Request for a new plug

[Meloman]

Hello first post here,

As a mastering person, the only plug I truly miss in my arsenal, is an equivalent to an SPL Transient designer.

Anyone knows if there is one in the works?

If not, are there others here who feel the need for such a plug?

Thank you in advance for your replies.

Meloman

 

[BTLG]

why bother with some crappy plug-in version of such a great and unique device when you can find one for about a grand?

 

[Meloman]

why bother with some crappy plug-in version of such a great and unique device when you can find one for about a grand?

Maybe because I work entirely ITB !!!

Maybe because I don't care to have to go in and out, and then have to worry about having to deal with more AD DA conversions?

Plus who said I was looking for a crappy plug in anyhow? I love my battery of plugs.

Flame me as you wish, but unless I win the lottery, I ain't going analog for mastering. Just can't justify the costs.

Meloman

 

[BTLG]

i'm not flaming, i've just yet to find a plug that does anything close to what hardware is able to do.

let's be honest, the UA stuff is great, but it's not a legitimate substitute for the real thing. At some point something gets lost in translation

 

[Meloman]

I'm not disputing that fact.

When tracks are well recorded and mixed, sure things may get lost ITB.

A few of my clients have tried going to fully analog masterers, yet they came back to me with later projects, saying they couldn't justify the higher rates !!!

Meloman

 

[wishingwell]

I think a legitamit tool is decided by the engineer not a standard. Software is very much legitamit tools in there own right, and very powerful, the need for hardware is more myth then anything. BTLG you stated yourself in another thread that in the olden days people worked with whatever they had at the time, and Capslock stated 'if you can make it work it works'. I assure you many of our home studio equipment is more powerful then that wich was used on some hit records of the past, some engineers of that day could take equipment that was considered third rate and utilize it to make a hit record, for just as they are aware of the weaknesses of such equipment they are also aware of its personality strenghths.
Even many engineers today who have expensive hardware gear will use something cheap if it gets the job done.

I have mainly a virtual studio and very much consider it legit, and my tools are great in their own right, and i use them right. Software tends to get a worser reputation then it deserves, sure if a person can't get the sound they want with software then they should save for the very expensive hardware if they feel they need it to produce better, but if a person is content with their software sound no one else can say its not legit. I'm sure you know it boils down to how well a tool is used and if that tools personality fits with the track, the price of the tool means nothing, neither does whether it's software or hardware.
There where many old hits made on cheap equipment that did just fine. Keeping too much to a standard can blind a person in the end, use whatever works.

 

[BTLG]

i agree with you to an extent, and i'm from the 'digital generation' of record making. maybe it's the fact that i've got access to a good amount of analog gear because of where I work which makes me biased, but I've still never come up against a situation where a plug-in was sonically as good as it's hardware counterpart.

i'm not saying you can't make great records without analog gear. i just feel like the technology isn't quite there yet or maybe the digital age is still too young to have an acceptable standard.

all i know is i've heard amazing sounding things done on tape, played back faders up through a console sound pale in comparison to it's digital conversion (at 192kHz). The stereo image feels smaller, the reverbs and delays sound thinner, and the low end sounds over compensated and sloppy.

up until about 7 or so years ago, home studios were no where near as prevalent. and as amazing as old robert johnson records are, they sound pretty awful (the only reason it doesn't matter is because that's all that was available back then).

boutique plug-ins are a big part of the modern day consumerism and marketing that i was talking about. Even UA's stuff isn't as faithful to the originals as we like to think they are.

Understand, I'm really not trying to be negative or a jerk.

 

[olafmol]

check out dominion:

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.p ... &subItem=4

 

[robi]

Buy a Creamware Scope Card (they are pretty cheap these days). They offer a SPL Transient Designer and a cut down version the SPL Attacker. Nice little PlugIns...

 

[protoculture]

all i know is i've heard amazing sounding things done on tape, played back faders up through a console sound pale in comparison to it's digital conversion (at 192kHz). The stereo image feels smaller, the reverbs and delays sound thinner, and the low end sounds over compensated and sloppy.

All you know? are you sure? I've found that people that make statements like this usually dont know a lot. The statement itself implies that they know everything...which is impossible.

How do you know that your perceptions of the digital version were not colored by a possible bias against the digital version. Ie. you knew you were listening to the digital version and therefore sought out weaknesses in it.

Perhaps this is mostly psychological.

Usually we find what we are looking for.

Did you listen to the same mix analogue and then digital on the same output? Or did you just save the analogue / studio listen on one system and then listen to 192khz on another system, or in another room?

