Honestly mate, you know virtually nothing about me, but have made up your mind based on two posts on this website.
Again, that's your problem not mine.
I have been recording in studios since 1980, sometimes at the top of the industry with world famous engineers and producers. I kept my eyes and ears open and tried to learn from them.
I do not have a 'system of believe', I have 40 years of experience in studios. It's hard to put that experience aside just because it rubs one person (I don't know) up the wrong way. I suggest you get over your prejudiced attitude.

LOL ....

Well you could of recorded Thriller, The Nightfly, Moving Pictures, Aja, Ten Sumenrs Tales, etc etc

..... with only Behringer gear and Reaper.

But honestly, would that not of been a missed opportunity in the pursuit of greatness and longevity, I mean those "boutique" artists have an absolute no compromise approach to their songwriting, performing, arranging, musicianship. Those engineers make a no compromise commitment to the recording process, the Producer hangs his reputation on the final result.

Surely, it makes perfect sense that the studio acoustic space, desk, mics, pre-amps, EQ's, compressors, FX, instruments - are also "boutique" of the highest possible quality, performance and functionality from gear designers like Rupert Never, Dave Hill, Tim Farrant, etc etc who share the same passion and vision of no comprise and match the same vision of the artists and engineers who utilise them in the creation of something truly great.

I do understand what you're saying, that a great song is a great song even when played on a penny whistle and a broomstick bass.

But for me, in Art .... I honestly hate compromise, I'm always searching for perfection, the best I can possibly muster - it's driven me for 40 years since I turned pro when I was just 16 years old.

It's the opposite of the race to the bottom, I'm always trying to shoot for the moon.

Yeah, it is a point of view often expressed at Gearslutz.
I don't really get it.
I'm sure Roger Federer has a specific racket he uses, a specific type of string. Has the set up absolutely accurately done by an expert.
Would he lose lots of tennis matches without his ultimate set up? I doubt it. But he's looking for that extra 10% advantage. And using his ultimate set up makes him feel good and gives him confidence.
Yes, I could make an iconic record on a budget kit in a project studio (if the artist and music was amazing). But I don't HAVE to use budget drums, so I don't!!!

Exactly.

It's not that UAD plugins are clearly better than native ones. There are native plugins that sound every bit as good as UAD plugins. What makes UAD plugins special is that they're consistently good across the range

you're right that i know almost nothing about you (and that you give me no reason to want to change anything about that) - now the same is true the other way round!

strange only that you seem to care so much about my comments and that you take refuge in assumptions, insinuations, insults, by changing the subject, by blowing up your own experience which mostly stems from the other side of the glass etc.

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or what was your contribution on the topic of this thread again (besides convincing me that i see no reason to react to any of your posts again)?

mine was that uad plugins/their emulation of gear from the past get you as close to the originals as it possibly gets which imo makes using the gear pretty much pointless - my take on things, backed up by the experience from owning and using lots of the gear after which these plugins got emulated.

and my point (or question) about why using emulations of retro-gear at all got echoed to some extent, albeit but from a reactionary point of view which might well be the view of the most participants here - this i must admit is a bit disappointing, as i was hoping to hear from some folks

why in our business some things from the past seem to be so attractive (while no one seems to bother about emulating the feeling one gets from driving in an old buick or citroen) and other things got left behind/abandoned (did anyone besides a few retro cover-bands lately try to mix to a large crowd on a pa from the early seventies?)

if you get to talk to and work with lots of older techs, of course many of them are nostalgic about some specific pieces of gear and techniques used in the past but many techs will also tell you that they were quite glad they left behind some old technology, some for functional/technical aspects, some for tonal reasons (often relating to/stemming from technical aspects)...

Are you kidding? Tape perhaps but no tech in their right mind would choose not to use iconic gear, unless there was a workflow reason. People on a top level aren’t techs but engineers who consider recording and mixing an art in itself.

