Analog summing / sound / console emulations ... Opinions / Advice?

[ep1c0ne]

So, I want to stay ITB and I'm just wondering about your opinions if you've had time to use options like ...

Propellerhead's Record
Harrison's Mixbus
Airwindows Desk
Waves SSL package
Soundtoys Decapitator
Redline Preamp

Slate Digital's Virtual Console Collection seems to be another future option...

Propellerhead's Record and Mixbus are all in one solutions that will require bouncing individual tracks out of your main DAW and then importing. So there is no way to work in "realtime" with them.

I think Record's mixer sounds really good, but would it be comparable to use something like the Waves SSL plugins in Logic? Or would Record's modeled mixer have the advantage because of it's own modeled summing? I have read in the Airwindows Desk / Slate Digital Virtual Console thread by Chris J that it's not really the case and that it's really all about the harmonic distortion that's pleasing to the ear... the summing is essentially the same regardless of what you're using.

Originally Posted by chrisj

I'm going to back Steven Slate here, and from experience, as my 'Desk' plugins have been a big hit for a while now and work just the same way. It will work just as well for him- it will just be down to the flavor of plugin and how well it handles the signal.

The only thing that would require this tight link between channel and buss would be managing the input impedance of the bus through presenting an impedance to each channel that fluctuates at audio frequencies. I don't think this is significantly different from establishing a nonlinearity just directly on the buss- and we're ALL doing that.

On top of that, if you were able to isolate differences beyond what we can do in plugins, I'm not convinced those extra tiny nonlinearities would be musically useful. Sounds like intermodulation distortion to me. Sounds like you'd be getting hashy garbage which helps nobody.

Steven is absolutely right- it is not necessary to replace the internal structure of the DAW to do this. In effect you are applying an 'insert'. It's all about whether that 'insert' is giving the behavior you want- and minimizing unwanted behavior that you don't want.

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...ml#post5022032

Now, from what I understand you could think of working in most software (except Mixbus and Record) as completely neutral and uncolored. What is pleasing to the ear about analog summing is the low level harmonic distortion from analog, not the actual summing per say.

With that being said, I'm trying to figure out what benefits Airwindows Desk and the forthcoming Slate Digital piece have?

Decapitator and Preamp are both analog saturation emulations so I'm guessing that putting one on each channel would emulate mixing through a console?

Sorry for the incompetent post, I have demoed them, but I'm going crazy with options and decisions and would like your thoughts, opinions and insight please. Thanks!

[ep1c0ne]

Anyone?

[mobius.media]

One possible reason analog summing is often deemed "more 3d" and "having better separation" is that analog has theoretically better spacial and temporal resolution. Obviously this won't be emulated by a plugin ITB.

Two types of experiments were conducted to assess the human discriminability of temporal convolution—one employed lowpass filtering and the other employed delays due to spatial misalignment. By using special ultrahigh-fidelity equipment, both experiments demonstrated discernment at a ~5µs timescale, which is much shorter than found previously. While the signal manipulations affect both the spectrum and temporal definition of the signal, the spectral changes in these experiments fall below the known just noticeable differences. The discrimination may therefore involve mechanisms additional to the auditory system's ability to distinguish spectral amplitude differences. Furthermore the present work shows that typical instrumentation used in psychoacoustic research has insufficient temporal speed and fidelity for properly assessing all aspects of human hearing and also that digital sampling rates used in consumer audio are insufficient for fully preserving transparency".
- Kuncher; Probing the Temporal Resolution and Bandwidth of Human Hearing; J.Acoust. Soc. Am. Vol 122:5; pgs 2967-2967; Nov 2007.

Probing the temporal resolution and bandwidth of human hearing

Also written about more extensively here:

Moorer - New Audio Formats

I think the whole "people only like analog because it is colored" argument is a major distortion of the truth. In some respects, analog can be less colored than digital.

Like most colors, once you have it on there, it's tough to get it off.

[filterfreak]

interesting...would like to know that, too!

[Steven Slate]

The spacial imaging and depth is all about the nonlinear artifacts of analog circuitry, as well as the dynamic nonlinearities of loading channels into the mixbuss.

This can be recreated with very clever digital dsp. Time will tell if you think Steven Slate and Fabrice Gabriel got it right. I think they certainly did!

