Best channel strip plugin that's NOT emulation of SSL, Neve, API, Amek, etc.

[_leras]

And although it models (generic) analog stuff, this just means they implement time proven ideas and make them available as software. I think this is ok as you get a modern interface with lots of workflow support (e.g. changing the compressor model on the fly while keeping the settings), so the strip feels highly modern.

This sort of thing is super useful. Different EQ curves in a 4 band EQ, different filter slopes. Usually missing from emulations.

It's this sort of thing that makes the Waves Scheps Omnichannel such a good tool. And surely all channel strips would eventually move in this direction, emulated or not.

[antic604]

By the way, Airwindows have channel strips, too. Is there anyone around who tried these? Other things made by Chris just sound great, so I think I should take a look and listen.

http://www.airwindows.com/cstrip-vst/

So minimalism finally found its way here.

Yeah, I'm yet to check his stuff. Apparently it's all very good, but I'm not sure I can handle so much minimalism (that surely is an oxymoron?)

[s28]

…

Yeah, I see your point. And it's a thin line indeed. But if PSP Infinistrip is OK, then so should be things like IK Multimedia's T-ReackS and MixBox, McDSP's 6050 Ultimate Channel Strip or Slate Digital's Virtual Analog Bundle and then we're getting dangerously close to discussing who got that SSL 4kE EQ right and who f**ed it up, which I tried to avoid

You are right. By the way, Airwindows have channel strips, too. Is there anyone around who tried these? Other things made by Chris just sound great, so I think I should take a look and listen.

http://www.airwindows.com/cstrip-vst/

So minimalism finally found its way here.

I love cstrip. Would like Chris to make a new more colourful channel strip or perhaps a purest strip with very smooth controls.

I've used it for a few years on and off. Recently got very into it again. Great for broad strokes, good to the source and the gate/compression sound really good.

[BONES]

You must be kidding. It's such a massive part of recording songs that you have surely come across it.

Nope. My mixes come together simply as a consequence of putting a song together. It's not like the old days, where you went in and spent a few days (or weeks if you could afford it) in the live room getting everything onto tape and then moved into the control room and started mixing. That's 30 years ago thinking for me, 1995 being the last time I was in an actual studio. Today we have everything at our fingertips from the time we have that first spark of inspiration. We don't have to wait for access to the big desk or the multi-track tape machine and the Lexicon reverb that cost as much as our car, we have everything we need inside our computer, all ready to go.

After you have finished your arrangement and have all the parts nicely recorded, maybe with some additional processing, you prepare it for mixing.

No, by then it is pretty much mixed. Why the hell wouldn't you be sorting out your mix as you go? Why would you put it off?

For me, at some point I decide I'm done with the arrangement and happy with all the parts, and then prepare a session for mixing.

I don't finalise the arrangement until I've written the lyrics, as they inform the structure of the song, and that can be a year or more after I finish mixing the music. Of course, once I record the vox, there is more mixing to do but that's usually pretty quick.

This will involve things like color coding tracks, grouping things more, making naming consistent, getting organized. All to help cement that move onto the last stage mixing.

That's all stuff I do as I go, usually to occupy my hands while I am listening to the song.

There are so many ways you can mix a track, and that may even change depending on my vibe that day - so I like to try to have a mix ready to go, then mixing until it's done, hopefully quickly before I get fatigued and/or start second guessing myself. I also really enjoy this part of the process and love the "I'm now going to finish this track" aspect of this. For me, it really helps actually finish.

I never finish a song, I finish versions - the album version and the version we're rehearsing for our next round of gigs but I know there will always be another, hopefully better version, somewhere down the line. In fact, we're looking at doing an album of new versions of songs from our first couple of albums. Because the thing is, we love our music, our songs, so if we can find a way to improve a song, we'll always want to do it.

But for me the final mix session is both fun and important.

