Any way I can mimic a 90's effects rack?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Unlimited tool set, very much limited in practical knowledge, in fundamental knowledge. That is a statement of fact not a judgement. And then the expectation is that it should be easy on top of that.

Some so called engineers have exhibited clear lack of basic theoretical and practical knowledge where it actually counts. Shame really that gets hoovered up and repeated.

Democratization of tools and digital capability did not grow equally in tandem with professional training, experience, personal fortitude, reduced attention span like a disease. You need to tough it out, getting things wrong, picking yourself up, reflecting and getting better.

And to top it all off now the expectation is that soon AI will do it all for you.

Good luck, you'll be needing it.

But I'd also add, no one's really listening to the tools and engineering and capabilities. They're listening to the song first and foremost. Getting good at chosing sounds that work well together, getting a good groove going, getting a great performance out of any human elements, and having good melodies/lyrics...that's all the important stuff. If you have that stuff right, the song will mix itself with little processing and will be hard to screw up.

[Synthman2000]

My clients are and they are extremely important.

And if you trying to mock up 1995, they are listening, it becomes part of the aesthetic.

Talent and musical ideas should be fairly unchanged. It's still chord sequences, arrangements, melody and performances. And most importantly human feelings. Arguably there is less original and new ideas. Though not everything has to be original, far from it.

I don't agree that you cannot mess a good song up with lack of knowledge
and in some genres sound engineering is especially important.

[HAL76]

Looking back I think that a crucial difference between back then and today is that people were often too lazy to switch cables and make big changes of the settings but instead just switched their rack on. Or they at least had just 1, 2 or 4 racks with different FX.

A friend an me lately agreed about this. He´s still in this situation. He mainly uses presets, has two racks and doesn´t want to switch cables and move the boxes all the time. Changing the settings of e. g. an an H3000 is also pretty annoying if you ask me. I think that is also the reason why more successful producers often had several units of one type.

What I have said about combinations (racks) also implies presets/settings that reduce the complexity of possible combinations and focusses your creativity.

BlueCat´s Patchbay might be more interesting for you than new FX plugings. IK´s MixBox too. And changing your workflow.

As Reverb / Delay and modulation FX have been and still are most important you should also have an eye on the available options here.

I have lately experimentet a lot with reverb and delay and think today that is you want to have 90s sound you should better use IRs of a Quadraverb or Midiverb than a modern VST. D16 Sigmund 2 is great imhO. And the Ensemble FX that is unpopular today was the only? choice back then to make thinks sound bigger.

I´m also convinced that little delays that resulted from runtime differences are an essential part of the 90s sound, that was always a little bit (or more) "blurred".

And please don´t forget that it´s easier to "degrade" the whole track / master output than making every track sound "90s".

[HAL76]

I don't agree that you cannot mess a good song up with lack of knowledge
and in some genres sound engineering is especially important.

Some sounds just don´t work if they are not properly "mixed".

Think of a highhat pattern with reverb. It´ll normally sound just like a drum machine, maybe even like an 80s love ballad. And then maximize the loudness / limit it properly and use a gate. The result will rather sound like an early 90s techno track. Music production has made a step within these 10 years, although the elements themselves didn´t change that much.

[soundmodel]

BlueCat´s Patchbay might be more interesting for you than new FX plugings. IK´s MixBox too. And changing your workflow.

This reminds me that prior to purchasing actual 90s gear, I tried to approach it by "90sizing" the rack effects in Reason using Combinators.

So rather than, what I was used to, use RV7000 as it is, then create a combinator patch that has RV7000 + some particular EQ after it, and map the Combinator's knobs so that it feels like still using the RV7000 main controls. If you see the patches of similar tools, then they can wildly alter the "default sound" you thought your tools had.

[_leras]

Looking back I think that a crucial difference between back then and today is that people were often too lazy to switch cables and make big changes of the settings but instead just switched their rack on.

A friend an me lately agreed about this.

Lol. Yes, you and your friend must have solved this dilemma.

People in the nineties, lazy. Definitely that. /s

[ChamomileShark]

I guess it depends on which end of 90s sound you are looking for.

At the lower end there were things like the Alesis verbs (like microverb from 1996) and all the digital multiFX like the SPX90 (1985). Don't forget for those of us who were poor you'd be using mid 80s cheap digital in the 90s.

Also bear in mind that synths had started to come with their own FX so cheap verbs agogo

[Uncle E]

Yup. Several synths like the JD-990 and CS1X could only do a single channel with full effects, so we basically used them as mono timbral synths. I remember reading the review of the Novation Supernova in either Sound On Sound or Future Music, and thing mainly being lauded wasn’t the analog-like sound quality or hands-on control, but the effects.

[Alyctro]

Looking back I think that a crucial difference between back then and today is that people were often too lazy to switch cables and make big changes of the settings but instead just switched their rack on. Or they at least had just 1, 2 or 4 racks with different FX.

A friend an me lately agreed about this. He´s still in this situation. He mainly uses presets, has two racks and doesn´t want to switch cables and move the boxes all the time. Changing the settings of e. g. an an H3000 is also pretty annoying if you ask me. I think that is also the reason why more successful producers often had several units of one type.

