Which plugin has done the most damage to audio quality?

[Ploki]

But my vote goes to izotope ozone,
Specifically imager.
So many destroyed stereo images in budget production. Still get mixes with wrecked stereo.

Second contender “monoizers”

moreso than with other plugins, i had to request mix corrections for masters because some overzealous aficionado went haywire with izotope imager or they saw someone's yt video how "EVERYTHING BELOW X HERTZ SHOLD BE MONO"

[LeVzi]

The TPain effect with Autotune then, that would have to be the worst thing i've heard of since it happened.

God damn you Cher !!!!

[Guenon]

The thing is, if the question was instead, which plugins have elevated the material they are used on, polished the sound, helped in bringing forth new aesthetics that people have resonated with, and so on - the potential answers would also be naming plugins and processes already familiar from this thread.

Posing the question from the viewpoint of damage means well, yet someone starting out can easily see it as gatekeep-y and "you're not worthy to use this and this" - indeed, it's nice to know powerful processes can be overdone, but then again, that goes for everything. Experiment with the extremes, too, and even deliberately misuse your tools once in a while if you feel like it - after all, that's how new sounds sometimes come about.

There's a lot of historical commentary on how distorted guitars are absolutely damaging to the sound of music.

[jens]

whatever they used on st anger drums.

same thing they already used on the "and Justice for All" -bass-guitar sound - they call it "Lars Ulrich", but I think "Dimwit" would have been a much more appropriate name.

[cron]

We all know them - those popular but powerful plugins that, in the wrong hands, can be hugely destructive.

I'll start: OTT

A recent thread about OTT alternatives reminded me of this Soundgooderizer alternative

People (largely the EDM crowd) have used this on individual channels, then buses, and then even the master... it truly is Over The Top. As a special effect, sure - but as a shortcut to good mix balancing practices, you gotta be kidding. If used in a heavy-handed manner, OTT is a surefire way to obliterate natural dynamics, punch and even phase coherence.

How could you, Xfer...

Runner-up: Sausage Fattener

I'll second this in the EDM world, but go a little further and add that it's done the most damage to clubbing. The problem with Youtube tutorials is that they inevitably promote an Americanised approach to dance music production, and dance music in the US (or rather certain genres of it) seems to mostly have more of a superclub or festival kind of vibe. You might get away with overuse of OTT in such spaces (particularly open-air festivals) but it sounds like dogshit in the myriad small spaces where club culture is a little more ingrained in the general population and large clubbing spaces/festivals have vanishingly little prominence.

The transformation of dubstep is like the ur-text here. From a sound with loads of bass, space, and breathing room - tuned for the obscenely clear and loud sound system in the obscenely small space at FWD>> - to mid-range scream with OTT on everything. I'm sure it sounds great at a festival and on a mobile phone, but in the small clubs I'm used to? Nah.

I saw Blanck Mass in the minuscule space at Rich Mix semi-recently and I couldn't even hear where the beats were most of the time - even with high quality earplugs in.

I appreciate it's not as simple as "US is festivals/stadiums, Europe is clubs," and that the stadium/festival presentation/mainstreaming of much visible dance music in the US is a relatively recent phenomenon. Dance music began and was developed in US clubs after all, and US no doubt has a vibrant clubbing scene going on beneath the mainstream activity. It's more that huge dance music events, even in the mainstream, have much less prominence elsewhere.

[cantaloupe]

Great post, cron. Haven't thought about it like that.

[highkoo]

But my vote goes to izotope ozone,
Specifically imager.
So many destroyed stereo images in budget production. Still get mixes with wrecked stereo.

Second contender “monoizers”

moreso than with other plugins, i had to request mix corrections for masters because some overzealous aficionado went haywire with izotope imager or they saw someone's yt video how "EVERYTHING BELOW X HERTZ SHOLD BE MONO"

Well now youre just trying to hurt my feelings.


cron, you nailed it. OTT squeezed the bass out of bass music.
To the point that, when you go to youtube to see how the gurus 'process their bass sounds', its.. not even bass. Much of the time their 'bass' is mostly super high end screeching these days. Up is down, loud is quiet, OTT is the soundgooderer.

[vurt]

whatever they used on st anger drums.

same thing they already used on the "and Justice for All" -bass-guitar sound - they call it "Lars Ulrich", but I think "Dimwit" would have been a much more appropriate name.

justice was saved by having d cent bloody songs though.
black album onwards, they sounded more like teenagers than when they were writing kill em all

exit light enter night

f**k off.

[chk071]

Yeah, my vote goes to multiband compression, master spatializer and autotune.

What's wrong with L2 BTW? Not a Waves fanboy, don't own a single Waves plugin nor do I intend to, just curious.

I read a lot of complaints about the sound of L1 (mainly on Gearsl...space), and how you could hear it in many chart productions, and bla. People can't even hear the characteristics of certain brands' synthesizers. How would they be able to hear what kind of limiter is used?

I call nonsense.

[Halonmusic]

hmm not shure. i dont often do these kind of audio mangling/destruction kind of things tbh. Maybe Audio Assault Grind Machine or Audio Damage Fuzzplus 3 or Roughrider.

[t3toooo]

"Karli's cough detector VSP" is the worst.
But as you all know, It is a purely subjective sensation that should not harm and influence anybody in any case. See it as a kind of " vegan belief " or if you wish a " Vegan cult " A knowledge, whether it is true or not. It is, however so unimportant that it might not be written at all.
Only a few have the right of course but that could "break the mold" and life is much too short to speculate about "conspi theoremz" which in this case I'm shuddering to write about because then its going such a complicated direction but you know what I mean.

[plexuss]

At first nothing came to mind. Then after a few days it hit me: the brickwall limiter. A digital-only processor that can easily suck the instanteous and short term dynamics out of audio, raise the noise floor and cause up-stream intermodulation distortion.

[Winstontaneous]

whatever they used on st anger drums.

Funny, but agree 1000%. I actually just listened to a podcast on that album, and they discussed how Lars actually loosened up the snare to purposely get that sound. Ugh...

I think they found a trash can ("rubbish bin" as we call them) in the back alley and were like "Lars, this could totally be your snare"

and inbetween gum chews Lars was like "Totally"

And then they cascaded it through six 1176's, and Inflator, ofcourse

Can Metallica even hear what they're doing over the sound of money rolling in? They made the bass inaudible on "…And Justice for All" to haze Jason Newsted after Cliff Burton's death. What kind of fools sabotage their own music and production to be cruel to a fellow band member?!

[jamcat]

Speaking of Lars, he famously said, “It’s 2008, and that’s how we make records,” in response to the Loudness War casualty that was Death Magnetic. I'm sure Waves L2 was involved.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/metallica-253-1335820

[Ploki]

At first nothing came to mind. Then after a few days it hit me: the brickwall limiter. A digital-only processor that can easily suck the instanteous and short term dynamics out of audio, raise the noise floor and cause up-stream intermodulation distortion.

That’s why i clip instead