Slate Virtual Console Plugin is now available

[bmanic]

The problem with doing direct VCC on, VCC off examples is that I've "mixed into" the plugins quite a bit. This means that of course the VCC examples will sound quite a lot better because they are so different!

Sorry to spoil it, but ... what's the point then in doing it?

Why can't someone who's got the VCC take one guitar riff, one bass riff, a drum loop, and maybe some vocal snippet and just slam the VCC on them for one and ... well, not slam it onto the other?
Can't be that hard. If I had it, I'd take these 5 minutes.

+1

It's been done several times already with the earlier betas but perhaps using the search function here is a bit tedious a task?

Anyhow, I'll do just that if I have time tomorrow at the studio. Actually I'll just take some of my own silly projects, render the tracks into reaper and process them with VCC for a quick A/B. I'll also demonstrate how it sounds when driving the things hard or when not driving things at all (keeping levels at -18dBFS or less).

That ok?

EDIT: bryan k posted some pretty good examples on gearslutz of each of the VCC consoles. http://www.gearslutz.com/board/6436663-post334.html

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

1. For users: So, does this plugin make mixing your tracks easier? In other words, closer to that "big studio" sound than before mixing in the box? What makes it a game changer and worth me shelling out $250?

In my opinion, yes. Mixing gets a whole lot easier. I think the compression that happens is one of the biggest reasons for this. Unless you are in the habit of thoroughly controlling (control ≠ squashing things to death) the dynamics of each and every channel in your mix then the VCC plugin can help by doing it for you.

A friend of mine who I showed some direct VCC on/off examples simply put it as "It sounds more 'expensive' with VCC on.. I can hear the 'money'".

I know this doesn't help the hype situation at all so I just recommend you try it out yourself.

2. If you own TRIGGER how would you recommend using VCC. I'm thinking just on the master channel and none on the individual tracks since. I'm curious how Mr. Slate uses his drum samples with VCC.

Why would you use it only on the master channel? The whole point of the VCC plugin suite is to work kind of like a mixing desk. Especially for drums it will make quite a difference to have the VCC channel plugin on each individual sound and then also on the various groups. When I mix drums I usually have a general drumbus, a "motown"/parallel compression bus and a drums+bass group where I combine all drum and bass heavy elements. I'd put VCC plugins on all of these elements at the start of mixing and then see what works and what doesn't. Better to start with VCC all over the place and then slowly removing the superfluous ones to save some CPU.

Cheers!
bManic

[Dean Aka Nekro]

I am slowly but steadily crumbling into "I gotta try this thing!" territory you swines! I should unsubcribe from this one to save money but it might be just what the doctor ordered

[DF2R]

Reallly interested in this. Have to buy one of those iLok thingies now so I can try it out.

[Compyfox]

... In this case the VCC on an effects return/channel would be pre-fader so that my automation doesn't change the drive of the plugin.. but now that you've said it.. automating stuff pre-FX is actually not a bad idea at all! For instance one could drive each VCC channel just a bit more towards the end of a song or at a climax.

Well, it would make more sense if we talk about the routing:

Desk -> External FX -> back to desk

Haven't tested it myself with VCC though.

What do you mean by "desk calibration"? Is this a new function in the final? What does it do? Is it auto compensated like with BootEQmkII?

Yes it is a new function. As I understand it you can calibrate the 0dBu and dbFS relationship so that -24dBFS represents 0dBU or up to -6dBFS being 0dBu.

This is a tad confusing.
I thought we're talking about +4dBu if it comes to working levels and not +0dBu?

On top of it, if your PC is setup to +4dBu (In/Out) already, is there a need to calibrate VCC? How does this even work? (here a video would work wonders!)

Basically you can use this to "drive" the console. I'm not sure though if it is a global setting or per plugin instance or if it is handled per group. There is also a "drift" function but I am unsure what that does once it is enabled (at the moment it isn't available yet, just there teasing us).

Way over my head at the moment unless I get a hand on a proper manual, the most recent version and maybe one or two video tutorials.

So far I used VCC (as recommended) like this:
VCC Channel as Insert 1 on each channel - here however, the VU showed some crazy readouts (signal too strong or too soft). Guess this was a bug in Beta2. I never touched the input gain that way, since it was never really documented, and the VU was not acourate either.

VCC MIX BUSS - on Slot 1 of the master bus (Stereo Out). Here I haven't touched the gain knob either, but I encountered what I wrote with my first posts (the overdriven signal, which I had to compensate, but had no real effect other than -80dBFS artefacts).

So this whole "configuring" is a nice offer, but wouldn't it be useless in a pure digital realm? It makes sense on a real desk, but here it's usually setup (or leveled in) for +4dBu already.

