neve 33609 for electronic music ?

[zodiac]

This plug Neve seem to be excellent... But i read somewhere on the forum, that Neve 33609 is not very good for electronic music.. some members says Waves SSL is doing a better work specialy on synthetic music with a lot of low freq.
I've the waves SSL bundle. It's great, but can Neve bring me anything furthermore than SSL?
I make only electro EBM music, dark electro....
Is it a good thing for me to buy this 33609 Neve plug ?

Maybe another UAD plug for a punchy, clear electronic music ?
(i have the Fairchild, 1176LN, LA-2A, cambridge EQ... no NEVE or PRECISION plugs)
Thanx !

 

[polygen]

first off: you'll want the precision series and definitely the 1073 and 1081 for doing electronic stuff.

-PEQ: the low-cut on this in combination with a low shelf is extremely usefull for tight bottom end on both basslines and kickdrums. In the top end you can do some very nice, subtle \"air\" type stuff.
-PL: a great limiter. if you don't already have an L2, get it, you need one (i won't go into wether the L2 or the PL is nicer)
-PMB: mixing heavy beats and basslines with a multiband in the drum group *while mixing* can give you great results, you tend to treat the individual signals differently with this sort of setup (forces you to dial in more frequency separation on kick/bass for instance)
-1073: the big bad \"make kickdrums and snaredrums fat and beefy\" EQ. the high shelf can work wonders on hihats, tambs etc....very \"silvery\" in the top-end, very \"there\" in the mids
-1081: my go-to eq. Great for just about everything, really.

Now for the 33609....it's definitely not the \"fine-tune the attack of a kickdrum or snaredrum\" kind of compressor, nor is it the \"monster-pumper\" for parallel compression (although it does work for that). What i find it great for is \"solidifying\" submixes, like drums or guitars, by using the 33609 to to just a very slight gain reduction. Everything stays totally crisp that way, but the submix gets more homogenic, nearly like running it through a limiter but without loosing all the transients.

just my 2 ct

 

[Eurocide]

I can only subscribe this!
With the 1071 I get that hard EBM sounds that shake the dancefloor and let the dark ones wave :twisted:
And the 1081 is ideal for controlling and sweetening single tracks.
The PMB can produce aggressive loudness effects without being harsh.

But for EBM/dark electronica I found no special use for the 33609. It is more useful for acoustic recordings.

 

[imdrecordings]

I agree with everything polygen had to say and will add:

-You have to be careful or gentle with the 33609. It's a monster.
Most compressors, you would use, you see your VUE meter moving from -4 or -10db, what have you. The 33609 doesn't work like that. Subtlety is key with this thing. It really ties everything together, so to speak.

For instants:
I typically set it up like this.
I start by setting my make up gains to 0db. I then start off with a 3.1 ratio and back the threshold up to not working. Set the headroom switch to 16 (I can't remember if it's 16 or 18, but it's one of those numbers :roll: )
I then slowly bring down the threshold, until the needle in the VUE meter is just shaking a little bit, hardly anything at all. I then play around with the headroom switch to taste, as well as the ratio. I've found that approaching the 33609 this way, allows your bass to stay intact, glues the mix together, keeps the stuff panned left or right in it's place. If you need to boost the gain a bit, try the main volume on the 33609 and only bring up the compressor make-up gain, a tiny bit.
Hope that helps... 8) I just quit drinking regular coffee… So I can't tell if anything I say or do makes a bit of sense....... :?

Now, time for my blueberry bagel.

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

But for EBM/dark electronica I found no special use for the 33609. It is more useful for acoustic recordings.

It's good for making electronic drum kits sound more "live", though perhaps that's not something you're interested in?

 

[zodiac]

No, i make a very \"artificial\", cold, synthetic music...
So i will follow neurocide for the neve 1073, maybe after the 1081, precision multicomp & limiter
Thanx you !!!! :wink:

 

[djsynchro]

1176
LA2A
Try the EX-1 compressor... the most aggressive of them all...

It's a shame that none of the UAD compressors have a sidechain input, for dance music the sidechain needs some hipass filtering or bass rolloff really so the kick doesn't work the compressor too hard....
Easy to put it back in with a Pultec though.

 

[Paul Woodlock]

....
Try the EX-1 compressor... the most aggressive of them all...
.....

It is indeed.

Great for aggressive dance hi-hats. Set a long attack time and short release.

 

[Paul Woodlock]

.....
It's a shame that none of the UAD compressors have a sidechain input, for dance music the sidechain needs some hipass filtering or bass rolloff really so the kick doesn't work the compressor too hard....
Easy to put it back in with a Pultec though.

Just use the Precision MultiBand Compressor. you can choose which freqs you want compressed, left alone or expanded.

PMB makes a great de-esser btw - In factr best plugin de-esser I've ever tried. All the others mess up the rest of the vocal

 

[bedhoe]

1176
LA2A
Try the EX-1 compressor... the most aggressive of them all...

It's a shame that none of the UAD compressors have a sidechain input, for dance music the sidechain needs some hipass filtering or bass rolloff really so the kick doesn't work the compressor too hard....
Easy to put it back in with a Pultec though.

YES, YES and YES again!

A sidechain filter would do wonders for the UAD plugins... God i wish it could be true...

 

[Plec]

For me... the 33609 does not do it for dance tracks. The Waves SSL sounds better, but it usually makes the kick sound too \"pointy\". Best software compressor for dance and electronic I've tried so far is the Sonalksis.

 

[bob humid]

careful with that axe, eugene!

there is no such thing as \"THE\" tool for electronic music. forget that ... there will be always cases where you can use or abuse one tool for one or another specific reason...

the NEVE is fantastic if your drums (analog or electronic) sound a bit \"loose\" or \"untight\" .. then it will do extremely magical things to your drumgroup.. the kick will make POMP! and the snare will definetly rock with nice, attacky sound and meaty release... the secret is (as mentioned before here) to use it gently and watch the GAIN REDUCTION all the time (keep it under 4dB GR and the ratio 1:1.5, limiter off)...

the waves SSL is not an alternative, it delivers a total different flavour, it smoothens and flattens the attacks and releases way more.. so it makes more \"creamy\" which sometimes tends to be just too much for most beats.. in contrary to that the 33609 sounds very rocky - so it might sound more interesting on sample-based electronic beats--. but really: in general there is no rules...

I used the 33609 on the drumgroups of a stem-based album master recently and it made my day... client was hysterically happy