I know of at least one top producer going for 192khz. Obviously if these guys at that level adopt the standard that is saying something. Much more so than what is in all likelyhood comparable to a neophyte blowing potentially hot air.

in an earlier thread you said you weren't trying to be negative, but I think you were.

why bother with some crappy plug-in version of such a great and unique device when you can find one for about a grand?

Sounds negative to me, when this is a discussion board on plug-ins.

i'm not flaming, i've just yet to find a plug that does anything close to what hardware is able to do.

Here you are trying to justify your negative posts. \"I'm not flaming\". Why justify something if no one has accused you? Sounds like you accused yourself there.

boutique plug-ins are a big part of the modern day consumerism and marketing that i was talking about

'boutique' plug-ins... why not just come out and say 'shit' ? Further, you were complaining that plug-ins are a 'part of a consumer this and that blah blah'.
ummm I know of a studio owner/producer who uses plug-ins. So what... everything bought is a commodity, yes including hardware. Hardware and Software
are both 'modern day consumerism'. What exactly this means, I'm not sure.

Understand, I'm really not trying to be negative or a jerk.

Again, you are trying to justify your comments here. And that to me says 'guilty'.
No one has accused you of being negative until now. Because I've proven that you have been by your own words.

 

[boody]

dominion on pc and with logic its own envelope-plug

cheers
Budy

 

[living sounds]

No plugin does this properly. In fact, the first plugin I've heard that deals properly with transients is the new Neve compressor.

 

[BTLG]

stop trying to turn this into a pissing contest.

digitial didn't catch on because it sounds better or as good as analog. it caught on because IT WAS CHEAP and CONVENIENT.

Analog tape is expensive. As the music industries' sales went to the shitter, record labels cut their budgets drastically. That means that producers, wanting to make the same amount of money they did in the 90's started negotiating the rates of recording studios down (oh say about.... 2001 or so). This is pretty evident by the fact that studio lockout rates dropped about $1000 or around 2002-2003. Hmm.... I'm sure that tape expense eating in to their budgets has absolutely nothing to do with 'top producers' using Pro Tools at high sample rates in place of tape.

Try to remember that there was only one or two studios in NYC that had pro tools in every room around 1999-2000 and they weren't the hit factory or sony. Those would be where the 'top producer's you mentioned would've been around that tiime.

\"I know of at least one top producer going for 192khz. Obviously if these guys at that level adopt the standard that is saying something. Much more so than what is in all likelyhood comparable to a neophyte blowing potentially hot air. \"

Yeah.... and 2 years ago they were going 24/44.1... 4 years ago they were going 16/44.1. I guess that sounds as good as tape too.

\"Did you listen to the same mix analogue and then digital on the same output? Or did you just save the analogue / studio listen on one system and then listen to 192khz on another system, or in another room? \"
no, as i said, the analog was ON TAPE (16 track 2\" by the way, NOT 24 track 2\".... try saturating the input to a digital system and let me know how that works out for you....) and THROUGH A CONSOLE (SSL 9000J). OF COURSE it sounded different. The digital was played back on a D-Command. And guess what? It didn't sound as good.

as for using my words against me if you read the post after mine it says 'flame me if you want but....' and maybe 'crappy' was a poor word choice. And... I didn't say \"shit plug-ins\", that was you who said that. I like the plugs I have/use, but I wouldn't choose them over the hardware versions if I owned them.

I haven't pretended to know you, so don't act like you know me.

 

[boody]

sjeesss, chill out guys. Get some fresh air!

Great performances + great songs make great music

Great mixes enhance the emotional content of great music, bad mixes destoy some of the emotional content of the music... no matter what platform or gear is used Your gear is only important to you, because you work with it (snobby clients left asside).

now can we agree or should we make it a sticky? 8)

cheers, Budy

 

[protoculture]

I haven't pretended to know you, so don't act like you know me.

Unfortunatley we can only know each other via what we say on this board.

Therefore I can only know you by the words that you write. And so in the context of this thread I can only conclude that you are being negative.

 

[BTLG]

I'm with boody.

a wack player on analog will never sound as good as a great player at 16 bit/44.1

Matt

 

[Eric Dahlberg]

Powercore has the Sony Oxford Transient Modulator.

 

[svs95]

I've seen a guy sculpt an incredible human figure out of a log using a chainsaw in about two minutes, and I couldn't have even begun to make something so wonderful with the finest carving tools and two weeks to do it. Does that mean his chainsaw was a better tool for the job?

Michaelangelo used a chisel and a slab of rock to do the same thing. It took him longer, but the result was infinitely more beautiful. Maybe his tools were superior?

