VCC, VTM, Blah, Blah, Blah...What The Hell Is Wrong With Me?

[kvaca]

I am truly at the end of my rope with this stuff....

Is it JUST me?

NO!
And wellcome to the club
I have wasted too many years testing various "analogue" emulation plugins /including Nebula sampling stuff/only to find out that its all but impossible to obtain THAT 60-70s oldschoool sound this way...its all only one big hype. The main difference is that old gear was frequently intentionally abused, while still sounding good or interesting. With plugins its all about proper gain staging here and there, otherwise it sounds like a total crap...and the results are: you know it - barely hearable differences at best, surely not worth the effort and money involved at all.
Final result: From this year I have stopped buying all "analogue" plugins and started collecting hw /tube amps,compressors,eqs...ribbon mics etc../.

btw - accidentaly I find out that best "tape" plugin is my new ribbon mic

[kvaca]

The bottom line is that if you want to make old music you really need to use old gear.

exactly!

My advice? Make new music!

good point!...but sometimes its like to learn old dog new things...

[sfxsound3]

Ask your doctor. A while ago you said that you hear almost nothing above 5k, now you go on with this topic. OK, we are trolls, we want to bring you down, etc, etc. So ask a specialist. Get your ears checked. Are you going to believe him?

Just as an example: CS-EQ from Slate's VMR adds some THD+noise to the source. I can hear it with one instance. Using two instances in series is too much for me because I can hear it dirtying up any clean source I pass beyond anything I'd want (tried it on Sylenth, Serum, on albums - anything pristine- and sharp-sounding - same result). On Gearsluts Slate was giving an example of this famous producer - whatshisname - who's using three CS-EQs in series and being very proud of himself. I read this and went, whaaa, is he deaf??? The EQ becomes a distortion unit! So think about this.

[budweiser]

This vcc thing is pure bullshit. A parallel : I'm actually struggling to put floppy emulators in my emax(s) because it's supposed to be better and ended up by changing the good ol' floppy drives with new ones. Modernism ? My as$... If you want the good old sound, use the good old tools. This console emulator thing is really a joke.

[kvaca]

Just as an example: CS-EQ from Slate's VMR adds some THD+noise to the source. I can hear it with one instance. Using two instances in series is too much for me because I can hear it dirtying up any clean source I pass beyond anything I'd want (tried it on Sylenth, Serum, on albums - anything pristine- and sharp-sounding - same result). On Gearsluts Slate was giving an example of this famous producer - whatshisname - who's using three CS-EQs in series and being very proud of himself. I read this and went, whaaa, is he deaf??? The EQ becomes a distortion unit! So think about this.

I dont think he must be deaf at all...
Look at it this way:
producers usually aim at selling people as many albums as possible, and if he thinks that using 3 eqs in series helps to sell certain product better he surely go for it...
and the same is with infamous "loudness war" - if he thinks that DR4 sells better than DR 8...you know what...

[db3]

My experience of VCC is it's very subtle indeed...after all it's only emulating console circuit distortion and crosstalk. It's certainly not going to deliver a fat mix with the flick of a switch. I never picked up VTM as I found the latency too high for realtime use, but Softube Tape usually goes on my master buss and adds some nice mojo when used with care.

[S0lo]

It's kind of ironic that in the 80's when I was in my late teens everyone in the industry spent ton's of money on hardware that could clean up mixes, remove tape saturation, noise, etc. In this day and age everyone want to get back to the dirty by adding saturation

It's because many people seek the rare, the unobtainable. Not necessarily because the unobtainable is better.

It's kinda funny.

[kvaca]

This vcc thing is pure bullshit. A parallel : I'm actually struggling to put floppy emulators in my emax(s) because it's supposed to be better and ended up by changing the good ol' floppy drives with new ones. Modernism ? My as$... If you want the good old sound, use the good old tools. This console emulator thing is really a joke.

that joke makes him serius money, so why not do it if we live in capitalism and most people care about certain hype more than about usable and decent things

My experience of VCC is it's very subtle indeed...after all it's only emulating console circuit distortion and crosstalk. It's certainly not going to deliver a fat mix with the flick of a switch. .

