How do you approach plugin choice now we have the Neve88RS ?

[Trebor Flow 2]

Since I bought the Neve88Rs (which I really think is fantastic) I have developed option anxiety as regards plugin choice.

My question is this:

If the Neve88RS now gives us the virtual mixing desk we have always dreamt of when do you decide to use a more DSP hungry plugin.

In otherwords I use to EQ/comp the kick and snare and bass with the 1073, 1081 or Pultec and 1176 or LA3A but now I'm starting by running everything thorugh the 88Rs thinking this sounds great but .....

Well you can hopefully see what I'm getting at - do you get the whole mix up on the virtual desk (be it Duende or 88Rs) then think of I'll pepper the odd 1073 or did you tend to use as many big gun plugs as you like and keep the channel strip stuff for tambourine and BV's etc.

I've developed a real anxiety about this - I'm mean how many outboard EQ does a big studio have (proably lot's!) but I'm sure my mixes sound more glued by mixing the whole song through a virtual Neve desk then using the sperate EQ and comp plugins just for featured instruments like vox and ........ ahh there's the problem I want everythink to be the best it can - so should the kick be getting a 1073 and 1176 all to itself or is the 88RS enough??

please help - I really feel I have lost my way on this topic

Best

Trebor

 

[Yiannis]

Is the 88rs giving you the BIG sound of the 1073/1081/La2a/1176??

If the answer is yes..then there you are!!
Use the 88rs and still have plenty of Dsp power.

The anwer for me is NO.
88rs didn't give my mixes that console big fat glued sound!

The 1073 and 1081 gives to my tracks weight.
88rs sounds \"plastic\" to me.

I don't know if I gave you an answer but I think that you should relax and enjoy everything you got and makes you happy!
Use whatever gives you a BIG FAT GLUED................ smile :wink: :wink:

 

[Trebor Flow 2]

mmmh kinda the answer I was looking for but then again it wasn't

To me the Neve88RS sounds fantastic, really I should of put the question another way ...

OK so your sat at your SSL or Neve desk in a nice plush studio pulling a mix up ... everything sounds great, so then when do you start adding extra pieces .... ie a 1073 EQ for the kick or is the SSL/Neve giving you all you need to hear.

Look at the end of the day we wouldn't have mixing desks if it didn't work that way otherwise a studio would be just racks and racks and racks of outboard EQ and comps and a patch bay ... oh yeah they are are, duh, but still ....

Anyone else like Dan, Eric or Paul (he he - almost sounds like the Beatles) care to chime in - what are your working methods regarding channel strip, virtual mixing and adding in dedicated plugins - when do your feel the need to upgrade to a special EQ or comp.


Trebor

 

[kleinholgi]

The 88RS is really a universal weapon. But this doesn´t mean, that all the other plug Ins are worthless. Some really sound different, others are more fuin to work with - in special situations - e.g. I love the Helios for bass boost.

But I share your point of view, when it comes to the question : How many more EQs do we really need.
With the actual EQ promotion I´m still unsure if I should really get another one, having the complete range, apart from the Precision EQ. Can it really deliver something, that the 88RS, Cambridge or Neves can´t ?

 

[Horse]

You must know what you are trying to achieve with a particular track before you start any treatment of it. Then you can pick from a palette of 'tools' to tune the track to achieve the result that you have in your head.

If you are happy with the adjustments that you can make with the 88RS then there isn't any need to look to anything else. If the 88RS falls short for some reason then you pick a more suitable tool.

Don't think that you have to include plugins for the sake of it - they are just tools.

In the end I think it's experience with knowing what each of the plugins do, so that you can quickly choose the right one to get the sound that you want.