[dj! (112dB)]

Originally Posted by ep1c0ne

Now, from what I understand you could think of working in most software (except Mixbus and Record) as completely neutral and uncolored. What is pleasing to the ear about analog summing is the low level harmonic distortion from analog, not the actual summing per say.

I'm not going to try and explain the analog summing mystery--not in the last place because I'm not yet entirely sure what the crux is myself--but I would bet an arm and a leg that yes, the subtle harmonic distortion that it introduces is part of what makes it sound so "magical".

Decapitator and Preamp are both analog saturation emulations so I'm guessing that putting one on each channel would emulate mixing through a console?

I can't speak for Soundtoys but yes, that is one of the possible uses that we had in mind for Redline Preamp. If you drive it hard at extreme settings it can do nasty grunge too, but at most settings it will "only" introduce some subtle analogue-style harmonics distortion and thereby mimic, among others and depending on its settings, a console channel.

Putting an instance on each channel shd sound very similar to mixing on a console, as we tested during development and as some users (and upcoming reviews) will attest. That's one of the reasons we worked hard to keep CPU load as low as possible: so you can insert a lot of instances all at the same time.

$.02,

-- dj!

[redroom]

Ive tried a;ll the currently avaliable solutions and the only one I consider to even come close is Nebula using the Alex B console libarys.

[ep1c0ne]

Hey thanks for the replies thus far everyone, and even from 2 developers! I did consider Nebula, but I'm on OSX running Logic and I don't really want to use a wrapper. There's no telling how long it will be before there's an AU version... Maybe I'll look into again, and reconsider, but I'm seeking different options such as the the ones listed. Any chance you would be able to post A & B comparison mixes though?

[chrisj]

Originally Posted by mobius.media

One possible reason analog summing is often deemed "more 3d" and "having better separation" is that analog has theoretically better spacial and temporal resolution. Obviously this won't be emulated by a plugin ITB.

Depends. I do a lot of stuff (including a recent doubler plugin) which is more analog-style simply because it uses good sample interpolation, which is surprisingly absent in many plugins. If you're sweeping a delay tap, you can't simply pick the nearest sample, you have to work out what the intermediate position represents. That means generating better temporal resolution FROM the limited sample resolution.

It does work- in fact even if you lose a bit of highs in the interpolation it sounds better in the mids, than if you didn't interpolate. You can trade off stuff like supersonic highs for better midrange resolution.

In analog emulation it's not simply about adding coloration to resemble hardware gear- you can (well, I did) skip all that and target specifically the aspects of digital which behave like they're themselves added coloration. My work with Desk is largely about trying to get rid of digit-itis WITHOUT coloration. Seems to work for a lot of people. Ideally, the null tests shouldn't have any real color other than unpleasant digital qualities...

[ep1c0ne]

Chris, I know you have the demos available, but I was just wondering if you have any before and after sound examples of your Desk plugin available?

[mobius.media]

Originally Posted by chrisj

Depends. I do a lot of stuff (including a recent doubler plugin) which is more analog-style simply because it uses good sample interpolation, which is surprisingly absent in many plugins. If you're sweeping a delay tap, you can't simply pick the nearest sample, you have to work out what the intermediate position represents. That means generating better temporal resolution FROM the limited sample resolution.

It does work- in fact even if you lose a bit of highs in the interpolation it sounds better in the mids, than if you didn't interpolate. You can trade off stuff like supersonic highs for better midrange resolution.

In analog emulation it's not simply about adding coloration to resemble hardware gear- you can (well, I did) skip all that and target specifically the aspects of digital which behave like they're themselves added coloration. My work with Desk is largely about trying to get rid of digit-itis WITHOUT coloration. Seems to work for a lot of people. Ideally, the null tests shouldn't have any real color other than unpleasant digital qualities...

Good thinking.

[chrisj]

Originally Posted by ep1c0ne

Chris, I know you have the demos available, but I was just wondering if you have any before and after sound examples of your Desk plugin available?

There were some examples on page two of my Desk new product thread

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...desk-au-2.html

I even did a null test (making both before and after RMS-normalized for the ultimate null) and normalized the result. Which is shocking. If you want to hear what in digital is NOT supposed to be there, check that out. The weirdest thing is, the softsynth/ROMpler/whatever Rhodes jumps way out of the nulltest mix because of the way Desk grabs onto the unnatural elements in it... certain chords just spike seems like Desk is a hell of a weapon for softsynth guys and virtual instruments...