Confession: I can't use ugly plugins.

[jamcat]

I won’t bother with a plugin I can’t make sense of. I don’t want anything too busy or with too many knobs. But I also don’t want to go menu diving. Give me something with 5 or 6 knobs tops.

On a slightly related note, I’ve been getting into the X-GEAR pedals in AmpliTube. They’re largely redos of existing stomps in AmpliTube, and sound significantly better. But it’s giving me great consternation because I want to use the stomp box interfaces that look like the classic pedals, not IK’s X-GEAR pedals. And you have to scroll to a second page for half the controls which is really annoying.

I wish IK would just update the existing stomps.

[careyletendre]

[Deleted]

[BONES]

My personal view is that it's all about the music - your audience don't see the plugins you used...

Even more to the point, nobody listening will be able to tell, either. Even someone who knows all the plugins intimately will only be able to pick it in very extreme circumstances but 95% of the time they'll be as clueless as anyone else.

I won’t bother with a plugin I can’t make sense of. I don’t want anything too busy or with too many knobs. But I also don’t want to go menu diving. Give me something with 5 or 6 knobs tops.

Have you tried TRK-01 Bass? It's just about the ultimate expression of that thought. There isn't much menu diving but a lot of controls are context dependent. e.g. If you're playing with the filter controls, you'll see thing appropriate to the filter in the centre strip. If you're tweaking osc parameters, then you'll see osc-related controls in that panel. It's clever because it only exposes controls when you need them, which keeps everything clean and uncluttered The only thing you have to press a button to see are the innovative visual mod matrices, the effects and the global controls. To me it feels like the best GUI design of all time.

[_leras]

I won’t bother with a plugin I can’t make sense of. I don’t want anything too busy or with too many knobs. But I also don’t want to go menu diving. Give me something with 5 or 6 knobs tops.

I get where you are coming from, but there are lots of things worth reading the manual and learning.

Eqs like bx_digital which are really flexible and simple to use once you've learnt your way around it.

Most channel strips also have quite interesting functionality, some time slightly hidden in little clickable button/knobs to change ranges. Again worth working out what they do.

But, I do also think good design can really help. e.g. scheps Omni channel, has tons of functionality, but is also really very well thought out in terms of usability. Every channel strip could learn from this.

Personally, I don't mind things not looking great, so long as they are useable. I have used a lot of Reaktor stuff ove the years with just plain beige GUI. But I do like it if synths and effects are easy on the eye.

[BONES]

I'm sorry but if you have to read a manual to use something so basic to the production process as an EQ, I don't see much hope for you. And don't get me started on channel f**king strips.

[Vortifex]

For me a UI doesn't have to be beautiful, it just has to be clear and easy on the eyes, i.e. I can quickly get an intuitive visual grasp of where everything is, the fonts are legible, relevant information is clearly displayed, and the colours/contrast don't make my eyes bleed. Good sizing options are important too. Klanghelm, Fuse Audio, Voxengo, TDR and Valhalla have some of the best UIs in the game.

[Effectsworks]

I only care about sound and the results.

[_leras]

I'm sorry but if you have to read a manual to use something so basic to the production process as an EQ, I don't see much hope for you. And don't get me started on channel f**king strips.

For most EQ hopefully it's obvious, but something like bx_digital 3 have a few bits a pieces that are good to get a quick overview on e.g. m/s options and dynamic EQ. Even something simple like a pultec emulation it's helpful to know what 'attenuation' does.

And channels strips, like a Neve 88RS, can have a ton of options in the dynamics section that are useful to understand before using. No one really knows how gate/expansion/hysteresis works without a bit of reading and some experimenting.

Call me old fashioned, but I don't mind reading for a few minutes to be more sure I'm understanding something. I feel it saves me time in the long run.

[DarkStar]

Pretty plug-ins won't let me use them ...and I've turned off the camera here

[psynical]

Yeah, i don't like dating ugly chicks either.

What a revelation.

[trmupstage]

If I have a choice between two plugins that do basically the same thing, yet one has a poor gui, I will always choose the better looking one. I've got to spend hours mixing albums and there is no need to stare at something unappealing.

[_leras]

..

[BONES]

Even something simple like a pultec emulation it's helpful to know what 'attenuation' does.

Do you not have ears? Can you not turn the attenutation knob and hear for yourself what it does?

And channels strips, like a Neve 88RS, can have a ton of options in the dynamics section that are useful to understand before using.

No, you misunderstand. I think channel strips in and of themselves are mostly a stupid idea. Everything that the designers of all those classic consoles were trying to achieve is embodied in the standard mixer in every DAW - total transparency - and you guys want to go and add back in all that shit they were trying to get rid of. It's madness! If was going to use a channel strip at al, I'd jsu tuse theone that ships with Studio One. Butit'sa mootpoint because I'd never use one at all.

Call me old fashioned, but I don't mind reading for a few minutes to be more sure I'm understanding something. I feel it saves me time in the long run.

Call me old fashioned but I don't see any reason to use any tool that I don't understand. i.e. If I can't work out what it's doing by using it then it's a pretty safe bet I don't need it.

[jamcat]

Everything that the designers of all those classic consoles were trying to achieve is embodied in the standard mixer in every DAW - total transparency - and you guys want to go and add back in all that shit they were trying to get rid of. It's madness!

True enough that console designers over time strived for and achieved greater transparency. Moving from tube consoles like the Telefunken/REDD desks of the '50s and '60s to transistor based Neve consoles in the '70s until eventually the transformerless SSL 9000s in the '90s.

BUT... producers and engineers were using various types of saturation as creative tools since forever. Sir George Martin purposefully distorted John Lennon's voice on tracks such as 'I Am The Walrus', and engineers have always pushed the levels into the red to get "THE sound of rock," particularly drums that aren't rock n' roll until the tape splatters. Guitarists of course have been turning tube amps up to 11 since the volume knob was invented.

And a not-so-secret secret of the '80s and '90s was that those super clean SSLs were only used for mixing—because of their fully parametric EQs and compression on every channel, and above all, their automation. But producers and engineers almost universally chose to track on harmonically rich Neve, API, and Helios consoles for their sound.

So it is actually perfectly sane and rational that we should still prefer that saturated sound today over the sterile and clinical sound of pure, unadorned, digital linear arithmetic.

And you do too. What do you think your beloved FireCobra is doing?

[BONES]

It is if you think those old recordings sounded good, I suppose, but to my ears they were mostly awful. But this is a point I have already made so I shall not labour it any more.

I use lots of saturation, overdrive and distortion but I use it in a targeted way, I don't put it on every f**king channel. That's just a recipe for mud. Firecobra only goes on my Master, it's more than I'd want to use on a single channel.