H

 

[taylor]

exactly... start with the 88rs and then if the track NEEDS something else.. .add it.. perhaps it needs a really sharp, surgical cut at a particular frequency... well, then maybe add the Cambridge after the 88rs to do the cut... maybe it needs a particular boosted tone from a 1073.. then add it..

as the previous poster said.. use what you need to use that the 88rs itself can't do...

i, for one, think the 88rs sounds anything but plastic.. it's amazing on my mixes.. the sort of thing you don't really know is there until you take it away and hear how much stuff falls apart..

it's probably my fav. UAD plug right now.. so useful and effective..

 

[Trebor Flow 2]

Thanx for the replies guys

Although they're not really what I was getting at ...

I realise that we should try all our plugins to see what sounds best BUT ........

I'm trying to make a virtual desk/real desk analogy here.

In a studio A room the mix get's pulled up on the board and from there in other stuff is added in as outboard. I suppose I'm asking if the Neve88RS/ Duende stuff has brought people closer to that real world method or if people are still mixing on a:

Sony Oxo Neve Pultecky thingmy 6000 if you see what I mean.

I know we have ALL these plugins but are mixes more cohearant sounding like there coming out of one (virtual) board with just a few specialized pieces of virtual outboard.

Although for some this seems like a stupid question (and it may be especially coming from me it's something I'm still struggling with (that and my spelling!)


Anyone else ?

Treb's

 

[Horse]

In a studio A room the mix get's pulled up on the board and from there in other stuff is added in as outboard...

Not necessarily!

Don't think that studios are littered with hardware in the same way that we have folders full of plugins.

Here's the compressors off the outboard list for Air studios, which must be one of the best equipped in the UK:

Neve Stereo Compressor 33906
Neve Compressor 32254/A
Urei 1176 LN Compressor (2)
DBX 160 Compressors (2)
Pultec EQ P1A
FAIRchild 660 Mono Limiter

But of course they do have this:

80 Channel SSL 8000G, 8 auxes, E and G series EQ,
Surround Formatter & Controller, Dual Programmable Joysticks,
Ultimation Moving Faders, Total Recall and AIR Recall Patchbay

H

 

[Wiz]

I kind of get what you mean....about choice...

but, really its just what you like and what your computer can handle...

If you find the choice is getting in the way of getting stuff done, thats a problem.

Maybe for fun try this...

Imagine you only own of the following

LA2A
1176LN
FAIRCHILD
1073
1081
etc

and you own a 88RS console...

now go ahead and do your mix...8)....

Isnt it amazing, the gear list I just wrote above...8)...

Really, even with the DSP limitations, the UAD-1 is an amazing piece of gear and incredible value for money...

If the plug in emulations even only come in at 50% of the original sound, ....its still great value...


back to the question though...

Do your mix with the 88RS, and when you get to a point where the sound of something isnt right, try something else, or when you have the mix done with the 88rs, bypass it and do a quick mix with other plugs, and see what you like better...

thats another great thing about plug ins, I can bypass a plug , insert another, tweak and listen by the time I would have located patch leads to patch in the real thing...8)....

Spoilt for choice might be another problem, in this day and age...maybe when we had less, we spent more time learning what it could and couldnt do, rather than searching thru a folder of presets, and then going to the next plug in....

I remember the first time I saw de-essing, with a 31 band Outboard EQ and Compressor, I was jaw droppingly astounded...how could someone have come up with that?....8)...

Now De-essers , in plug in form, seem somehow less magical, and just another box with a threshold control.....8)...

I digress....


Wiz


Wiz

 

[Paul Woodlock]

Before the 88RS appeared I used to spend a few seconds thinking which would be the best plugs to apply to a certain track and then apply them. Sometimes I'd get it wrong and try something else.

Now I get a mix going with the 88RS and if a track needs something else I'll remove the 88RS and replcace it with something else.

I've got every UAD-1 plug ( a] because I'm a greedy bastard and b] because I love them!! ) and choosing plugs can be a bit of a headfuck sometimes. But unless something simply sounds terrible/unsuitable you can't get stressed worrying that you might have chosen the wrong set of plugs. The sounds themselves and the settings play more of a part.