I f**king hate it. Every part of the process is misery. If someone made an application that could take an idea and turn it into exactly the finished song I wanted at the press of a button, I would press that damned button every time. Production is the suffering I go through for my art. It's only once a version of a song is finished, when I can stop listening to it critically and just bounce around the room to it, that I enjoy it. Mind you, even then I will keep picking away at it for another 6 months before I'm completely happy. You can't be objective until you are sick to death of a song.

[plexuss]

Since we are talking about process, my process is even more untraditional. I do everything in the same project. Generally the work is divided into similar contexts: arrangement, mixing and then mastering. However I do all these all at once all in the same project. I actually start the initial stages of mastering while I am doing the arrangement, if it makes sense to me to do so. Eventually I move on from arrangement and am doing more mixing, while still refining the masteing. Then I focus more on mastering and finalize that. If the project get really involved I may spin off the mastering chain into a separate project, render out the mix and bring the rendered mix into the mastering project to carry on - I only do this if I am up against CPU.

This process really irritates people that feel workflow should follow a particilar process. But those people are contraining themselves too much if they arent considering more efficient ways of working that jive better with their creative process.

The nice thing about the current state of music production is the flexibility to tailor almost everything to your own needs.

[sl1200mk2]

This process really irritates people that feel workflow should follow a particilar process. But those people are contraining themselves too much if they arent considering more efficient ways of working that jive better with their creative process.

Certainly, you should do whatever feels best and works for you. It really doesn't matter what other people think if you're achieving the results that you desire. That said, I wouldn't fully rule out listening to others and/or completely disregarding advice as we're all capable of learning and evolving our processes. I'm saying this in general terms as to the discussion... not necessarily saying that you're guilty of this.

My comment on your process is that at least IMO it's best to leave the 'mixing' and 'mastering' processes separate to a great extent. One of the main benefits of mastering and in particular to having someone else master your tracks is that person hasn't been critically involved throughout the whole process. They're not walking in knowing what's been done and haven't heard the song hundreds of times... they aren't numb to it and have 'fresh' ears. When you're attempting to do both things at the same time, it's my belief that it's very difficult to be impartial and critical enough. You're already married to all of the decisions that have taken place and it's difficult to take a step back and look at things from that vantage point.

I'm pretty sure that I recall you do mastering for others, so I'm not telling you anything you already don't know. If it works for you, it works and I can't argue that. Simply trying to have some discussion. I just think most people would be doing themselves an injustice to their work.

[plexuss]

This process really irritates people that feel workflow should follow a particilar process. But those people are contraining themselves too much if they arent considering more efficient ways of working that jive better with their creative process.

Certainly, you should do whatever feels best and works for you. [snip...]

I appreciate the ideas and perspective. Trust me, I've taken all the best practices and other ideas presented to me over the years. For my music, the over-all production quality is itimately intertwined with the performance and this is why I master while mixing. There is really no reason not to, consdiering that I have over-come some of the down-falls of this approach. Also, I've tried having otehr master my music and it's a no-go. No one is in a better position to master my music than myself.

Proof is in the pudding: www.soundcloud.com/musicofplexus

[_leras]

Since we are talking about process, my process is even more untraditional. I do everything in the same project. Generally the work is divided into similar contexts: arrangement, mixing and then mastering. However I do all these all at once all in the same project. I actually start the initial stages of mastering while I am doing the arrangement, if it makes sense to me to do so. Eventually I move on from arrangement and am doing more mixing, while still refining the masteing. Then I focus more on mastering and finalize that. If the project get really involved I may spin off the mastering chain into a separate project, render out the mix and bring the rendered mix into the mastering project to carry on - I only do this if I am up against CPU.

This process really irritates people that feel workflow should follow a particilar process. But those people are contraining themselves too much if they arent considering more efficient ways of working that jive better with their creative process.

The nice thing about the current state of music production is the flexibility to tailor almost everything to your own needs.

I think everyone is doing all of these things, and I totally agree whatever works best for peoples workflow is what they should do.

Bones keeps asking questions so I've tried to explain why things work for me, but it seems he thinks I'm always wrong!

