Do the number of plug-ins degrade the sound quality?

[Frequency]

Do you find that using lots of plug-ins on a mix degrades the sound quality?

Do you feel that a mix sounds better if you minimize the number of plugs?

[Harley-OIART]

I'll keep this as short as I can.

Skilled and Creative Engineering goes a long way on a track.

Adding plug-in after plug-in to make something sound good is really nothing more than polishing up a turd. So yeah less is more in most cases.

However! That doesn't mean you should be affraid to go ahead and do what is needed to make what you have work. Just take the nessicary steps to learn what is needed, and Why.

A good rule of thumb is to try and Mix the song from the moment you first start recording it by using Good Microphone Techniques, and Great Gain Structure. That way, when it finally comes time to mix the track down, you barely have to do much of anything because it has really mixed itself =)

Remeber the old days a song was mixed by moving the musicians around realative to the ONE microphone. That was how you mixed.

To Answer your Question Directly, Most Plugins do not generally add any harmful noises, so I will add what is nessicary to make things happen the way they need to. But Again, What I said above is far more contributing to good sound. Let the band create the sound not a bunch of plug-ins. They are merely Tools to shape.

[Rodney Gene]

Originally Posted by Frequency

Do you find that using lots of plug-ins on a mix degrades the sound quality?

Do you feel that a mix sounds better if you minimize the number of plugs?

Plugins or USING / APPLYING effects in general?

Degrade as in resolution loss? Too much CPU usage?

Ultimately if it sounds right it is right...and visa versa...

But I am still wondering what the precise question is...

[T_R_S]

To many guns in the hands if the wrong person can be dangerous as well.

A Very simple test

Run Audio through say with 30 plug-ins all with setting at flat ... compare the output.
to the input.
Do that and report back I to us.

[cl516]

when you run a signal through 30 pieces of outboard all with settings at flat,
it would sound a certain way too...

but if 30 plugins is being put on something, let's hope there's a reason for it.

my opinion though, there are plugins of varying quality. so if there's a bunch of free vst's out there that you think sound cool but end up not using, i'd just take them out of the chain entirely.

[Absolute]

Many plugins will do nothing to the signal if it is flat--and if you run through 30 hardware units you gonna have a degraded signal

As little as 5 years ago I would say, and know, that a lot of plugins would turn the sound into a crumbling apart mess. But that was not only the plugins..but the Daw itself..and the way it processed plugins


Things are much better now. You probably dont need anymore than 5 max on the most. Most tracks will have 2 or 3 and some none. So as long as they are good you will be fine.

BTW..most anything you put sound through degrades the original signal....how much... is what matters.

[AdamJay]

i think if you treat your DAW as if it were hardware, you'll find you end up with a good result.

I'll throw a Sonalksis SV-517 EQ on every channel as an EQ/Filter (Think as if it were an inline mixer)
and a Sonalksis SV-315 Comp on those channels that need compression (think inserts). plus another SV-315 Comp for the drum bus (AUX). Hydratone gets used only on channels where i want to bring out the tonality of some sounds (inserts)

then an AUMatrixReverb on an Aux, possibly a 2nd (Convolution) Reverb on an AUX for more space. an AD DubStation Delay on an AUX, a few other FX on AUXes.
light limiting/comp on the mains

thats a pretty standard setup, be it software or hardware.
unless you were getting very experimental with the result, there's not much use for many more fx plug-ins than that. And if you were to add more than that in a hardware environment, you could bet the house that it would sound like ass.

[Chrisac]

Originally Posted by Frequency

Do you find that using lots of plug-ins on a mix degrades the sound quality?

Do you feel that a mix sounds better if you minimize the number of plugs?

Im sure I saw a post from Bob Katz over at PSW claiming that running sessions at 16 bit and then mastering the session with more than two plugs on the master buss can degrade the quality.?

[the_nihilist]

Who needs a bunch of plugins to make things sound degraded? I can do it fine with just one...