...and thats the main problem with these kind of plugins
that they dont deliver whats promissed - why use any saturation plugin for thinning out your mix? or getting it harsh or dull? have you ever used any hw? tubes? surely you got no instant fatness with the flick of a switch???

[db3]

It's kind of ironic that in the 80's when I was in my late teens everyone in the industry spent ton's of money on hardware that could clean up mixes, remove tape saturation, noise, etc. In this day and age everyone want to get back to the dirty by adding saturation

It's because many people seek the rare, the unobtainable. Not necessarily because the unobtainable is better. It's kinda funny.

I don't think it's that at all. Our brains prefer a less sterile, more organic sound. So for many people who work fully ITB, these old skool emulations help achieve that.

[Acid Mitch]

This vcc thing is pure bullshit. A parallel : I'm actually struggling to put floppy emulators in my emax(s) because it's supposed to be better and ended up by changing the good ol' floppy drives with new ones. Modernism ? My as$... If you want the good old sound, use the good old tools. This console emulator thing is really a joke.

What do you prefer about floppy drives ?
Most people prefer the emulators.

[S0lo]

It's kind of ironic that in the 80's when I was in my late teens everyone in the industry spent ton's of money on hardware that could clean up mixes, remove tape saturation, noise, etc. In this day and age everyone want to get back to the dirty by adding saturation

It's because many people seek the rare, the unobtainable. Not necessarily because the unobtainable is better. It's kinda funny.

I don't think it's that at all. Our brains prefer a less sterile, more organic sound. So for many people who work fully ITB, these old skool emulations help achieve that.

Well, they had it all in the 70s and 80s. Why did most of em go digital then? Old tape and analog gear was sold for very cheap. May be thrown away some times. No one wanted them.

[kvaca]

It's kind of ironic that in the 80's when I was in my late teens everyone in the industry spent ton's of money on hardware that could clean up mixes, remove tape saturation, noise, etc. In this day and age everyone want to get back to the dirty by adding saturation

It's because many people seek the rare, the unobtainable. Not necessarily because the unobtainable is better. It's kinda funny.

I don't think it's that at all. Our brains prefer a less sterile, more organic sound. So for many people who work fully ITB, these old skool emulations help achieve that.

Well, they had it all in the 70s and 80s. Why did most of em go digital then? Old tape and analog gear was sold for very cheap. May be thrown away some times. No one wanted them.

some very lazy, some preferred new clean realistic digital sound...

but later all went the opposite direction - clean realistic sound was called sterile and obsolette, distortion and noise is must...
and people are even more lazy...so emulations of all kinds old hw are in fashion
20+ years in my life I have struggled with noise and distortions in audio, now it seems hard to sell plugin which is not adding "analog" noise and distortion,no matter how good it actually is...its not even funny, its sad...

[budweiser]

What do you prefer about floppy drives ?
Most people prefer the emulators.

It's just more complicated finding the right one, puting on the os, transfering the sound, etc. All of this keep u away from music, in the end.
About vcc : it's funny the same kind of guys then sell you tutorials where they say : "don't waste ur time tweaking details no one will notice...''

[S0lo]

some very lazy, some preferred new clean realistic digital sound...

but later all went the opposite direction - clean realistic sound was called sterile and obsolette, distortion and noise is must...
and people are even more lazy...so emulations of all kinds old hw are in fashion
20+ years in my life I have struggled with noise and distortions in audio, now it seems hard to sell plugin which is not adding "analog" noise and distortion,no matter how good it actually is...its not even funny, its sad...

So for 20+ years you tried to achieve clean sounds because you liked it clean? And then when you finally got it in plugins, what happened? did your taste flip over?

I guess the question I'm trying to answer is why people seam to want something only when its NOT easily available. If our taste is really burned in our brains as has been indicated above, then it shouldn't change by time. It shouldn't be a function of whats available and whats not.

[VariKusBrainZ]

Most of the charm of "tape" IMO comes from the diminished treble power. I must be getting old to enjoy hicut filters. The saturation should make up for some of that cut by distorting it and adding that density that's associated with tape.

Also important is tape's effect on transients, which obviously had a huge effect on drums on those old recordings