My opinion is:
Analogue character comes from the imperfection of circuits, valves and the like. These imperfections have shaped the sound of the past, that we all know and love. Now we have transparent processors that far surpass them.
I think a lot of people want that old sound mostly for nostalgia reasons or that it sounds professional as in that time only a big budget could afford these setups.
These days I can't see a reason to constantly try to recreate the exact imperfections of the past.
I am a forward thinker and want the most advanced and efficient processors I can. This is why I'm such a huge Melda fan.
I believe that true artists make new things, not try to make the same things again.
Analogue discussion
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MeldaProduction MeldaProduction https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=176122 - KVRAF
- 14339 posts since 15 Mar, 2008 from Czech republic
Thank you jmg8 
Basically as grizzellda said in the other topic, my dad is indeed in electronic industry, and I was playing it with the many years ago myself, so I know a little about it (not much anymore before someone starts testing me
). One of the biggest problem is that nothing is even close to being perfect in there, a condenser marked 100uF is more likely 98-102uF and can vary with temperature etc. Transistors/valves don't have linear response. And so no... So I can only imagine how hard it is to make something "at least close to perfection", my dad actually develops things like that for measurement technologies and it's sometimes really funny what needs to be done... It's often more like probability game .
So at the end the poor analog engineers just had to cope with all that, survive the fact that you cannot do much in analog domain and with digital evolution they faced the big trouble: The only remaining advantage of analog becomes the fact that it has no latency. That's not much really, considering that we can easily get latencies below 10ms these days with very complicated processing in digital, that equals being just 3m from the monitors, so it's almost irrelevant even for live mixing.
So, the PR had to come up with some serious marketing... One thing you need to realize is that fact that the companies that develop HW stuff are MUCH bigger than any software developer. They need to, developing software is much cheaper than developing hardware, nodoubt about that, I just don't envy them. So the fight between us developers and these giants is like fight between a garage inventor and the car industry. The inventor just doesn't have a chance. That's why we still rely on fossil fuels despite it is long proven that it destroys the planet big time.
People just don't have the knowledge and it becomes all about money... Fortunately the question about analog vs. digital isn't that serious, you simply have to choose between spending lots of money for ancient hardware crap that looks good in your studio (or its digital clone), or embrace the digital domain, save money, ease your life and get more functionality 
.
So what are the "advantages" of analog that these marketing experts and dinosaurs stubbornly relying on that are filling you with?
- It adds anague warmth. What is that? It's just the neverending nonlinearities... Just use some saturation (MMultiBandSaturator, saturation knob we have in many plugins). It creates some higher harmonics and yes it can make it sound slightly richer, but also sort of distorted, that's how it works after all. What the analog engineers tried to do is to remove these nonlinearities! But they cannot, so the PR turned it into something awesome by using these great words. Classic Freud. But there's really no big magic behind them.
- It adds some random imperfections. First of all, analog stuff is mainly used on acoustic music, where imperfections are done by the musicians themselves, so you really don't need them. And if you do, just use the modulators in any of our plugins, you can randomize just about anything, if that's really what you need. For the record, these imperfections are generally inaudible on the high end stuff, it's just another manufactured "positive" inspired by the fact that everytime you process it with analog with the same settings, the output will be slightly different, which isn't a positive really (not a negative either probably though, except for scientific stuff where it is a problem).
- It has been used for many decades now, so it needs to be great. Now every time I hear this nonsense I'm loosing hope for humanity. And it's actually the most used argument for analog. "The big guys are using that, so it must be awesome..." Seriously? That's like saying that since my grand-grand-grand-grand-father was travelling in steam-engine-powered trains, I should too. Obviously nobody does that, because that would just be stupid, we have much more powerful and effective technologies today. And the same is true for audio processing. You can stay in the past and use steam engine based audio processing, or embrace solar system based ones and go into the future .
I actually think it's all about the fact that human capability to learn reachest close to zero after the age of 30. Sadly I'm behind that as well. But I'm trying to stay open minded .
