Sonimus Burnley 73 VS Waves Scheps-73 VS IK multimedia EQ 73

[jens]

the other two work nicely side by side. The subtle differences between them are what contribute to create a bit more depth.

tbh I find that really hard to believe...

[electro]

prior to the new Tweed Amp, 1073 was the most DSP heavy plugin on UAD.

[simon.a.billington]

the other two work nicely side by side. The subtle differences between them are what contribute to create a bit more depth.

tbh I find that really hard to believe...

What's hard to believe. No two analogue devices are the same. No two strips in console are exactly the same. Its the variations between the two that helps to make analogue sound so analogue and has more depth.

The trouble with most plugins at the moment is they model one channel strip and its the one channel strip that people use over and over and over in the same mix. That never happens on a real console.

The trouble is the harmonics they produce are exactly the same, no variations in characteristics whatsoever, and these build up slowly across a mix. Not so much at first, but they begin to to contribute towards a muddier sounding mix the more you stack them, especially if you have 50 or 100+ units across a mix.

Using several plugins modelled after the same thing is like having separate devices or separate strips, but not quite. However, subtle differences between them means the harmonics don't stack in exactly the same way all across the mix, well not as quickly anyway. This is what can help to contribute to a less muddy, more open sounding analogue mix.

Personally I use NLS, or even bx_console because they also model the variations across the channel harmonics as well which contributes to a greater variation and a greater depth. It's subtle, but even subtle becomes more obvious when used in larger numbers.

You can actually test it yourself.

[jens]

What's hard to believe.

This:

Its the variations between the two that helps to make analogue sound so analogue and has more depth

Are you really sure about it? Did you think this through? I.e. also what it could mean in the context of
diferent tracks in relation to each other?

The trouble is the harmonics they produce are exactly the same, no variations in characteristics whatsoever, and these build up slowly across a mix. Not so much at first, but they begin to to contribute towards a muddier sounding mix the more you stack them, especially if you have 50 or 100+ units across a mix.

That's easily one of the wildest theories I have heard/read in a loooong time.

[simon.a.billington]

What's hard to believe.

This:

Its the variations between the two that helps to make analogue sound so analogue and has more depth

Are you really sure about it? Did you think this through? I.e. also what it could mean in the context of
diferent tracks in relation to each other?

The trouble is the harmonics they produce are exactly the same, no variations in characteristics whatsoever, and these build up slowly across a mix. Not so much at first, but they begin to to contribute towards a muddier sounding mix the more you stack them, especially if you have 50 or 100+ units across a mix.

That's easily one of the wildest theories I have heard/read in a loooong time.

I've been at this game for over 20 years. Of course I thought about it, I analysed it, its measurable, and I scrutinised it.

It makes total sense when you look at to it from both from a physics point of view and a philosophical point of view. How else do you think the channel emulations in the bx_console or the NLS work?? How else do you think consoles worked so well together?? No two analogue devices are exactly alike, even if it is channel strips in the same console.That's not peddling snake oil. That's peddling physics, science.

The difference isn't as apparent with the NLS or BX, but its there, nonetheless.

Test it yourself, measure it yourself. Instead of making accusations you can't back. That's not a very professional attitude.

[jens]

Let us look at it again:

"The trouble is the harmonics they produce are exactly the same, no variations in characteristics whatsoever, and these build up slowly across a mix. Not so much at first, but they begin to to contribute towards a muddier sounding mix the more you stack them, especially if you have 50 or 100+ units across a mix"

The overtones are always relative to the material they are added to. And usually the harmonic structure of the program material will greatly differ between the individual tracks. A guitar (say) doesn't at all have the same harmonic structure as (say) a violin and neither of them as (say) a trumpet - even assuming they play exactly the same note, pitch-perfect. And then there are of course the cymbals, etc. which have a lot of enharmonic overtones.

So even assuming you only apply one individual processor on all tracks, which always adds the same overtones on each and every one of them, these added overtones won't at all be the same from track to track - or am I mistaken?

Please tell me where I am wrong.

[simon.a.billington]

Let us look at it again:

"The trouble is the harmonics they produce are exactly the same, no variations in characteristics whatsoever, and these build up slowly across a mix. Not so much at first, but they begin to to contribute towards a muddier sounding mix the more you stack them, especially if you have 50 or 100+ units across a mix"

The overtones are always relative to the material they are added to. And usually the harmonic structure of the program material will greatly differ between the individual tracks. A guitar (say) doesn't at all have the same harmonic structure as (say) a violin and neither of them as (say) a trumpet - even assuming they play exactly the same note, pitch-perfect. And then there are of course the cymbals, etc. which have a lot of enharmonic overtones.

So even assuming you only apply one individual processor on all tracks, which always adds the same overtones on each and every one of them, these added overtones won't at all be the same from track to track - or am I mistaken?

Please tell me where I am wrong.

No... you are right, but you are leaving out something, or missing it.

Let me attempt to walk you through a simple example to try and illustrate it.

