Why to have a preamp plugin?

[Bombadil]

Double-blind. Can't have the ol' demand characteristics.

[ramseysounds]

But that’s too simple an idea. Take your common sense and be gone

[elassi]

if only there was some way, that people could demonstrate these things...

like a blind test….

[Bombadil]

I strongly doubt that preamp plugs emulate properly the hardware they're based on. I have a cheapish hardware pre (FMR Audio RNP) and it does add depth and harmonics.
But you can quickly go broke buying studio grade hardware pres.

[ramseysounds]

Ive come to the conclusion that I agree with the saying ‘if it sounds good then it is good’.
Everyone who wants to quote science and this and that and be semantic, are basically just quoting mush in an echo chamber and do one. I’m no longer interested.

[mystran]

The way our perception works is really funny. A photograph of the sun shining on the sky can seem really bright when seen on a computer screen (or television, whatever), yet we don't usually even think about maximum black text on maximum white background on the very same screen.

Similar things happen with hearing and a bit of distortion can act a psychoacoustic cue for loudness, even if there's not much difference in actual signal energy. Especially if compression is applied after the distortion to even out the actual dynamics, the "fake" loudness cues from the distortion could act to enhance the dynamics as far as our perception is concerned. Perhaps this is what people describe as additional "depth"?

There's also some other funny things going on with our perception with regards to harmonics. There's the missing fundamental stuff and the whole shepard tones business, but even more ordinarily the way we localize sounds is a combination of different cues at different frequency ranges, so perhaps if the original sound is lacking sufficient localization cues due to being too clean, adding a bit of saturation could help "ground" the sound by the virtue of the distortion providing stronger cues and hence enchance the spatial perception across the mix, which could also reasonable be called "depth"?

Finally, if saturation is applied separately to separate tracks, the distortion cues (which are different for different tracks now) could help our brain to separate the sounds from each other, which could again be reasonably called "depth" I think. The exact opposite of this would be saturation (or compression, etc) applied on the mix as a whole acting to "glue" the track together by providing distortion cues that suggest it's a single signal.

Perhaps there's more that I can't think of right now, but even ignoring personal preferences one way or another, from the psychoacoustics point of view there are some valid reasons why some saturation might indeed help fool our perception in ways that could be reasonably described as "adding depth" (for better or worse) especially when intentionally applied with this specific goal in mind. I'd rather say that our vocabularity for describing these subtle cues tends to be rather vague and ambiguous.

[vurt]

I'd rather say that our vocabularity for describing these subtle cues tends to be rather vague and ambiguous.

yup, which is why something like some sort of audio demonstration would be nice.

[roman.i]

How you decide which distortion to use? Pre amp, Clipper, or just a Distortion?

[vurt]

How you decide which distortion to use? Pre amp, Clipper, or just a Distortion?

well, i start by not owning a clipper, which reduces the choices.

then, between my pres and distortion (Inc fuzz, wavefolders/shapers, overdrives...) it depends both on what im "distorting" and where in the chain, plus the different characters the options offer.

the character wins out in the end i think, as which i will use, as the sound at the end is the important factor

[zerocrossing]

It’s just an effect like any other. Unless you’re taking a digital output directly from an instrument, you have already used a preamp. Most audio interfaces have very clean and transparent preamps. A preamp emulation mimics one that’s got saturation characteristics that people like in some cases. Usually it’s also got some EQ as well. I like to use them after particularly “digital” sounding plugins, like FM8.

[vurt]

It’s just an effect like any other. Unless you’re taking a digital output directly from an instrument, you have already used a preamp. Most audio interfaces have very clean and transparent preamps. A preamp emulation mimics one that’s got saturation characteristics that people like in some cases. Usually it’s also got some EQ as well. I like to use them after particularly “digital” sounding plugins, like FM8.

that's if he's using external gear, for vsts, it's always a digital input

but yes, post instrument, is generally where a preamp will go.
although this is not concrete as "whatever sounds good is good"

you might accidentally drop the preamp after your delay, and it will hit you different! but you like the effect, then use it!
this is the time to be creative

[osiris]

Hmm. I had to get a pre amp when I digitized my vinyl. Turntables alone apparently don't have enough output. So it's too boost levels. People use them on guitars to boost volume and add stuff like saturation and distortion.

[jamcat]

How you decide which distortion to use? Pre amp, Clipper, or just a Distortion?

A preamp is for relatively clean gain increases. The transformer introduces added harmonics, which can give a subtle exciter effect and enhance the detail. If you boost it enough, you’ll start getting distortion on louder sections.

Clippers are just for making obnoxiously loud music obnoxiously louder. They boost the level across the board and cut off the peaks at 0dB.

A tube modeled distortion will deform the waveform rather than just clipping it. As the gain increases, sine waves become more shark fin shaped. This transforms the sound into something more akin to a saw, with all its buzz.

So the effects are quite different. You should generally know what you want, and choose accordingly.

[whyterabbyt]

How you decide which distortion to use? Pre amp, Clipper, or just a Distortion?

dowsing rod, mostly.

[tidus1990]

UAD has some great preamp colors