Hmm. A bludgeon and a wedge. That's about the most primative toolkit known to man. About all I could do with that is make little rocks out of big ones. Fuggedaboudit!!

Hey - I'm not trying to be controversial or anything, but do you suppose, just maybe, that their genius is not in the tools? Neither is my incompetence!

I have no doubt that some people can make better records with PCM audio and a few plug-ins than most people could make with OceanfuckingWAY to work with.

You should listen to Bob Dylan's \"The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan\" to see how little it takes to make a record that rocked the world!

Would that record have been less of a wonder if they had been using the tools most of us have? I don't want to burst any balloons or anything, but...I don't think so!

One not-very-good guitar and one not-very-good voice, and and one helluva lot of talent on both sides of the studio glass. It's not hard for me to say I'll never make a record with that kind of impact, although it doesn't stop me from trying. But if I don't, I for sure won't blame it on the tools I had to work with, or didn't have.

You can carp all day about the record business going to hell in a handbasket. Was that really the fault of technology? You know, I have a different outlook on that. I think it's completely coinicidence that the business went south at the same time as digital took over. I really believe that the goofy 90's business climate led to a lot of money being put into some really questionable expenses, and when the bubble burst, the record companies had spent themselves into oblivion! By then, a whole slew of alternative entertainment choices began to arrive, and music for music's sake became less and less attractive. I think blaming the woes of the music business on technology is a red herring - albeit a convenient one for some people!

 

[boody]

You can carp all day about the record business going to hell in a handbasket. Was that really the fault of technology? You know, I have a different outlook on that. I think it's completely coinicidence that the business went south at the same time as digital took over.

A truthful post 8) The following is my point of view of what's happened. It's very flat image/simplified ofcourse, but I feel the bottom line is in there...

About the record industry going to waste: it's not entirely coincidental, but for sure the internet is not the cause of the downfall. Late 80s through 90s the record companies made loads of money selling every Vinyl record made again to the same customer, now on cd. Also, since it's introduction the video-clip could make a song world famous without intensive touring and without lobying a miljon radiostations. The video made people like madonna and michael jackson worldstars (we all saw 'like a virgin' and waited for the premiere of 'thriller'; worldwide!!!). So what went wrong?

1) we are all supposed to buy the same records yet again, this time on dvd-audio or sacd: surround, pictures, embeded videoclips should make us... but we don't. We don't care about surround.

2) since videoclips started to flood the market their impact became less. (At the same time radio lost it's number one position as hitmaker and started to cut budget and play whatever the videochannels made famous and live performance was diminished; loads of smaller live venues disappeared). It became harder and harder to make a song famous with a video. (Some more succesful ones contained lots of sexual content, violence and wealth to impress the main audience: kids. Here I feel the songs just matched the video.)

3) Though the technology allows cheaper fabrication of cd, the price has only gone up since it's introduction; it's the last money maker and it's diminishing! Cd singles are mostly no longer profitable because of the high costs for video and low sales, but seen as nescesairy to promote the video and radio airplay. Less money is spend on production, mixing, mastering, recording, scouting and developing new artists.

4) There are loads of cds being released but it's hard to find the ones we like because there is no clear place to find them. How should we learn about great music now the commercial system is so polluted with loads of commercial crap?

The industry planned a nice consumer route: we have cd, we will go buy dvd/sacd and learn all different media can come from one disc, the disc will be replaced by memorystick, computer will bbecome info-mediacenter. The first step failed; biljons were lost, industry panics.

Because of these 4 points the audience went it's own way: internet. It's the easiest and most fun way to discover new music without having to bare with the usual commercial crap thrown at us. Increasing internet speed only makes it more fun. It's my firm believe we stil want to pay for music; we just don't wanna pay for commercial crap.

Cheers
Budy

 

[BTLG]

I'm actually less talking about the music industry than I am the recording industry, and to me there is a big difference even though they are very closely connected.

Stephen, I think you'll agree with me when I say there is a problem as the president of one of the major labels (i won't say any names) here tells one our clients (an engineer of 30 years experience who has had his hands in a lot of big records from the 70's to now) that he'd take the indie band the client is working with and put them in a garage with a 002 because \"It Doesn't Matter Anyway\".

About CD sales only going up.... I'm not so sure that's true. I remember them being in stores for $25 when they came out, going down to about $13 through the early/mid nineties (when they were really selling) and then going back to an average price of $18.

If you want to get into music sales, that's a very complicated discussion, but I'll get into it. Who wants to start the thread?

Matt