*scratches head* Or... am I thinking wrong here?

There have been some significant improvements to the plugin both in sound quality and features, at least in my opinion. I'm pretty sure you'll be very pleased with the latest version!

I need to get my iLok2 first.
Ordered it this weekend from Slate Digital - now it's down to waiting.

No, when I talk about "driving" the plugin with lots of input gain I always mean an external plugin and another one to compensate for it after the VCC plugin. In reaper I use the simple JS plugin called Volume and in other hosts it's usually Sonalksis Free-G.

Well, still it's what the input gain is there for, no?

But as written a bit further up, with Beta2, this didn't really work due to the VU. On top of it, shouldn't VCC Channel work more like this?

Insert Slot 1: VCC - handles the input gain stage
Insert Slots 2-6 (all Pre-Fader): whatever you feel like)
- FADER
Insert Slots 7 or 8: VCC - to get more control over the dynamic sound of a mixing desk.

If you have VCC in front of your FX, you get the "desk sound" only, but don't you want to overdrive the channel on purpose by inserting FX modules and EQ, which is then compensated by the fader again?

Summing (therefore saturating and "compressing" the signal in the process) is on a whole different ballpark. Though I can see a use for the "input gain" knob on the VCC MIX BUSS plugin in this case.

[bmanic]

This is a tad confusing.
I thought we're talking about +4dBu if it comes to working levels and not +0dBu?

What? You mean it is confusing when I spew all kinds of non-sense?!? Preposterous!!!

Yes of course you are right. I meant +4dBU.

On top of it, if your PC is setup to +4dBu (In/Out) already, is there a need to calibrate VCC? How does this even work? (here a video would work wonders!)

Oh it has nothing to do with the PC or "real world". As I understand it, it is all about setting the sensitivity or "load" of the real desk. For instance if you tend to have a lot of tracks that are running relatively high levels (around -6 to 0dBFS peaks) and you do not like to saturate them in the VCC plugin. That's when you "calibrate" the desk to higher conversion levels.. meaning if you set the slider to -6dBFS to be +4dBU on the desk you'll get much less compression and distortion than if the slider is at -24dBFS.

Am I more clear now? Frankly I'm a bit confused myself of how this works but that's how I've always assumed it works (and how I hope it works!).

I don't carry my iLok2 with me as it is married to the studio computer so unfortunately I can not take a screenshot for you of the new VCC preference pages that are available.

Basically you can use this to "drive" the console. I'm not sure though if it is a global setting or per plugin instance or if it is handled per group. There is also a "drift" function but I am unsure what that does once it is enabled (at the moment it isn't available yet, just there teasing us).

Way over my head at the moment unless I get a hand on a proper manual, the most recent version and maybe one or two video tutorials.

So what I meant with this is that the 'calibration' basically lets you abuse the plugin and force it to do more or less damage. If you set it to -24dBFS then almost all signals will reach the virtual +4dBU levels.

So this whole "configuring" is a nice offer, but wouldn't it be useless in a pure digital realm? It makes sense on a real desk, but here it's usually setup (or leveled in) for +4dBu already.

*scratches head* Or... am I thinking wrong here?

In a floating point environment all this virtual calibration makes perfect sense. Because 32/64bit floating point math doesn't allow for any internal distortion at all in the DAW mixer, users will have wildly varying levels in their mixes. With the calibration/level compensation in VCC plugins you can counter these levels to make the virtual desks respond the way you want them to.

No, when I talk about "driving" the plugin with lots of input gain I always mean an external plugin and another one to compensate for it after the VCC plugin. In reaper I use the simple JS plugin called Volume and in other hosts it's usually Sonalksis Free-G.

Well, still it's what the input gain is there for, no?

Yes but it doesn't compensate for the volume boost, which is rather frustrating.. and the drive knob reacts differently than a pure level boost into the plugin.

But as written a bit further up, with Beta2, this didn't really work due to the VU. On top of it, shouldn't VCC Channel work more like this?

Insert Slot 1: VCC - handles the input gain stage
Insert Slots 2-6 (all Pre-Fader): whatever you feel like)
- FADER
Insert Slots 7 or 8: VCC - to get more control over the dynamic sound of a mixing desk.

If you have VCC in front of your FX, you get the "desk sound" only, but don't you want to overdrive the channel on purpose by inserting FX modules and EQ, which is then compensated by the fader again?

Summing (therefore saturating and "compressing" the signal in the process) is on a whole different ballpark. Though I can see a use for the "input gain" knob on the VCC MIX BUSS plugin in this case.

.. the above system works perfectly. VCC Channel as first plugin of each track, then your other effects and finally they get "summed" and glued in whatever bus/group arrangement you have in your mix (here you insert a VCC mixbus plugin).