For argument's sake let's just analyse a single frequency, that's call it a low E at 82.407Hz. For the sake of simplicity lets also round it down to 80Hz to more easily illustrator the example.

So there we have it, our note, E, sounding at 80Hz. Except, that our note generally contains more than one frequency it could have up to 12-14 different harmonics each coming together to make up the timbre of that one note. If a different instrument were to play the same note, then those same frequencies will most likely be present, just in different amounts.

If you were to have a bass, and a contrabass to play that note together, it would probably sound alright. And if we had a 3rd or 4th, even 8 different instruments playing the same note, or maybe, it might sound alright too, they might compliment each other in the same way guitar or keyboard stacks can in some forms of music.

What would happen, however, if we were to substitute those instruments with the same instrument.... It becomes a lot more resonant or muddy more quickly and they become just harder to work with.

Not only that, but it can start to interfere with other sounds in the mix one or two octaves higher, this is because the harmonics a sound generates is not only mathematically related to the fundamental, but musically related too. This 80Hz signal will be generating its first harmonic at 160Hz, thats an octave higher, then at 240hz which is an octave + 5th interval higher, then at 320Hz which is 2 octaves higher than the fundamental. This just the first 3 harmonics. As you go higher up the frequencies become less musical and more "noise".

So when you play the same note, you aren't just playing the same root frequency, but you are also playing the harmonics as well. When the sounds are complimentary and have different timbres, these harmonics are all weighted differently and will generally average out into something reasonably pleasing. When you use the same sound source, you are stacking the same harmonics as well, this doesn't average out as well and can introduce mud and resonant peaks at places where the harmonics are the strongest and the nastiest.

Not only that, but these strong harmonics are musically related with other sounds in the mix. It is very, VERY common for guitars to be playing the octave and the fifth above the bass notes. And the notes will also be generating their own harmonics, lots of them if its really distorted.

So while we have a different sound in the mix, like the guitar, with its different timbre and amount of harmonics, it doesn't hold true for that bass sound. That bass sound is also generating enough harmonics to be clashing with the guitar and building up more mud. If not an octave or two up, to could be clashing at higher frequencies

Many producers or arrangers would say, that's silly to be stacking all the same kind of sound, you should find some other sounds that compliment each other, that way it would not only sound better, but be less dense, less muddy, and be much more easier to work with.

..And this isn't nothing you haven't already suggested or hinted at. Its more to do with the timbre of the instruments right??

So, if we want that dense bass sound, lets not stack instances of the same instrument, lets find other complimentary sounds so that it will sound more rich and we will have less problems in the mix. Makes a lot of sense.

Where this becomes relevant is with devices and plugins that also generate harmonics. Staking the same plugin is almost like stacking the same note, its harmonic signature is going to be the same. Its going to respond the same way to the same frequency, generally speaking. Since this is music and everything shares the same type of frequency spectrum, we have a lot of harmonics stacking on top of each other.

This is why, in the early days, it was a race to produce the most cleanest and flatter sound whether it was an amplifier and speaker system or a mixing console. Too much color was just ruining the music for people. This is where harmonic noise became a bad thing. It was a problem in the home and a more of a problem in the studio.

They had a big problem with this kind of thing in the 60s since they had to pass the signals through a lot of the same equipment and bounce it tape to tape, all that stacking of the same processes, the same hardware, the same channel strip, the same tape on tape sound, all built up those harmonics. The frequency range of the equipment didn't help much either.

Then if you come forward into the era of the 24-track and cleaner processes, the quality of the music isn't nearly as bad. The equipment did improve in quality and had less harmonic distortion, but they also had access to more of it. More channel strips, more compressors, more eqs. Even the desk processing varied slightly channel to channel, because no two analogue devices are alike. It's this variation that is what help keep things cleaner, but harmonically pleasing for longer.

Then we went too far the other way and realised that, we actually don't like this this clan as much either, so a little bit of harmonics was considered to be a good thing.

However, people seem to be going the other way and stacking the same sonic processing across their entire mix and are beginning to run into issues they had in the 60s. Not as bad because they are working with a cleaner source, but it is related.

If done enough, it makes mixes muddy and a lot harder to eq and people start looking elsewhere for solutions. When in the reality the cure to their "problem" of building a mix have created another problem.

I'm not telling people don't do it. I'm just explaining what the problem is. Again its very like, but not exactly the same as stacking the same not on top of itself, because its the same harmonic content with frequency peaks in all same place. But if you used complimentary instruments, or complimentary harmonics its not as bad and can help open up a mix. Again this is why those variations the bx_console and NLS work well, because the harmonics compliment rather than build up peaks.

[Bouroki]

Hello, Simon...

I appreciate your perspective, but aren't "harmonics" by definition straight multiples of a given frequency? Passing 50Hz through ANY saturating path will always generate at the very minimum 100Hz, 200Hz etc... or am I wrong?

If you say that, well, different gear will produce these harmonics at different amplitudes... well then that's the same argument we mean when we're saying that different instruments & timbres will give different harmonic responses even if they pass through the same gear. The difference between a bass and a guitar is WAY bigger than the difference between two preamps.