- If we don't have analog stuff, we need simulations. Jesus crist... The important question is why we need analog stuff in the first place, and I summed that up above . But if you are not convinced and many of you aren't, especially those of you after 30 (not kidding, that's a scientific study ), let's see...
Why should it sound exactly like that?? Maybe it can be better! Who says that the way the particular analog equipment sounds is the best it can ever sound. If anyone says that, then he's just way too closeminded to even talk to, because saying that something cannot ever be improved is just silly.
Circuit modeling - that's another thing that's just beyond me... It's like why should we make it simple, when it can be complicated... Isn't that enough that something sounds as good as/better than the original? Who will judge that anyway? Trying to model flawed electronic circuits is just wrong, period...
At the end it's just the lack of knowledge of normal people (that's not a criticism, you should create music, not study stuff about audio processing...) and the marketing of the big dinosaurs...
So it's all up to you. But I'm going towards the future as quickly as possible. And the future is digital processing, that's just how it is, everyone will have to embrace that one day and I guarantee there will be a day when all analog stuff will be considered retro (like vinyls these days) and will be used only by extremists. And there won't be any analog simulations... It all just waits until the open minded generation starts dominating. But that will take a long time as I see it .
Basically as grizzellda said in the other topic, my dad is indeed in electronic industry, and I was playing it with the many years ago myself, so I know a little about it (not much anymore before someone starts testing me
). One of the biggest problem is that nothing is even close to being perfect in there, a condenser marked 100uF is more likely 98-102uF and can vary with temperature etc. Transistors/valves don't have linear response. And so no... So I can only imagine how hard it is to make something "at least close to perfection", my dad actually develops things like that for measurement technologies and it's sometimes really funny what needs to be done... It's often more like probability game .So at the end the poor analog engineers just had to cope with all that, survive the fact that you cannot do much in analog domain and with digital evolution they faced the big trouble: The only remaining advantage of analog becomes the fact that it has no latency. That's not much really, considering that we can easily get latencies below 10ms these days with very complicated processing in digital, that equals being just 3m from the monitors, so it's almost irrelevant even for live mixing.
So, the PR had to come up with some serious marketing... One thing you need to realize is that fact that the companies that develop HW stuff are MUCH bigger than any software developer. They need to, developing software is much cheaper than developing hardware, nodoubt about that, I just don't envy them
. So the fight between us developers and these giants is like fight between a garage inventor and the car industry. The inventor just doesn't have a chance. That's why we still rely on fossil fuels despite it is long proven that it destroys the planet big time.People just don't have the knowledge and it becomes all about money... Fortunately the question about analog vs. digital isn't that serious, you simply have to choose between spending lots of money for ancient hardware crap that looks good in your studio (or its digital clone)
, or embrace the digital domain, save money, ease your life and get more functionality .So what are the "advantages" of analog that these marketing experts and dinosaurs stubbornly relying on that are filling you with?
- It adds anague warmth. What is that? It's just the neverending nonlinearities... Just use some saturation (MMultiBandSaturator, saturation knob we have in many plugins). It creates some higher harmonics and yes it can make it sound slightly richer, but also sort of distorted, that's how it works after all. What the analog engineers tried to do is to remove these nonlinearities! But they cannot, so the PR turned it into something awesome by using these great words. Classic Freud. But there's really no big magic behind them.
- It adds some random imperfections. First of all, analog stuff is mainly used on acoustic music, where imperfections are done by the musicians themselves, so you really don't need them. And if you do, just use the modulators in any of our plugins, you can randomize just about anything, if that's really what you need
. For the record, these imperfections are generally inaudible on the high end stuff, it's just another manufactured "positive" inspired by the fact that everytime you process it with analog with the same settings, the output will be slightly different, which isn't a positive really (not a negative either probably though, except for scientific stuff where it is a problem).- It has been used for many decades now, so it needs to be great. Now every time I hear this nonsense I'm loosing hope for humanity
. And it's actually the most used argument for analog. "The big guys are using that, so it must be awesome..." Seriously? That's like saying that since my grand-grand-grand-grand-father was travelling in steam-engine-powered trains, I should too. Obviously nobody does that, because that would just be stupid, we have much more powerful and effective technologies today. And the same is true for audio processing. You can stay in the past and use steam engine based audio processing, or embrace solar system based ones and go into the future .I actually think it's all about the fact that human capability to learn reachest close to zero after the age of 30. Sadly I'm behind that as well
. But I'm trying to stay open minded .- If we don't have analog stuff, we need simulations. Jesus crist...