What I have said about combinations (racks) also implies presets/settings that reduce the complexity of possible combinations and focusses your creativity.

BlueCat´s Patchbay might be more interesting for you than new FX plugings. IK´s MixBox too. And changing your workflow.

As Reverb / Delay and modulation FX have been and still are most important you should also have an eye on the available options here.

I have lately experimentet a lot with reverb and delay and think today that is you want to have 90s sound you should better use IRs of a Quadraverb or Midiverb than a modern VST. D16 Sigmund 2 is great imhO. And the Ensemble FX that is unpopular today was the only? choice back then to make thinks sound bigger.

I´m also convinced that little delays that resulted from runtime differences are an essential part of the 90s sound, that was always a little bit (or more) "blurred".

And please don´t forget that it´s easier to "degrade" the whole track / master output than making every track sound "90s".

I've found the plugin, functions similarly to Patcher in FL Studio which is what i use.
I think the grit of the 90's sound comes from audio compression due to the limited storage of the time. But also, heavy use of circuitry and tubes. Which one by one added subtle noise levels one way or another. Now i wonder, was a gate used at all in any way in these setups? Even back then, it would be pretty anoying if i was listening to buzz and white noise through an amp. It's stil a thing with my todays monitors.

[Alyctro]

Yup. Several synths like the JD-990 and CS1X could only do a single channel with full effects, so we basically used them as mono timbral synths. I remember reading the review of the Novation Supernova in either Sound On Sound or Future Music, and thing mainly being lauded wasn’t the analog-like sound quality or hands-on control, but the effects.

I imagine people preferred stuff like the JV-1080 for the presets and built in effects. It's the old school equivalent of Kontakt instruments.

[Alyctro]

I'm honestly heartfelt that i've sparked such a conversation full of talented and knowledgeable people wanting to add a piece of their experience to the table. I really appreciate all the attention and people in this thread, i never expected it to be this wide. Thank you all!

[_leras]

Yup. Several synths like the JD-990 and CS1X could only do a single channel with full effects, so we basically used them as mono timbral synths. I remember reading the review of the Novation Supernova in either Sound On Sound or Future Music, and thing mainly being lauded wasn’t the analog-like sound quality or hands-on control, but the effects.

I imagine people preferred stuff like the JV-1080 for the presets and built in effects. It's the old school equivalent of Kontakt instruments.

They were used for different things. You can't get good VA sounds out of a 1080, but I put can get a lot of bread and butter sounds e.g.basses, piano, strings , mainly though it's multi tibral and can play multiple parts at the same time.

The other synths listed could do things a 1080 can't do. Or at least cs1x also had multi timbrality, but also had a one voice VA plus FX that was more complex and had hands on controls to en extent.

[Alyctro]

Yup. Several synths like the JD-990 and CS1X could only do a single channel with full effects, so we basically used them as mono timbral synths. I remember reading the review of the Novation Supernova in either Sound On Sound or Future Music, and thing mainly being lauded wasn’t the analog-like sound quality or hands-on control, but the effects.

I imagine people preferred stuff like the JV-1080 for the presets and built in effects. It's the old school equivalent of Kontakt instruments.

They were used for different things. You can't get good VA sounds out of a 1080, but I put can get a lot of bread and butter sounds e.g.basses, piano, strings , mainly though it's multi tibral and can play multiple parts at the same time.

The other synths listed could do things a 1080 can't do. Or at least cs1x also had multi timbrality, but also had a one voice VA plus FX that was more complex and had hands on controls to en extent.

I know it's possible i just keep forgetting how to do it with the plugin version. When i made Doom music, i used the JV as sound reference. Because as everybody knows, midi doesn't make sound. Sad part was that i couldn't dictate which version of the instrument the midi should play. But in the end, everyone had different soundcards and romplers so they also used different end settings.



In this one i used the JV as reference. The more generic the rompler is the better it translates across multiples.

[sergiofrias]

uberverb for midiverb in the box
https://sergiofrias25.gumroad.com/l/UBERVERB

[HAL76]

I've found the plugin, functions similarly to Patcher in FL Studio which is what i use.
I think the grit of the 90's sound comes from audio compression due to the limited storage of the time. But also, heavy use of circuitry and tubes. Which one by one added subtle noise levels one way or another. Now i wonder, was a gate used at all in any way in these setups? Even back then, it would be pretty anoying if i was listening to buzz and white noise through an amp. It's stil a thing with my todays monitors.

"Grit" is just a term, isn´t it? I was really surprised when I switched a Korg MonoPoly on for the first time. There is was again. Instantly...

If I had to rank the factors mono would be first. And file compression as well as file types would be on the list, too - but behind many other aspects to be honest.

I have lately come to the assessment that the recording is probably more important than what we usually think about. The recordings are often really "outdated" in the narrow sense of the term

What I was thinking of when writing was mainly that FX and patches sound different when run through a signal chain. The phaser may not be the best, but it may sound great when you place it before e. g. a delay and a reverb. Not to forget that not everybody had more than one compressor back then.

I think gates were pretty popular back then and also shaped the sound of numerous techno stylistics.