Is virtual analog an advertising ploy?

[noiseboyuk]

There's a whole lotta issues getting conflated here, Bones. Back in the 80s it was very hard to do stuff on a budget that competed with Trevor Horn and Steve Lipson, even in professional studios. I know, I tried (and failed).

So that's one thing. The next is what constitutes "better". Technically it is absolutely beyond question that between 1980 and 2000 the basic quality of everything went through the roof. And that was because of digital. By the late 80s 16 bit digital was commonplace. I remember the thrill of recording straight out of a midi setup (with high speed 6 track cassette for vocals) to DAT - holy moly. No hiss! No lack of top end! No noise reduction artefacts! It sounded identical!

Then somewhere along the line people started to notice that although it was technically better, artistically it didn't always SOUND better. Oxygene sounded better and infinitely more inspired than Rendezvous, and it was recorded in Jean Michel Jarre's kitchen in 1976. Lo-fi broke out in dance music in particular (eg Papua New Guinea by Future Sound Of London). Before we knew it, we were on the path of fetishising all the blemishes of which we once wanted to rid ourselves. You mentioned print through - people are trying to emulate that now, once a scourge. Ever since the first guitar amp got overloaded, people have been thrilled by imperfections - hiss, hum, distortion. Much of what is celebrated now was once a mistake, something engineers tried to get rid of.

Huge is now trivial. More of anything is trivial. We once had 4 track portastudios and we wanted to sound like Sarm West. Now we can, in minutes. A fake Superior Drummer now sounds better than 98% of anything in the 80s, and it can effortlessly do tricks not possible without insane levels of effort back then.

But so what?

Your two tracks are REALLY interesting. I can hear a hundred flaws in the 80s version, you I'm sure can hear a million. It was nothing like the track you wanted to make then. But it had its own charm. Now you can re-do it, it... well, sounds like everything else and has no impact (a bit harsh... personal taste, it's just not my thing).

Artists have no crutches any more. A big production no longer impresses. It's amazingly hard to sound different. IMO it's the voice (metaphorical and sometimes literal) of the artist, the skill of the songwriter and touch of the producer in bringing it to life - these are the only things left that cut through.

So instead we go on eternal quests to find perfect analogue emulations of 50 year old gear. Displacement activity IS the industry.

[BONES]

No, it doesn't - it only shows what you got out of it.

Except as I'v said and you've acknowledged below, it wasn't just me. I wouldn't even say it was mostly me.

So you got screwed royally - that is still off topic.

Again, not me, it was the best they could do with the gear they had. All analogue, all worse than just using whatever comes with your DAW. If you think putting that shit back into your mix makes it better, you're crazy.

[j wazza]

it sometimes is just an advertising ploy for shit plugins that are basically a lowpass filter, but its definitely not always an advertising ploy. analog is a real thing that can sound great and virtual analog can sometimes sound like it and also sound great.
it is partly an advertising ploy, id say most or at least a huge amount of plugins claim to do a bit of analog modelling, but a lot dont sound analog (even though non analog can sound great too)

[sQeetz]

Again, not me, it was the best they could do with the gear they had.

I don't believe the gear they had had anything to do with the shitty outcome.
Lots of studios had bad gear and would produce better sounding stuff than that.
It's anecdotal and not representative of anything, IMHO...

[Tj Shredder]

I think BONES underestimates his gain of skills in those years. The best and cleanest equipment can’t compensate a mediocre composition/arrangement/sound design… The old stuff doesn’t even sound analog…

[sQeetz]

I think BONES underestimates his gain of skills in those years.

That's the issue with whatever BONES says. It's anecdotal. It's a collegue who does stuff that way, it's a guy who disagrees and has been doing it for ages hence an expert and does do it his way... He is so wrong on so many issues, insists on proof and disregards them it it does not fit his agenda...
It's so exhausting somehow. I don't know any person who is like that IRL (in real life)

[nirm123]

absolutely

[Pilonsky]

Another thing: I don't know how you feel about crest factor as a measuring tool, but buss compression actually increases crest factor. It actually lowers the potential loudness of your mix. I kept on getting to about a crest factor of 12 without any compression. Then by the time I was done buss compressing and doing some compressing on the master, my crest factor would be at about 16! I mean thats the wrong direction. Ive tried it many times, and its always the same result.

So this sounds like you are increasing the difference between your peaks and your average. Likely you need to play around with the attack and release times.