The important question is why we need analog stuff in the first place, and I summed that up above . But if you are not convinced and many of you aren't, especially those of you after 30 (not kidding, that's a scientific study ), let's see... Why should it sound exactly like that?? Maybe it can be better! Who says that the way the particular analog equipment sounds is the best it can ever sound. If anyone says that, then he's just way too closeminded to even talk to, because saying that something cannot ever be improved is just silly.
Circuit modeling - that's another thing that's just beyond me... It's like why should we make it simple, when it can be complicated... Isn't that enough that something sounds as good as/better than the original? Who will judge that anyway? Trying to model flawed electronic circuits is just wrong, period...
At the end it's just the lack of knowledge of normal people (that's not a criticism, you should create music, not study stuff about audio processing...) and the marketing of the big dinosaurs...
So it's all up to you. But I'm going towards the future as quickly as possible. And the future is digital processing, that's just how it is, everyone will have to embrace that one day and I guarantee there will be a day when all analog stuff will be considered retro (like vinyls these days) and will be used only by extremists
. And there won't be any analog simulations... It all just waits until the open minded generation starts dominating. But that will take a long time as I see it .-
- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2700 posts since 9 Jul, 2015 from UK
Interesting read, thanks.
Sometimes too many options can be overwhelming and musical creativity can be increased by limiting these options. I also think this is part of the reason for the constant repetition of creating the same plugin simulations.
For example a pultec eq has a very limited set of frequencies that can be selected therefore has its own sound and personality. This allows people to learn the eq quickly but also means that it delivers similar sounding results every time.
This then becomes part of a signature sound that is associated with a certain producer, band or genre of music. People like the sound of the music and therefore believe that if they use the same eq, their music will sound good too.
I think as new producers use these emulations less and less it will fade away completely.
Sometimes too many options can be overwhelming and musical creativity can be increased by limiting these options. I also think this is part of the reason for the constant repetition of creating the same plugin simulations.
For example a pultec eq has a very limited set of frequencies that can be selected therefore has its own sound and personality. This allows people to learn the eq quickly but also means that it delivers similar sounding results every time.
This then becomes part of a signature sound that is associated with a certain producer, band or genre of music. People like the sound of the music and therefore believe that if they use the same eq, their music will sound good too.
I think as new producers use these emulations less and less it will fade away completely.
Jason @ Melda Production
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- KVRian
- 1297 posts since 23 Sep, 2008 from Germany
Thanks Vojtech, for taking time and going deeper in explanation.
At the end it won't be the "analog flavour" which do the magic, but that's the problem, for me too, again and again falling back in the hope about the magic plugin, which make your sounds fat, warm, full......
Jm8: +1
At the end it won't be the "analog flavour" which do the magic, but that's the problem, for me too, again and again falling back in the hope about the magic plugin, which make your sounds fat, warm, full......
Jm8: +1
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- KVRAF
- 4469 posts since 15 Nov, 2006 from Hell
i think there needs to be a distinction made. for something like guitar amplifiers, analog does actually sound better, be it analog analog, analog-emulated analog (tube/solid state etc.), or digital-emulated analog. those devices weren't made for perfection, unlike high end studio gear.
also, another point where i disagree with Vojtech (or rather i think his position is rather simplistic).
