KVR Audio

jmbriley · Post by **jmbriley** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:48 pm

What makes the 3rd party commerical FX better than the host effects? For someone who knows exactly what they are doing would they make a better mix using say Waves, Voxengo, Wave Arts, etc. As opposed to using the effects within their host. For instance will the same person who knows what he is doing make a better mix with the Ren. Compressor as opposed to the FL Compressor, HarmoniEQ as opposed to the FL paragraphic EQ. Ok you get the point any opinions.

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:52 pm

Yeah, I think someone who knows what they're doing can make a better mix with default host effects than someone who doesn't know their basics (EQ, Compression, etc) and has boutique 3rd party FX. If a mix's low end is swallowing up all the guitars and the vocals are buried in expensive reverb, then Waves will do nothing to help it.

cptgone · Post by **cptgone** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:56 pm

Learning the principles of mixing and mastering would do one's mixes more good than all the gear in the world.

OTOH, some VSTs come with very useable presets (some people have mentioned "Better Balance", a Soniformer preset) that give beginners a quick fix.

And some have superior GUIs, that help you understand what's going on, while allowing easy control over complex processing (again, Soniformer comes to mind).

jmbriley · Post by **jmbriley** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:02 pm

My main thought was do you think a person who knows what he is doing would do a better mix with the 3rd party effects as opposed to FL effects, Tracktion effects and so forth. No two different people, the same person.

shamann · Post by **shamann** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:04 pm

Depends on the effect, really. Some host effects are excellent, some plain suck.

jmh · Post by **jmh** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:43 pm

I can't recall right away that many built-in effects that really equal the best 3rd party rivals. Except for some that are licensed from 3rd parties, such as that convolution reverb from Voxengo in Sonar... so I'm inclined to think that the same person would do a better mix with the top of the line 3rd party plugins indeed. But how much better, that's hard to say

And the general KVR consensus of course is that better effects and other quality related issues don't make better music

JMH

AndrewSimon · Post by **AndrewSimon** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:58 pm

jmh wrote: And the general KVR consensus of course is that better effects and other quality related issues don't make better music

JMH

You really have to separate "good music" from "good mix".
"Good music" will still be "good music" even if it has a "bad mix" or even if it's just written on a piece of paper and not recorded yet.

Hosts' FX vs. 3rd Party FX