This means that you are compressing such that you are letting peaks through, but clamping down after that. Which can be fine and could maybe make things more punchy.

Often bus compression might be gentler, bring down the peaks and not clamp down so much after. After bringing your peaks back to the same level (make up gain/output) then non peaky parts will be brought up higher in volume than when they started.

Also, for busses how much gain reduction are you going for? 2-4db might be a good aim.

Ive tried that, but if I go increase the attack to decrease the peak, then the kick drum sounds like crap. Ive tried leaving the kick drum out, but then thing is that if you want to pump the bass you need the kick drum. And if I decrease the attack time so the compressor has as less of an effect on the kick as possible, then I start compressing the sustained part of the sound more, which increases the ration between peak and sustain, which increases crest factor, which eats up into potential loudness in your buss. And yes Ive tried hitting it gentle for. only 2-4db of gain reduction. And Ive played around with the ratio, attack, release, knee, threshold, all of it.

I mix better without compression. I don't need it for loudness, because I can get a crest factor of 12 on my mixes without any compression. Then a little buss compression and limiting and Im at a crest factor of 9-10 pretty easy, and by then my LUFS is where it should be (Im not going for Trance/EDM super squashed sound.

The only thing Im trying to figure out is: how to get that pumping house sound without a) making my kick sound like crap, and b) without increasing the crest factor to where I then I have to limit more at the end for decent loudness.

[BONES]

Lots of studios had bad gear and would produce better sounding stuff than that.

I think it sounds great, in that it is well produced. It's just the sounds that are krap which, of course, is down to me and all that lovely analogue gear I had to work with.

It's anecdotal and not representative of anything, IMHO...

It's my first-hand experience, all you have is supposition. You assume that other stuff that sounds better does so for a specific reason but you have no way of knowing that. I think it is far more likely that better sounding works just had more time spent on them. The biggest restriction we had was time, not the type or quality of the equipment we were using. But, of course, that doesn't suit your narrative so you'll likely ignore it, as you seem to do with any facts that don't suit you.

[Tj Shredder]

The only thing Im trying to figure out is: how to get that pumping house sound without a) making my kick sound like crap, and b) without increasing the crest factor to where I then I have to limit more at the end for decent loudness.

Pumping house sounds are annoying anyway. Its an (usually unwanted) artifact and if you insist on it, you could achieve it by adding a side chained enveloped noise sample which you could design to taste…

[jens]

It's my first-hand experience, all you have is supposition. You assume that other stuff that sounds better does so for a specific reason but you have no way of knowing that.

That is again an argument that has it all backwards... all we have is our experience of having listened to thousands of records for tens of thousands of hours over the course of decades. Most of the recorded music is out there as accessible evidence so what do you mean with "all you have is supposition"?

This is from 1978, a moment or two before the digital revolution (so it's all analog):




You make the typical mistake of blaming the tools.

[sQeetz]

It's my first-hand experience, all you have is supposition.

That's your assumption. Again, I've been doing this longer than some people here are old. Which in itself doesn't mean shit, nonetheless.

[BONES]

Do you even f**king know what an assumption is? I don't have to assume anything, I was f**king there. And I've probably been doing this lnoger than you are old.

This is from 1978, a moment or two before the digital revolution (so it's all analog):

Yeah and they were so pleased with it they completely re-recorded it a couple of years later (on Travelogue). And, for the record, it sounds pretty f**king awful. The drums, in particular, are really, really bad and the synths are weak, too, much like my early stuff. I got this song in 1979 on the Fast Product sampler LP. I'm still not 100% happy with my version but it definitely soudns way better than the original.

And this is beyond analogue, they recorded it live to a two-track tape, by disabling the erase head on their Sony reel-to-reel, overdubbing each part as they went, in the front room of someone's house. Imagine how many times they'd have had to start again from scratch. It's incredible what they managed to achieve like that and Circus of Death is even better (but they re-recorded that, too). I reckon there was at least one serious perfectionist in that crew.

[jens]

Exactly my point. It sounds marvellous because they knew exactly what they were doing - a really gifted bunch of musos there... I purposely chose this version - which clearly still is on a whole other planet quality-wise as compared to you own example in my opinion - over the '82 version that is soaked in reverb in comparison.

[sQeetz]

And I've probably been doing this lnoger than you are old.

That's your assumption once again. How old are you? 80? I mean: I'm flattered that you assume I'm about 30? maybe? 35?