i completely agree that you can emulate the same stuff with e.g. saturators, some modulations etc. if you can do that - more power to you. however, i can't - not because i can't in principle but because i just don't care. if i have a box (whether real or virtual) that does what i want it to do without my adding saturators and modulation afterwards, that's what i'll use - because why go for a complicated setup when you can get away with a simpler set up? i treat analog emulations as kind of "presets" - a sort of "one knob" plugin, only with more control over the stuff i actually care about. i don't care about learning about intricacies of saturation enough, at least not at this stage, so for me it makes more sense to slap a "tube" plugin and hope for the best. i'm perfectly aware of that, and i'm perfectly fine with that.
so for me it isn't "marketing", it's just pragmatism and laziness.
also, another point where i disagree with Vojtech (or rather i think his position is rather simplistic).
i completely agree that you can emulate the same stuff with e.g. saturators, some modulations etc. if you can do that - more power to you. however, i can't - not because i can't in principle but because i just don't care. if i have a box (whether real or virtual) that does what i want it to do without my adding saturators and modulation afterwards, that's what i'll use - because why go for a complicated setup when you can get away with a simpler set up? i treat analog emulations as kind of "presets" - a sort of "one knob" plugin, only with more control over the stuff i actually care about. i don't care about learning about intricacies of saturation enough, at least not at this stage, so for me it makes more sense to slap a "tube" plugin and hope for the best. i'm perfectly aware of that, and i'm perfectly fine with that.
so for me it isn't "marketing", it's just pragmatism and laziness.
I don't know what to write here that won't be censored, as I can only speak in profanity.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 2700 posts since 9 Jul, 2015 from UK
But Melda has the active presets which are essentially what you described. Just simple to use with about 4 knobs, easy.
But when you do get to the next level you might want to go deeper and these analogue plugins will unfortunately not let you. This is where Melda has the best of both worlds.
But when you do get to the next level you might want to go deeper and these analogue plugins will unfortunately not let you. This is where Melda has the best of both worlds.
Jason @ Melda Production
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- KVRian
- 1059 posts since 28 Jun, 2006 from Germany
Isn't the question before this: What do you mean by "sound better"? Sound better compared to what? Probably the hearing experience and "expectation how a guitar amp should sound", or am I wrong?Burillo wrote:i think there needs to be a distinction made. for something like guitar amplifiers, analog does actually sound better, be it analog analog, analog-emulated analog (tube/solid state etc.), or digital-emulated analog. those devices weren't made for perfection, unlike high end studio gear.
Besides other interesting things I've learned two interesting things (at least I was told by professors in my studies) regarding guitar amps / the sound of an overdriven guitar amp. The clubs became fuller and fuller and the little amp gain was cranked up (guitar gets distorted) so that even the people in the very back of the club could hear something, but the sound got distorted. Another story (as some kind of origin) is that a known guitarist (I forgot the name) made holes in his speaker membran so that the sound got distorted. Everyone liked it and copied the sound.
I am not sure if these stories are 100% true, but if so: the origin of the known distorted guitar amp sound is a some kind of a flaw, or not?
As jmg8 already wrote: you have the presets for this. Even if not: you will sit some minutes on making your own preset, which you can use as often as you wish in the future just by one mouse click.Burillo wrote: i completely agree that you can emulate the same stuff with e.g. saturators, some modulations etc. if you can do that - more power to you. however, i can't - not because i can't in principle but because i just don't care. if i have a box (whether real or virtual) that does what i want it to do without my adding saturators and modulation afterwards, that's what i'll use - because why go for a complicated setup when you can get away with a simpler set up? i treat analog emulations as kind of "presets" - a sort of "one knob" plugin, only with more control over the stuff i actually care about. i don't care about learning about intricacies of saturation enough, at least not at this stage, so for me it makes more sense to slap a "tube" plugin and hope for the best. i'm perfectly aware of that, and i'm perfectly fine with that.
I really don't know much about these things, I admit, but ... something tells me that it can be a mix from both, haha.Burillo wrote: so for me it isn't "marketing", it's just pragmatism and laziness.
