Emulating Slate VCC with existing plugins

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i suggest to sit near a heater while mixing to catch a bit of the warmth they all speaking about.

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Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.

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soulone82 wrote:Do yourself a favour and purchase SKnote´s Stripbus. It´s the bee´s knees! Most sophisticated console emulation on the market imho!

Yep...

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gmitch wrote:
soulone82 wrote:Do yourself a favour and purchase SKnote´s Stripbus. It´s the bee´s knees! Most sophisticated console emulation on the market imho!

Yep...
Yep. And to answer OP question - i ordered, used and sold VCC. For what it does difference is minimal to me. Save yourself some pennies. Invest in proper room acoustic and monitoring. That will yield you FAR BETTER results for your mixes then some saturation, noise and few db up. IMHO. Of all console emus i tried i think Stripbus behaved and produced console like sound and workflow, but like i said...magic is somewhere else..surely not in VCC. VCC can be nice addon but nothing spectacular. Maybe try to demo and decide for yourself. My experience is that it's not worth it. Slate does have good plugins though. Tape is VERY good. And we all are waiting VMR...

If you are seeking for similar replacement in saturation area then look for Klanghelm SDDR - they have nice console/desk like saturation.

Oh and don't bother with morons here. Plenty of people here, ready to drive you nuts because their life sucks. But there are good ones as well..

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VCC is subtle and nothing spectacular (that indeed would be the wrong approach) and everybody knows that. neutral speakers and (if possible) room treatment is anyway a must and comes first. don't mix up console emulation and saturation plugins because till a certain point you get similar results but it's not the same at the end. what i like with VCC is that i can use different console types on different parts in the mix like mids of an API on drums, low-mids of tri on guitar or fatness for the lows with a neve easily. i'm quite satisfied with the results but i also use other plugins here an there like sddr and of course uhe's satin but i want a solid ground i can only achive with a console emu.
Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours.

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:borg:
Last edited by ontol on Sun Jul 10, 2016 5:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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I don't think anything is really close to VCC, in the sense of sounding the same.
But that much is subjective - whether or not you like those sounds.
For me personally, everything has so much 'analog modelling' nowadays, I seldom apply vcc/vtm/etc until all the rest of the work has been done - that way, I don't end up with oversaturated highs in the mix.

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Klanghelm IVGI:
http://www.klanghelm.com/IVGI.html
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If you want to add more Crosstalk on IVGI, get this Bundle:
http://sleepytimedsp.com/software/str-bundle/
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If you want to go a little bit further and add some noise get this:
http://vladgsound.wordpress.com/2013/10 ... el-plugin/

Use them on all tracks.

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Thanks for the really useful replies guys, some good food for thought and goodies to look at!

Monitoring isn't the main issue, I have that pretty well covered to be honest. I know a lot of people look to these sorts of tools as a magic button if their mixing skills aren't as good as they would like them to be, but that's not where I'm at, I'm looking for that extra 5% that really makes a mix pop out, that this sort of processing may be able help achieve.

VCC is very tempting (mainly due to the simplicity and set-and-forget nature of it, which very much appeals to my 'mix template' nature). A friend is a mix engineer and it was after he showed me it in action that I started trying to emulate it. He showed me a perfectly good mix, then added sublte amounts of Neve to the bass synth, API on the drums, Trident on the mid and high synths, SLL on the busses and master... and wow, there was that extra 5%.

Obviously this is just some special sauce, it's not going to replace good EQ, compression and alike.

So I think I will try out a few options, looks like I have convinced myself to buy something :) Mind you, if the IVGI is as tasty as some reviews I've just read lead me to believe...

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stevemac wrote:Thanks for the really useful replies guys, some good food for thought and goodies to look at!

Monitoring isn't the main issue, I have that pretty well covered to be honest. I know a lot of people look to these sorts of tools as a magic button if their mixing skills aren't as good as they would like them to be, but that's not where I'm at, I'm looking for that extra 5% that really makes a mix pop out, that this sort of processing may be able help achieve.

VCC is very tempting (mainly due to the simplicity and set-and-forget nature of it, which very much appeals to my 'mix template' nature). A friend is a mix engineer and it was after he showed me it in action that I started trying to emulate it. He showed me a perfectly good mix, then added sublte amounts of Neve to the bass synth, API on the drums, Trident on the mid and high synths, SLL on the busses and master... and wow, there was that extra 5%.

Obviously this is just some special sauce, it's not going to replace good EQ, compression and alike.

So I think I will try out a few options, looks like I have convinced myself to buy something :) Mind you, if the IVGI is as tasty as some reviews I've just read lead me to believe...
IVGI is not a VCC killer IMO. The Klanghelm stuff is fantastic, but the console model wasn't mind blowing. If you heard VCC and loved it, someone posted the link for you to get it at $99. That's a deal, and you should jump on it. If you don't, you'll just continue wanting it until you finally give in.