However, I wouldn't worry too much about the order. You just need to test and listen to what sounds best.

Cheers!
bManic

[Compyfox]

Yes of course you are right. I meant +4dBU.

HAH! I knew it, cause I know no relation to +0dBU

Am I more clear now? Frankly I'm a bit confused myself of how this works but that's how I've always assumed it works (and how I hope it works!).

Cripes! They added a headroom calibration to this plugin.

I don't think it's a -6dBFS = +4dBu callibration, because that'd screw up the standard +0dBFS = +4dBu setting. Though here only Fabrice or Steven can clear that up. Especially how to set them up like a large desk (where chances are, that you still have a headroom of +12dB above 0dB before the hard clipping takes place - which makes sense if you want to overdrive your desk on purpose, hence the +8dBFS limit on the Brit 4k and +3dBFS on Brit N).

In a floating point environment all this virtual calibration makes perfect sense. Because 32/64bit floating point math doesn't allow for any internal distortion at all in the DAW mixer, users will have wildly varying levels in their mixes. With the calibration/level compensation in VCC plugins you can counter these levels to make the virtual desks respond the way you want them to.

Well, but here we're talking about "headroom", not reference level.

Yes but it doesn't compensate for the volume boost, which is rather frustrating.. and the drive knob reacts differently than a pure level boost into the plugin.

Drive always looked (C.Budde VST Plugin Analyser) and sounded like an additional saturation stage.

Wouldn't a compensated gain knob (like with Variety of Sound's BootEQmkII) be better in this case? This way we can setup our channels (if we're purely doing postpro only), and then have always a level at about or slowly above unity according to the desk's channel.

Hm... there goes another FR... heh. Steven/Fabrice? You're reading along?

.. the above system works perfectly. VCC Channel as first plugin of each track, then your other effects and finally they get "summed" and glued in whatever bus/group arrangement you have in your mix (here you insert a VCC mixbus plugin).

However, I wouldn't worry too much about the order. You just need to test and listen to what sounds best.

I only worry about the order if we're talking about "rebuilding" external hardware in our DAW, or special routings (like Desk -> outboard preamp -> desk "bus" - much like a FX channel though it's not a send signal). But even then I'd say that the input gain on the plugin is crucial for the final sound/effect.

If you redord with VCC on your input channels, I wouldn't use any gain settings. It's different however if we're talking about STEMs or a clean project ready for post production. Here I think we should adjust the channel signals first like we'd normally do on a desk anyway (pre-recording - though I dunno how many people also do this while playing back from ProTools/Tape/whatever). Then go from there.

Maybe I'm thinking way too complicated, but this would be totally logical to me, else VCC MIX BUSS would do all the workload only - and in this case, the final result will be subtle.


Else the concept of VCC is pretty much understandable. Though I don't know if using VCC MIX BUSS on sub bus groups parallel to the stereo mix would be of any benefit or not.

And I still have some issues with the "overdriven" signal on the master, especially if you don't touch the master fader. You can "adjust" that with the "to track" module on a real desk, but usually you don't have that within your host (the stereo mix is the "to track" in this case). So you have to adjust the signal post-VCC MIX BUSS once again to get down to -1dBFS (peak) or something. Though this is just a minor nuisance - even though I can hear the "no! You should NOT do that" front from analog desk times once again.


So yeah... Steven - you got a lot of work to do with your video tutorials, hehe.




EDIT 19:42 GMT+1:
I've actually never really done this (since I don't have a large desk, like API/SSL/NEVE large), so I don't know if I messed up. I hope you read this bManic before you answer... And I sure hope you can follow my crazy excerpts.

I just did a testdrive with Cubase 6.

Basically I only created a Stereo channel and one Mono channel. Each with having a tone generator on slot 1. The tone generator itself was a pink noise signal (since it's fairly unstable, and also a calibration signal) at 0dBFS.

On the digital PMM (master bus) of Cubase, the stereo channel resulted in a +2,5dBFS peak, the mono channel at about -0,7dBFS peak.

My outboard mixer atm (that I use for listening, small recording stuff, etc) is an old Behringer MX2004A - this one has an analog headroom of about +12dB (according to the manual +20dB), the recording device I use is setup to +4dBu (in/out). I activated PFL to see if the signal from Cubase is at the right level if my recording device is connected to the desk, and I was a tiny little bit surprised.

The Stereo Channel at +0dBFS gave me a +4dB readout (according to the LED's) on the outboard mixer. After adjusting the Tone Generator of the stereo channel down to -6dBFS, the peak on the mixer (not the average level!) lit 0dB softly, but it didn't go over.