System: Win 10 64 bit / i9 9900K (8x 3.6 GHz) / 16 GB DDR4-3200 RAM / 1TB M.2 SSD + 2x 500 GB SSD / RME Babyface / Reaper
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- KVRist
- 44 posts since 13 Jan, 2013 from Austria
All those analogue emulations may be great and useful for people who raised with outboard gear only and want to have the same behavior like before, where they know which knob to dial to get a specific result.
For me, who has never had all this stuff (except a mic, a preamp and some cheap outboard compression) it doesn't really matter. I don't know how all that stuff works (1176, L2A, Pultec, the list is long) and so I don't miss anything.
Why should I use emulatations of obsolete stuff I don't know? If I want imperfection, there are many other ways to achieve this. I can even blend in some white noise
I think the "big guys" use real outboard gear
a) to protect there mixes from being reproduced by others by simply launching a DAW session
b) because they are used too work with it
c) to create some kind of "super professional aura" to justify a higher price
d) like blinking lights everywhere (that's cool I have to admit
)
For me, who has never had all this stuff (except a mic, a preamp and some cheap outboard compression) it doesn't really matter. I don't know how all that stuff works (1176, L2A, Pultec, the list is long) and so I don't miss anything.
Why should I use emulatations of obsolete stuff I don't know? If I want imperfection, there are many other ways to achieve this. I can even blend in some white noise
I think the "big guys" use real outboard gear
a) to protect there mixes from being reproduced by others by simply launching a DAW session
b) because they are used too work with it
c) to create some kind of "super professional aura" to justify a higher price
d) like blinking lights everywhere (that's cool I have to admit
)Win 7 x64 - i7 - 32 GB RAM - SSD / M-Audio Fasttrack C600 / Reaper
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- Banned
- 1132 posts since 21 Feb, 2015
Sure, and nicely put, but when you say "far surpass", I go back and notice the first words of your post which are: "My opinion is"...jmg8 wrote:My opinion is:
Analogue character comes from the imperfection of circuits, valves and the like. These imperfections have shaped the sound of the past, that we all know and love. Now we have transparent processors that far surpass them.
I agree analogue is very much associated with the classic era of the record biz, and that is very important...because marketers can use this! I think this is why Vojtech talks about the "big guys", "marketing propaganda" and "money", but to think that everyone buying these products is stupid, or thinks that if they "just have this plug-in then they will sound professional"...that's where I disagree.
In other words, I think that there are simply too many sonically knowledgeable people who like analogue emulations to suggest that they are just being fooled by marketing. That is insulting. It's just such a put down!!!
This is just such a put down!!!MeldaProduction wrote: At the end it's just the lack of knowledge of normal people (that's not a criticism, you should create music, not study stuff about audio processing...) and the marketing of the big dinosaurs...
Heh heh, Okay so I could quote a bunch of your comments Vojtech, you made alot of solid points, and your lengthy essay impressed me, but alas, I won't.
By the way, aren't you busy, why are you wasting time talking to normal people on KVR for, huh?
Hey, I am not some extreme analogue freak who can't understand digital. I love digital!!! And I also respect history.
UAD needs that extra processing power because, as I understand, they are physically modelling real circuits. On their website they stress that it is not just circuit modelling, but physical modelling. Do your plugs do that?
See, I didn't think so. And just assigning random modulation to saturation isn't quite the same.Your work is fabulous, and I like it, will continue to support it, but in your zest for the future could you be disregarding the past?
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MeldaProduction MeldaProduction https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=176122
- KVRAF
- 14339 posts since 15 Mar, 2008 from Czech republic
I very agree with this. Though point a) won't work, every signal is different, every different singer needs something at least a little different. But other than that, yes, it's about imageCelphor wrote: I think the "big guys" use real outboard gear
a) to protect there mixes from being reproduced by others by simply launching a DAW session
b) because they are used too work with it
c) to create some kind of "super professional aura" to justify a higher price
d) like blinking lights everywhere (that's cool I have to admit
. And that's the problem, people have associated "lots of vintage gear" with "good sound". And that just doesn't make sense, it's just the propaganda. Or more like history and now the propaganda is keeping the history in our minds.Burillo: By all this I did NOT mean guitar amps, rotary and stuff. These things are very different, because these are not just electronics, it's the actual physical world interfering. Analog electronic stuff is just a different way to process audio signal, physical processing by using a rotating speaker for example, that's a completely different issue. I must say I'm not such a fan of guitar amps, and actually every time I got a guitarist claiming that his marshall is the only way to go, I persuaded him to record clean guitar as well and then he was very surprised by just simple presets from MMultiBandDistortion
.Grizzellda: Same thing - "knowledgeable people use analog => it must be good". Just think about it. What is knowledge? You basically defined it is experience with the oldschool equipment. Remember Gallileo?