I like to kind of mentally split things up as milestones. From ideas, extending ideas, polishing sounds (I guess a kind of pre mastering or per sounds mastering), arranging, organising, mixing, mastering. I'm not rigidly fixed to these as steps, they overlap, can be fluid, and they all contribute to the end result - but they help me set myself goals for a session, allow me to make a to do list.

But I do feel like the mixing phase is an important one - for me - as I use that to give myself the chance to say - now I will finish this track as best I can. By this stage I've usually got a fair idea of what I am after. My tracks will have already been EQ'd and compressed, but maybe not against each other except for things like kick and bass. Some sounds may have had hpf/lpf
but,
For me, the mix stage allows earlier decisions to be revisited with hopefully some more perspective. Small things can be readjusted and fine tuned e.g how far to roll off top end of some tracks to make space and perceived brightness of others, where to cut and boost things in the mid range to make things sit better together, how much to roll of low end of non kick and bass tracks. Basically all the things that can benefit from being doing cohesively.

Which, again, is why I lean towards channel strips more and more for this phase. Consistent tools => quicker results => cohesiveness.

[_leras]

But for me the final mix session is both fun and important.

I f**king hate it. Every part of the process is misery. If someone made an application that could take an idea and turn it into exactly the finished song I wanted at the press of a button, I would press that damned button every time. Production is the suffering I go through for my art. It's only once a version of a song is finished, when I can stop listening to it critically and just bounce around the room to it, that I enjoy it. Mind you, even then I will keep picking away at it for another 6 months before I'm completely happy. You can't be objective until you are sick to death of a song.

Bouncing a version of a track is a great way to separate from it, especially if you can hear it in a different context.

Everyone is different man, I mean it is leg work, but I do like the production/mixing parts. Trying to make many incremental improvements that (hopefully) add up to a better final result.

Definitely disagree that you need to be sick of a song to be objective. By then I'm burned out on it, can't make objective decisions and can go round in circles. If getting sick of something I prefer to switch to something else and leave it for a while and come back with a fresh mind, when 30 mins can fix or identify what I need to do.

[jens]

You can't be objective until you are sick to death of a song.

Wrong!

You can't EVER be subjective about a piece of music - you can't be obectctive about any work of art - be it your own one or that of others. Art simply isn't about objectivity. And that is part of its attraction. Ten people hear ten different things in the same song, see ten different things in the same painting - or perhaps even a hundred different things in the same song or picture on ten different days.

[MogwaiBoy]

Being over-exposed to your own music completely obliterates objectivity. You can no longer hear it how it would normally be heard by other people.

If I come back to a song without hearing it for YEARS, I get a brief glimpse of pure objectivity... like I'm hearing someone else's music - but then my brain slips into mix mode again

Taking breaks is the best thing, not hammering your song til' you get sick of it.

[plexuss]

Being over-exposed to your own music completely obliterates objectivity. You can no longer hear it how it would normally be heard by other people.

That's the the crux, I don't care how it would normally be heard by other people. I write and produce music for my own edification. With that there are very specific characteristics I want imparted in my music and over-all sound - there is no way I could rely on another person to achieve that for me. If my output works for other people, great. But if not, I don't really care. That is part of the freedom I achieve by decoupling the need for income from my music efforts.

[MogwaiBoy]

Being over-exposed to your own music completely obliterates objectivity. You can no longer hear it how it would normally be heard by other people.

That's the the crux, I don't care how it would normally be heard by other people. I write and produce music for my own edification. With that there are very specific characteristics I want imparted in my music and over-all sound - there is no way I could rely on another person to achieve that for me. If my output works for other people, great. But if not, I don't really care. That is part of the freedom I achieve by decoupling the need for income from my music efforts.

I'm in full agreement with you! However, for purely technical things like "Is the high end of my song too strong?" because I've heard it 3000 times and my ears have accepted the harshness.... it is good to have an 'objective' opinion, like a mastering engineer's.

But yes, absolutely agree to make music for your own gratification first and foremost. If other people like it, that's merely a bonus

[BONES]

This process really irritates people that feel workflow should follow a particilar process. But those people are contraining themselves too much if they arent considering more efficient ways of working that jive better with their creative process.

