Optimal FX Chain Order!!!!

[egbert101]

I keep my stuff so it's there if I need to use it, and over the years, if it's never going to be used then yeah, delete. As for freedom, yeah it's entirely enjoyable doing without, and a surprisingly different process resulting in less ear fatigue. Enjoy!

[imrae]

From a technical standpoint the thing to be aware of is that some effects are linear time-invarient (LTI): clean gain/pan, EQ, Delay and reverb. LTI effects can be arranged in any order and give exactly the same effect. (They can also be combined into an IR!)

Otherwise, the order makes a difference and you should think about how that will interact with what you are doing.

(Strictly delay/verb are not LTI if they have modulation, but in practive the impact is small.)

[thecontrolcentre]

There is no chain to rule them all. Use what is needed.

[MadDogE134]

track chain? would probably be...

Fix (first)
Enhance (second)

then mild clip or brickwall if enhancement causes overages. the fix is what it needs... then enhance if it needs it. many times i print/render/dump the fixes as opposed to just keep adding plugs all at once making a long serial chain. (of course keep the original source if you feel you want to start over lol)

i try to do very little on the mixbus except maybe a glue/comp and maybe a bit of EQ to compensate for what the comp may have rounded off then maybe a stereo image if too centric. that is for mixing... or how i tend to work. as for plugs used... it depends on the source.

i try to keep mastering as a whole other process. imo it is a poor idea to try and do them together. you will quickly lose focus i think

cheers

p.s. during the fix i use clean/digital EQ for cuts... during enhancement i use character EQ and comps for boosts and gains. saturation as needed to taste

[foosnark]

Exactly, don't mix at all, and just have fun making music, and choosing sounds that work together. If you simply can't live without some kind of effect, then gradually add it in, as minimal as possible.

So much time and money invested in FX Plugs. Any suggestions? Delete and move on? One part of me thinks about cleaning house, and I have a sense of freedom, then I freak out and think about the loss.

Sell off stuff that you're not using after a while, but IMHO it's very satisfying to learn how to make the tools work for you.

[Uncle E]

If you EQ before compressing, you'll have to adjust your compressor every time you make an EQ change. I always compress first simply for efficiency.

[jamcat]

If you EQ before compressing, you'll have to adjust your compressor every time you make an EQ change. I always compress first simply for efficiency.

In the preferred consoles for tracking, (vintage Neve, API, Helios), the preamp modules have 3 or 4 fixed bands of EQ. These console don't have compression on every channel, but have anywhere from 1 to 4 buss compressors that can be used. Often a track is printed with some gentle compression from one of these buss comps, or from an LA-2A or other opto compressor, or an 1176, or some combination of the above. For this reason, historically, the order during tracking has been EQ first, then compression, when printing to tape. Both the EQ and compression in this context is used broadly just for getting a good raw sound to tape.

Mixing consoles that came about in the '80s, (namely SSL), have more surgical parametric EQ and VCA compression on every channel, and have flexible routing of either EQ+comp, or comp+EQ. It's during mixing that more heavy EQ and compression will be used in order to carve tracks to fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Here, compression and then EQ is typically preferred, for the reasons you describe.

Recording to tape from an analogue desk and then mixing on a mixing console will determine most of your signal path. It's a much more organic process that just makes sense and answers these questions for you, or negates the need to even ask them. And it results in the sound that we're all after: the sound of a record.

So personally, I do believe there is such a thing as an optimal FX chain order.

[jamcat]

track chain? would probably be...

Fix (first)
Enhance (second)

[...]

p.s. during the fix i use clean/digital EQ for cuts... during enhancement i use character EQ and comps for boosts and gains. saturation as needed to taste

I think you have your order backwards. You're putting your 'mixing' tasks ahead of your 'tracking' tasks. See above.

[Uncle E]

Sure, that's one of many great reasons to EQ first. I compress first for efficiency (let's call it what it is: laziness) but it's not the perfect method. And if I'm working with audio files, I'll have already batch processed out sub-sonics before even getting to that point.

[jamcat]

Also, when doing your "character" EQ and compression, which as I pointed out above, is really the same task as "getting good sound to tape," you're working with a single instrument at a time, not in the context of a whole mix. Your focus should be exclusively on making that particular instrument sound as good as it can in isolation. Broad, fixed band EQ is great for that. It's what you'd use your modeled Neve and API EQ plugins for. Preferably ones that include the preamp modeling as well. Once you have gotten the instrument sounding its empirical best, you don't need to change it further.

But when it comes time to make that great sounding instrument fit in a mix with a bunch of other great sounding instruments, you're going to need to carve it up and smash it down. And you'll need to do the same with everything else in the mix. That will require a second round of EQ and compression on everything, to follow after your initial "character" EQ and compression. Here, every change to one instrument affects every other instrument. It's a delicate balancing act. If your mixing EQ is in front of your mixing compressor, then every EQ change will affect how the compressor responds, which will require further adjustments, not only to that track, but every thing else, too. And you'll go around and around in circles as every time your fix one problem, it creates a new one.

[tommyzai]

Fixing first makes sense to because otherwise you may be enhancing and multiplying unwanted sounds, right? That must at least be true with time-based FX.

[jamcat]

Fixing first makes sense to because otherwise you may be enhancing and multiplying unwanted sounds, right? That must at least be true with time-based FX.

I don't think so, because a big part of "fixing" is fixing within the context of the entire song. A bad frequency might only be bad because of how it's interacting with other instruments through masking. What needs to be "fixed" will depend largely on what else is sounding at the same time, and how you've "fixed" those other instruments.

So first you get the instruments sounding good by themselves, so they are the best representation of what you want to convey from that instrument. Perhaps you want your toms to ring out with lots of tone, and your guitar to sound sharp and angular. So you use character EQ and compression to bring out those qualities. This is the most important task during tracking.

Now that you have each instrument on tape shaped the way you want, you move on to the task of mixing, making them work together so they don't mask and crowd each other. This is a totally separate process than capturing good sound.

So "character" first, "fix" second. That's how it's done in recording studios.

[MadDogE134]

I think you have your order backwards. You're putting your 'mixing' tasks ahead of your 'tracking' tasks. See above.

don't track much anything these days... mostly just mixing for others and occasional mastering... so basically i don't have tracking tasks so it is downright impossible to have them backwards unless you consider the print of fixes AS tracking. which i suppose is your prerogative.

cheers

[jamcat]

I think you have your order backwards. You're putting your 'mixing' tasks ahead of your 'tracking' tasks. See above.

don't track much anything these days... mostly just mixing for others and occasional mastering... so basically i don't have tracking tasks so it is downright impossible to have them backwards unless you consider the print of fixes AS tracking. which i suppose is your prerogative.

cheers

It doesn't have to be literal tracking. Any plugin you use comes after literal tracking, unless you are actually recording with live plugins in place, which is pointless in an all digital environment.

But if you are enhancing the instruments with EQ, compression, saturation, de-essers, etc, to sound their best, you are for all intents and purposes doing exactly what a recording engineer would do during tracking. And that should come first.

[Uncle E]

Still today, though? Many engineers I talk to have assistants who clean up the files before they begin mixing.

Personally, all I care about is convenience. If I do all my RX Batch Processing after mixing, it's going to change how the dynamics processors respond and I'll probably need to go back to tweak the mix.