Parameter redundancy in music software

[humanboeing]

Do you prefer your music software to have multiple ways of achieving the same thing or not?

Let's take a look at two theoretical examples:

1. Stock compressor - beside the usual compressor parameters it also has input gain and output gain, but every DAW has a gain plugin, therefore making these parameters redundant.

2. Stock reverb - let's say your stock reverb has an eq section at the very end.

An argument for having multiple ways of doing the same is that if you pull up a plugin, you can do most of what's needed to be done inside - it's quick and intuitive.

On the contrary, everytime you load a plugin which has many options, you're probably eating up your pc resources, whereas you might not use all the extra stuff in there. Like in the reverb example, everytime you load it, you're also loading its eq, which you might not use, but if you needed to eq your reverb, you could instead insert a separate eq afterwards, without having the eq baked into reverb.

I'm interested in hearing out your takes on this subject.

[qtheerearranger]

1. because many producers and engineers practice what is called gain matching (matching your input and output on the compressor) this is a very common technique. ask a developer why they do it. i cant say but my guess is quality of life..

2. because people like to cut out unwanted frequencies in reverb... unless youve got a simple 8 track mix with a bunch of instruments playing a limited dynamic frequency range your project will get very muddy very quickly. same thing as 1. this is a very common technique. i would ask a developer why they do it. I cant say but my guess is quality of life.

I assure you make up / output gain isnt eating the resources on your pc. maybe eq on a reverb does but not in comparison to the reverb. these usually arent the highest quality eqs in the. reverbs they are usually just to cut/shelf/with 1 to 2 parametric eq choices. sometimes the eqs are high quality this isnt a golden rule. but a lot of reverbs just have cuts and cross overs too and no further eq options.

I think this is where a daw like bitwig or something like max for live comes into play. if these are all bloated features to you, I would say expect these to be very common. If you want to get rid of them maybe making your own devices is calling your name. i dont say that insultingly i dont use bitwig or max for live im just saying if you dont like these very common practices maybe you can be creative with those ideas on a daw that lets you explore making devices the way you want.

even a rule like gain matching isnt a golden rule. eqing reverbs i couldn't imagine without but maybe theres a world where these are the foundation of someones creativity. i would think it impossible personally. but its creativity. do what you want to do.

[kritikon]

Never used a gain plugin ever. Does every DAW have one? Never seen one in Cubase (but then I've never actually looked as I never needed one). TBH gain plugins are redundant IMO - every plugin and hw has a volume knob or output control, DAW channels have faders, gain etc, as do mixers. There are busses on mixers if you want to play around with multiple gains outside of the main mix. Compressors have so many ways of playing with volume that you'd have to be a bit mad to want to use a gain plugin.

Aside from that, to start mucking around Eqing verbs etc because FX don't have it on board starts to get pretty complicated pretty quickly. Not everyone is on top spec DAWs with unlimited channels, aux, busses, routing etc. Way back in the day I used to run a 24channel in-line mixer with 8 busses and to do fancy stuff like dub delays meant returning your aux to channels so you could Eq then send feedback. Even on a big mixer that ate through channels quickly and seriously limited it. Not sure you thought it through. You can go the modular DAW route if that's your thing but it's less easy then using plugins that actually have the features included inside. I don't find that redundancy, more like useful features.

[humanboeing]

Thanks for input, now I'm thinking about this I come to the conclusion that if a parameter is expected to be used frequently and is not resource hungry, it should be included, especially something as basic as gain.

[AdvancedFollower]

Having multiple functions in the same plugin saves a lot of time and makes routing and organization easier. There are other examples like reverbs/delays with a built-in ducker which save you from having to set up a separate compressor and side chains. Channel strip-type plugins allow you to perform most common tasks from one interface instead of toggling between plugins. Then there are clever plugins like Trackspacer and Smooth Operator that combine several advanced processing techniques into a simple interface.

I trust plugin developers to optimize their plugins to disable processing for modules that aren't active. If anything, using fewer plugins might save on RAM and CPU compared to using multiple simple plugins.