 

[BTLG]

Then again, some of them ARE littered with lots of outboard!

http://www.legacyrecordingstudios.com/s ... _print.php
http://www.legacyrecordingstudios.com/s ... tudioa.php

That said, I use the 88rs on things like kick, snare, background vox... and usually just the compressor unless I just need to filter the top or bottom out of something a bit (although there have been times where the mic pre has 'colored' the vocal enough that the EQ on the 88rs is exactly what I need). I just haven't really figured out the EQ though. However, hitting the comp with about 1-3 db of reduction really helps tame things a lot.

when I want something to stand out I'll go to some of the more esoteric plugs.

Matt

 

[boody]

Re: How do you approach plugin choice now we have the Neve88

If the Neve88RS now gives us the virtual mixing desk we have always dreamt of when do you decide to use a more DSP hungry plugin.

when I first tried the 88rs I used it on every channel (just playing with an unfinished song). Like a virtual mixer. Then I added other plugs on top of them. Like virtual inserts.... sort of. It did sound great, the 'expensive' plugs sounded even better and I saw myself mixing everything this way.

But when I'm mixing for real I forget about everything. I listen to the tracks and try to hear and feel what would improve the mix. Then I use the plug that I think does the job best. I have recent mixes without the 88rs... I even use logics own eq and comp. Or an overdrive as compressor...or eq.. or both. Anything that gets me the sound I 'm looking for. That also means doing nothing at all if the track sounds good already.

Although I do experiment a lot when I'm not sure about a sound, I guess my point is that you should not try to think like 'what plugins do I have' but like 'what sound do I want' and invest time in learning how the different plugs alter sound.

 

[Trebor Flow 2]

In a studio A room the mix get's pulled up on the board and from there in other stuff is added in as outboard...

Not necessarily!

Don't think that studios are littered with hardware in the same way that we have folders full of plugins.

Here's the compressors off the outboard list for Air studios, which must be one of the best equipped in the UK:

Neve Stereo Compressor 33906
Neve Compressor 32254/A
Urei 1176 LN Compressor (2)
DBX 160 Compressors (2)
Pultec EQ P1A
FAIRchild 660 Mono Limiter

But of course they do have this:

80 Channel SSL 8000G, 8 auxes, E and G series EQ,
Surround Formatter & Controller, Dual Programmable Joysticks,
Ultimation Moving Faders, Total Recall and AIR Recall Patchbay

H

Exactly my point - Air basically uses a desk albeit a real one.

Well after reading these replies it seems on the face of it - people have not really changed there approach.

It just goes to show that in the DAW world where nothing is real, there is no reason to follow any working method other than the one that sounds the best. (sounds obvious really)

The jury is still out for me - I still prefer my mixes running basically on a virtual 88RS plus a few choice bits added in - it just sounds more glued to me, I can't explain it.

In fact if I had £10K to spare (funny) then I'd buy one of those new Toft ATB 32 channel desks and 2X DA16X - now that would get my juices going - mmmmh

Treb's

 

[Paul Woodlock]

In fact if I had £10K to spare (funny) then I'd buy one of those new Toft ATB 32 channel desks and 2X DA16X - now that would get my juices going - mmmmh

Treb's

I wouldn't. I'd spend it on "wine women and song". And then carry on using UAD-1 Plugs for mixing.

 

[BTLG]

I'm trying to make a virtual desk/real desk analogy here.

therein may lie the problem. I don't think that DAW mixing and analog mixing can be treated as the same animal at all. They're just way too mixing, the only constant being that you need to rely on your ears heavily in both cases.

If you want to try and create some kind of 'daw/analog coherency' I think you'd really need to start at your monitoring/summing. OR if you KNOW that you're going to be mixing something on a DAW, get the coherency to happen at the recording stage. Use similar mic pres on everything, make sure all the recorded sounds work together from the start. I don't think that you'll get it by using the same plug on every channel though.

I've been wrong before though...

Matt