The mono channel (also at +0dBFS in the plugin) resulted in a +2dB readout on the LEDs. So I had to adjust the Tone Generator down to -3dBFS (between -2dB and -3dB, chose -3dB) to get a steady 0dB readout on the mixer.



I think this is what VCC's 0dBFS reference point is all about. It simulates a real desk that awaits a stereo(?) pink noise signal for calibration, though the lower the reference point, the higher the headroom should be if I'm not mistaken. One way or another, if Steven and Fabrice kept what they did with Beta2, we still have some sort of "analog-ish headroom" above 0dBFS according to VCC MIX BUSS (Brit 4k with like +8dB, Brit N with like +3dB). But, with the calibration, you can shift that either up or down. And this is IMO a nice feature - although a bit confusing to those that mainly only worked ITB.

But, this is also a gift again, since you can mix and match your desks anyway, you can create your onw custom "analog master desk" based upon the (at the moment) four available desks, but with your own custom settings.

Clever move I'd say - kudos to that person that had the idea to implement that feature.

[4damind]

Aah, it's developed by the Eiosis guy "Fabrice". Sounds interesting enough to give it a try.

[4damind]

So...
It needs a lot of resources also when oversampling is disabled. It adds some harmonics, more for the SSL type then for Neve. But for the needed CPU the difference is too small. Eventually it needs a lot more input gain so it goes near 0dB? Have not tested this.

Btw. there is no documentation installed? Cannot find something. I feel a bit lost with this grouping feature.
[Edit]I missed the extra download for the user guide

[keyman_sam]

Speaking from an engineering standpoint - I'm not sure if the tests spoken about in the video are the accurate way of testing your product.

I.e. simply taking a guitar music file/audio file and comparing it by ears is not the right way. At some point, there must have been a 20-20K frequency sweep test for the analog console, compared to the plugin at various levels. The 'driving of mix buss' to produce pleasant harmonics must have been measured. And all these audio tests must have been done using industry standard audio test equipment such as this:
http://ap.com/

Now I'm curious as to if the modelling was checked 'musically' or if it was checked 'mathematically' or from the blackbox perspective.

[Compyfox]

Again, speaking from Beta sides, I can't tell what's going on with the final, but...

It needs a lot of resources also when oversampling is disabled.

Didn't encounter this on my i7 920. 24+ VCC CHANNEL tracks with one VCC MIX BUSS was barealy hitting 5% in Cubase 5 (32bit) last time I tested it. Could have been changed though.

It adds some harmonics, more for the SSL type then for Neve. But for the needed CPU the difference is too small. Eventually it needs a lot more input gain so it goes near 0dB? Have not tested this.

Actually I found the quite oposite taking place. The Brit N had more harmonics than the Brit 4k. At least on the THD+N plots. What you can clearly hear however, is a certain pre-EQ with all available desks in both the channel and the bus plugin.

The difference (harmonics) is subtle, yes, but if you work in the "hotspot" area (around -3dB to +3dB peakwise), you clearly hear what's going on.

Btw. there is no documentation installed? Cannot find something. I feel a bit lost with this grouping feature.
[Edit]I missed the extra download for the user guide

I sure hope it's not the "old" user guide, cause that was a bit bland.
So yeah, a proper manual would definitely help a ton.

Now I'm curious as to if the modelling was checked 'musically' or if it was checked 'mathematically' or from the blackbox perspective.

I think both ways.
Fabrice Gabriel is known for his acourate analysing of equipment (also mentioned in the video, the part after "Fabrice flew to LA"). Through mails with the developers, it also clearly shined through that the mathematical aspect was the strong point in creating this plugin, and the (musical) finetuning just the icing on the cake.

[Dr.Gunjah]

How about the cpu load in the release version?

I tried the beta und even in small projects it was nearly impossible to put it on every channel.

Cheers,
Doc

[Compyfox]

Which beta actually? Which host and rig?

[penguinfromdeep]

Cpu load is slightly higher in the release version but they are tackling to bring it down I think. The oversampling options (for render only etc.) help a lot. To be honest, I'd rather take higher cpu hit than sacrifice in sound quality. So far I'm pretty happy on my i7 laptop, can get enough instances for my use.

[4damind]

8 instances needs about ~10-15% CPU on a E6600 C2D without oversampling, using it on every track will not work for this machine. This plug-in needs a way better CPU, a i7 950 or some similar CPU is highly recommended.

The overall result is more subtle and I cannot say their is really a own sound coming from eg. the SSL emulation. Would be interesting if people in a blind test could tell a difference.

IMHO the input gain range is too low and I miss a output gain knob. So to use it correctly the best way is to insert a gain-fader plug-in (like the free g).
The idea is not bad with such a emulation but it needs a bit more fine tuning and a decreased CPU usage.