Otherwise check out Somimus Britson or Satson. Even the IK EQ73 is essentially a Neve console model with an EQ built in, so you can kill two birds there. It really works amazingly well at the console task if you disable the very nice EQ section.

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Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote:If you heard VCC and loved it, someone posted the link for you to get it at $99. That's a deal, and you should jump on it. If you don't, you'll just continue wanting it until you finally give in
This is pretty much where my head is at :)

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I think you still get a free ilok2 if you order it from Slate Digital. VCC is going to be added to Slate VMR rack soon so you will have all your channel strip plugs and console emulation in one plugin and you can swop them about.

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I'd suggest just buying the VCC on sale as others have suggested. Have used some of the alternatives suggested. Still prefer VCC hands down for quality, usability, and being friendly on the CPU.

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stevemac wrote: VCC is very tempting (mainly due to the simplicity and set-and-forget nature of it, which very much appeals to my 'mix template' nature). A friend is a mix engineer and it was after he showed me it in action that I started trying to emulate it. He showed me a perfectly good mix, then added sublte amounts of Neve to the bass synth, API on the drums, Trident on the mid and high synths, SLL on the busses and master... and wow, there was that extra 5%.
May i add that if my memory serve me well i think Neve VCC does have pretty dominant bass bump. I worked on two Neve consoles and none of them had that bass bump like VCC. None. Actually when i think twice i think i can't recall not even budget consoles had that much bump...Imho it even sound stupid that over at Neve they designed console with so much impact on lowend. I think it's some sort of cheap trick but that is just me. Anyway these plugs did not acted as a console for me and i have had much better result with cheap desk which even mortals like me can afford (mackie and so on). But if only a plugin is a choice - not the hardware then i am going to pick up Stripbus. Sonimus is great as well..

Please note i am not claiming VCC is bad. I can see some usage for it and most definitely people use it and it has some character - and people can force themselves to believe they are working on real Neve console with that plugin but i can claim otherwise - from my experience. Note that i am not Einstein of audio i am just making my arguments out of my experience.

If you are looking that extra 5% then i don't want to add oil to the fire but may i suggest you good hardware EQ, or maybe try with Nebula. Nebula have some quirks in workflow but when it comes to EQ it was AFAIK closest thing to real thing i have ever tried. And yes i tried UAD, Liquidchannel, SonicCore, TC Electronic Powercore and so on...

Maybe if you like VCC (you said you liked it on friend session) it is best for you to buy it and be done with it. Seems like a reasonable thing. It's not that expensive.

Good luck --

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I'm not sure I would try to emulate VCC with existing plugins, because they are specialist algorithms, not just saturation etc.
When i'm in mixing mode, i put it on very channel including the returns, and it definitely helps with the solidity and stereo image. I'm generally using the SSL model, but the lady lumps on the Neve is smashing. I would definitely suggest to add a VCC to each channel before doing anything else. Adding it at the end will make it far more difficult to tame everything in my opinion. It has a 'subtle' role to play, but to me, it does a great job. And it's pretty efficient with the CPU usage. I wouldn't bother with anything similar, it's the king in my opinion.

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OK, so after whipping myself into a frenzy of plugin lust, I took the $99 deal and how have VCC :)

It seems obvious that the advice I had already read about mixing into it rather than whacking it on an existing track is the way. I have a new track that I had just bounced the stems out of so it was a good test bed - first impressions are very good.

The 2 things that really struck me were that it took A LOT less work on each channel to get a sound I really liked, it seemed to make the process of sculpting, well, easier. I could have got that sound without it, but I know it would have taken me doing a lot more tinkering with EQ, distortion and stereo widening.

The the other thing was that it gave a much general sound enhancement that I can only describe as 'nice'! I admit my ears are probably not as well trained as some people (I focus mainly on production rather than engineering), but there just seemed to be a number of things getting better rather than one specific element.

Of course, there are really obvious enhancements/changes between each desk, but forgetting them for a second (like the huge bass lift of the neve), it does add a little something extra anyway.

I can see myself having the Trident on all channels, except Neve on kick and bass synth. Love the wideness and clarity of the Trident but I think the Neve needs some more investigating - there's a big increase in level at the same sort of drive compared to the others so I need to make sure I'm not fooling my ears and I also think there could be an issue of a lot of mud creeping in, low drive settings on Neve for sure. Although only one evening of using it, 3db drive seems to be lush with the Trident.

Any comments / experience with each desk and good applications very, very welcome!

cheers guys

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