He was claiming something that is absolutely normal to us now, because we now have more knowledge. But that time everyone saying he's a heretic and burned him. Just because everyone else was thinking it's not true, doesn't make it true . Same for the analog stuff. These "knowledgeable people" use analog, because they grew up with it, that doesn't make it better.As for UAD - marketing again... What is physical modeling?
In any way, just by saying all that it means that you didn't read my original post, or ignored it. The question you should ask is - what is physical modeling and whether you really need it? And you should have some strong reasons to. For UAD it is money. And you can see just because they wrote some blabla on their website, you immediately feel like this is awesome. This is classic marketing, it's actually the most effective way - coming up with new terms, that sound "awesome", so that people feel like they need it even if they don't understand it. Yep Freud again... Anyway don't worry, we don't need to agree with each other!
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- KVRAF
- 4469 posts since 15 Nov, 2006 from Hell
um, small correction - Gallileo wasn't the one who was burned, he was just forced to renounce his views you're thinking of Giordano Bruno.
you're thinking of Giordano Bruno.I don't know what to write here that won't be censored, as I can only speak in profanity.
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- KVRAF
- 1676 posts since 17 Dec, 2002 from Yorkshire
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- Banned
- 1132 posts since 21 Feb, 2015
I typically read your posts pretty carefully, actually. I think physical modelling is a more thorough type of thing, taking into account electronics and physics. And yes, I need it.MeldaProduction wrote:In any way, just by saying all that it means that you didn't read my original post, or ignored it. The question you should ask is - what is physical modeling and whether you really need it?
Well,MeldaProduction wrote:What is knowledge? You basically defined it is experience with the oldschool equipment.
not really. I just meant professionals in the audio business who listen more carefully than the average listener...you know, scrutinize sounds more. Alot of folks just like a vintage sound man! Similar to liking a colour, or some kind of food! No need to even explain it really...Yeah, quite likely, but I haven't said anywhere that vintage analogue sound is better, I simply feel that it is worthwhile to keep exploring! And when I see all the analogue type gear at the NAMM show this weekend, it looks like many other folks feel the same, in 2016, seriously.MeldaProduction wrote:These "knowledgeable people" use analog, because they grew up with it, that doesn't make it better.
Oh golly...MMultiBandDistortion is a really cool plug-in and I think it's great for heavy, synthetic modern distortion, but if you are comparing it to a real Marshall tube amplifier, then this may explain alot...because I don't think so!MeldaProduction wrote:I must say I'm not such a fan of guitar amps, and actually every time I got a guitarist claiming that his marshall is the only way to go, I persuaded him to record clean guitar as well and then he was very surprised by just simple presets from MMultiBandDistortion
You either need the real thing ... or that is where physical modelling comes in.
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- KVRAF
- 1676 posts since 17 Dec, 2002 from Yorkshire
i would consider the increase in analog offering as a success of marketing not the actual demand. same as a few years ago buzzwords like "valve" and "tube" managed to sell quite a lot of average stuff.Grizzellda wrote: And when I see all the analogue type gear at the NAMM show this weekend, it looks like many other folks feel the same, in 2016, seriously.
personally i miss the times where companies where actually exploring different territories of sound generation. but the music industry at that time was in a different position as today.
sadly no one will invest money in a large project like eg v-synth these days. it is way easier to earn bucks selling volcas.