^^^^ THIS! ^^^^

The nice thing about the current state of music production is the flexibility to tailor almost everything to your own needs.

Abso-freakin'-lutely! I've always found it strange how people in the creative arts tend to be the most conservative when it comes to trying different things. It holds true here just as much as it does in the in the industry in which I work. People get comfortable with routine and resist change like it was the Plague. Sometimes there is a good reason - they don't want to learn a new, complex software application, no matter how much it might improve their work - but often it's just fear of change. Maybe they feel like an exert with the way they work and they don't want to go back to feeling like a noob. Whatever it is, it holds people back and they don't even realise it. I've been guilty of this myself, clinging onto the comfort and familiarity of Orion for far too long being a good example.

Definitely disagree that you need to be sick of a song to be objective. By then I'm burned out on it, can't make objective decisions and can go round in circles. If getting sick of something I prefer to switch to something else and leave it for a while and come back with a fresh mind, when 30 mins can fix or identify what I need to do.

That's exactly what I do. I don't work on one song at a time, I work on an album or a live set. Last night, for example, I worked on four different songs over the course of a few hours. I'll listen to a song, makes a change or two, listen again, tweak until I'm happy with that change, then move onto the next one. Tonight I will probably work on 4 other songs, although I may listen to the ones I worked on last night, just to satisfy myself they are good. But then I'll buy a new synth, like Invader or Concept, and I'll want to try and fit them into the things I am working on, so there will be more changes. Both those synths have made measurable improvements to the songs I've put them into over the last couple of weeks, even though I'd already been working on those songs for several weeks beforehand. It's an on-going, never-ending process.

You can't EVER be subjective about a piece of music...

However, you can very definitely be objective about the production values of a piece of music. But you need to be sick to death of hearing it before you can make those production decisions objectively, or at least more objectively. I'm sure we've all done it - made something we thought was brilliant, then moved onto to other things, before coming back to it a few weeks later and hearing all the problems that you were too blinded by your initial enthusiasm to hear.

That said, working with others can be a big help. My bandmate hears things that I've not noticed because I was too busy feeling clever about some other part of it I'd done a bang-up job on. And when I listen back to my last solo album, from 1996, I can hear the invaluable contribution of the studio engineer/co-producer, who had nothing invested in the songs and was focused entirely on the technical aspect of the mix. As a result, I think that album is much better produced than either of our first two albums, which was pretty much entirely my work. (From the 3rd album on, it has been a lot more collaborative and the results are way better for it.)

That's the the crux, I don't care how it would normally be heard by other people. I write and produce music for my own edification. With that there are very specific characteristics I want imparted in my music and over-all sound - there is no way I could rely on another person to achieve that for me. If my output works for other people, great. But if not, I don't really care. That is part of the freedom I achieve by decoupling the need for income from my music efforts.

That sounds really selfish. Whilst we basically do whatever the hell we want, I have learned to value collaboration in achieving my own goals. I definitely value the lack of commercial imperative in what we do but, at the same time, I'd much rather play to a packed house than 20 disinterested punters because a full house adds to my experience. When a band's performance feeds off the audience, it is a truly magical experience, one I have only ever been a part of a few times, and only as an audience member. Whilst that is a kind of Holy Grail for me, I'm not to willing to compromise what we do or who we are to achieve it because if I did that, I'd be achieving my goal under false pretenses.

[ghettosynth]

You are right. By the way, Airwindows have channel strips, too. Is there anyone around who tried these? Other things made by Chris just sound great, so I think I should take a look and listen.

http://www.airwindows.com/cstrip-vst/

So minimalism finally found its way here.

Unless I'm missing something his offerings are very limited. Nothing with variable Q and the "CStrip" doesn't even have mid-frequency adjustment. Just a three band EQ with hi/lo pass and adjustable bass/treble frequencies.

Seems like a lot of little audio experiments to me. Perhaps some of them sound great for what they are, but you really have to embrace a minimalistic and DIY attitude to use them. I think that they're too minimal as compared to even the most basic offerings discussed here.