugs. I recently visited a friend in his real studio and it kind of hit home that when he mixes, he does it on the desk with maybe a couple of outboard pieces. He's not using 4 LA2As, 3 CL1Bs 12 different flavors of channel strips etc etc etc in the real world that many of us in the plug in world feel we "Have to Have" to make it sound the way we want. Getting the tracking right is far more important.

 

[Simman]

Lol no, I've learned that if there's a company (or person) trying to "emulate" a piece of hardware they are go to fail. Miserably.

I'm just wondering if anyone has found anything digital that they actually feel is worth choosing over their hardware counterpart and why

Not sure I agree with you that one can jump to the major conclusion that anyone writing software models is going to "fail miserably". There are some plug-ins that get pretty darn close and even the ones that might not accurately (100%) emulate the actual hardware still have a use.

Here's the problem trying to model "vintage" gear: What do you model and how to you quantify the results? Especially since no two pieces of the same components sound the same. For example, no two vintage Urie 1176 compressors sound exactly the same (for a host of reasons); therefore if I develop a model of the one I happen to have but it ends up not sounding exactly like yours, does that make the model inaccurate? I think not.

Nonetheless, if you want good "tube like" plug-ins check out the Blue Tube series from Nomad Factor. There are also a slew of others out there like the UAD, Focusrite liquid mix, and URS channel.

 

[leddy]

Some of you are going to argue that vintage gear just can't be replaced and that these new digital DAW's are sterile and cold. And that's OK, Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
That said, This thread doesn't apply to you.

Ok, So us young whipper snappers who grew up in the digital age don't know much about analog gear. A trip into the recording world will tell you that analog gear, especially tube driven pieces are preferred. Yet a lot of people are switching to computer based recording because of it's ease of use, productivity, and processing power.

So for someone like myself who never got to tinker with mid-level to high end tube compressors and other outboard gear preferred in the analog world it's not always easy to know what a good compressor, EQ, limiter and such would sound like. So what do you people who have switched to DAW's what digital processors, vst's and such do you find yourself using more and more over your analog gear?

Any particular processors you pick over certain gear? Any specific reasons why you would now prefer processing in "the box" rather than processing before you even hit the A/D converters?

I have a couple of Tascam open reel decks I use in addition to digital. Tape certainly provides some of the most familliar "analog" character you can get. The digital "gear" I find most like analog to my ears is Voxengo Soniformer. On the surface, it's a multi-band comp. It has a couple of dozen bands though, so if you are really careful in how you set the attack and release times you can get the effect of softening transients without the whole mix pumping, the way tape seems to.