In the time since we've had this very same discussion not too long ago, I bought and sold NLS. Yes, each channel does have its own character but, again, it is NOWHERE as different as e.g. switching the guitar pickup balance - now THAT makes a world of difference and could actually make or break a mix - not whether you're passing it through the same NLS channel as the bass guitar.

Yes you might have a point in that people today are generally using too much saturation, period. But the solution is to use less saturation, period, not to play the NLS lottery game.

As for bx_console, did we not also establish that it does not actually model any saturation?

[Uncle E]

Neve preamps were loaded with BC184C transistors, which would have had large differences in hfe back then. That directly contributes to how much saturation occurs.

[Uncle E]

As for bx_console, did we not also establish that it does not actually model any saturation?

Correct, but it does have an EQ section and it's even easier to hear variances in components there.

[simon.a.billington]

Hello, Simon...

I appreciate your perspective, but aren't "harmonics" by definition straight multiples of a given frequency? Passing 50Hz through ANY saturating path will always generate at the very minimum 100Hz, 200Hz etc... or am I wrong?

If you say that, well, different gear will produce these harmonics at different amplitudes... well then that's the same argument we mean when we're saying that different instruments & timbres will give different harmonic responses even if they pass through the same gear. The difference between a bass and a guitar is WAY bigger than the difference between two preamps.

In the time since we've had this very same discussion not too long ago, I bought and sold NLS. Yes, each channel does have its own character but, again, it is NOWHERE as different as e.g. switching the guitar pickup balance - now THAT makes a world of difference and could actually make or break a mix - not whether you're passing it through the same NLS channel as the bass guitar.

Yes you might have a point in that people today are generally using too much saturation, period. But the solution is to use less saturation, period, not to play the NLS lottery game.

As for bx_console, did we not also establish that it does not actually model any saturation?

.

Yep you are right there.

I did say it was "very subtle" and that over the course of a large number of tracks it becomes more apparent.

It's easy enough to test yourself. Get a very large session, stack an instance of the same "character" plugin across the mix and just use it for its harmonics.

The harmonics will build up of course. The stronger the saturation, the more quickly this happens, makes sense right.

Now swap a lot of those out with all different sorts of harmonic plugins. Of course the difference is also audible, they're different plugins after all, but it should sound less dense or muddy and be easier to work with.

I was always referring to the accumulative effect. I never said people should stop using the same plugin across the mix.

I only said that I try to avoid too many instances of these types of plugins and that I would use these emulations from Waves and IK to compliment each other. I was talking about a personal way I like to work.

But then I was challenged on the logic behind it.

There are a lot more important things to be concerned in a mix, but developing a good mix strategy is also important if you want to avoid issues down the track.

It's my way of saying that these plugins are all good and I'd use them all if I could in the same mix because they compliment each other.

People are getting to caught up on which one is the best one, which one is more realistic, which is seemingly a fair enough question.

But the answer these days is they are all good. They are all getting the emulations right. 99% of the reason they sound different is because that's the nature of analogue, everything sounds difference. The more vintage, the bigger the variation.

I asked the question myself for a while too, but really "which one is the most realistic?" is the wrong question to be asking.

"What can I do with it?" and "How can I use it differently or creatively?" are really the right type of questions to ask.

[Zexila]

Now swap a lot of those out with all different sorts of harmonic plugins. Of course the difference is also audible, they're different plugins after all, but it should sound less dense or muddy and be easier to work with.

Or still muddy, which probably will happen.

There are a lot more important things to be concerned in a mix

Exactly, far far far more.

It's my way of saying that these plugins are all good and I'd use them all if I could in the same mix because the compliment each other.

That's your pro GS level of GAS talking, I taught for a second I'm on GS reading your GAS logic.

[simon.a.billington]

Yeah and no... There are things we certainly don't need and it's up to everyone to figure out what it is for themselves.

It's just an alternative view. It's meant to engage people's thinking, not their wallet

[Zexila]

It's just an alternative view. It's meant to engage people's thinking, not their wallet

Well, that thinking could end up emptying someones wallet and giving him even more (or next level) GAS, of course if one accepts that logic, let's not forget GAS who is screaming "Makes sense, pull the trigger, buy them all, you need them, diversity my boy, diversityyyyy".

Don't get me wrong, all that matters is that you like the thing and want to use it, just found this GAS logic little over the top and potentially very serious to weaker ones.

All the best and stay strong.

[simon.a.billington]

Many have their fair share of plugins and you only have to look into that to find diversity.

If people want to spend money, their going to spend it anyway. Regardless of what my, or your input may be.

I'm effectively saying these plugins are all good, diversity can be a good thing and I'd use them all together if I could. I wasn't speaking literally with the last statement, but more philosophically.

I'm not locked in to using just one type of console emulation. I can even mix and match if I want because I feel liberated enough to do that. There's diversity in there too.

I didn't say "buy all 3" and if you look closely I'm not really implying it either. The only thing I'm saying is they're all good you can't really go wrong.

I think you're reading what you want to read.