Inspiration is what drives them and they don’t compromise. Fine if it works for you but stop making assumptions about people being able to hear the difference. You haven’t a clue and top places exist because they can....

man, you get me (partially) wrong (too), especially on this:

to illustrate where i'm coming from, i need to mention some personal stuff - skip if you're not interested...

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[i was fortunate enough to get a jump start in a terrfific sounding venue assisting a very well know engineer (who became one of my two mentors) who recorded some of the most famous soloists, ensembles and orchestras, with orchestras sometimes conduct by the composers themselves, working with all the über-gear, owned by the state-funded national broadcasting company.

since then i haven't stopped broadcasting; i was lucky enough to get involved with manufacturers of musical instruments in the 80's and 90's which has led to countless collaborations with artists from all genre, from complete no-names to some of the best-known musicians/bands/ensemble; with the european branch of the world largest live sr company around my corner, i started touring in the early 80's; this enabled me to not only experience working with studio gear but also all the live sr gear (which gets affected by new technology much faster than other areas); i'm still at it (although i'm trying to keep travelling sane these days).
i made enough money so i could start my own studios, four of which i still (co-)own and for which i bought several generations of all the necessary gear to make them attractive enough for very hi-profile customers and to be competitive with other studios which forced me not only to have an eye on the gear as used by state-funded facilities but what's been en vogue everywhere else.

in a nutshell: i've been using gear with first strike capacity for exactly 42 years now, covering studio, live sr and broadcast gear.

and if there's anyone i'm calling out for being responsible of a race to the bottom in this industry, it's evil b - as i know him personally and (almost) got to deal with him when working for a manufacturer back in the mid-90's (glad the deal didn't work out in retrospect); this to illustrate that i'm not just participating in the usual blame game]

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...but more importantly:

there is no correlation between the grandezza of the gear and 'aestetic results' one can achive!

pls note that with this i'm not belitteling the achievements of some brilliant designers, artists, techs or producers! the latter (and specifically one person) helps me to illustrate my sentiments towards gear quite good though:

i do get to work with an almost blind producer regularly - besides the fact that he has impeccable taste (imo) and manners and that he is extremly knowledgeable not only on music theory but also on instruments and gear design (which can be a bit scary at times), he is certainly no one to blame about being biased or even influenced by visual aspects of any piece of gear:

in fact, he's become my bs-detector!

moral of the story: if he thinks he can hear a difference between a desk from evil b (which i'll never buy but couldn't avoid using on some rare occasions) and a studer vista (of which i own a few), i'll take the one he prefers! be ensured that so far, the vista wins! not only when compared to a cheapish piece of s... but pretty much every time!

(maybe also worth mentioning that we've spent ridiculous amounts of money just to compare: it isn't exactly easy to rent a lawo, stagetec calrec and one of the better live sr desk along a studer and set up a comparison and a properly conducted blind listening test - same for a comparison of neve vr, ssl 4k, neotek elan, amek angela, mc jh500, studer 980 etc, all of which i owned and/or still co-own).)

another moral of the (hi)story:
the gap has closed!
not entirely but very much so: not only between analog and digital but between great analog gear, between great digital gear and - shockingly - between cheap digital and expensive analog gear! and this not since yesterday but for ca. 30 years! what's changed in recent years is the speed at what this thansition is happening...

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a final observation, based on close to 5000 live gigs/broadcasts/location recordings and ca. 500 albums i've been involved so far:

- i tracked and mixed my commercially most successful record on a modest tascam m3700, with some klark dn500 series dynamics and two pcm70's and h3000's into da30, with a drawmer 1960 in between - compare with some of the other desks i mentioned above...

- i delivered my 'best' live mix with a 10-piece band, doing all individual wedge-mixes (and one stereo in-ear mix) from foh, on a (much-hated by some) yamaha m7cl-48 with absolutely no external gear, feeding straight into none-dsp amps (the pa was brilliant though) - i have owned pretty much all relevant large scale mixing desks, from the yamaha pm3500/midas xl200 upwards and since that time...

- i witnessed some very influential politicians grabbing the spare sm58 or that i had to rely on a poorly positioned mke2 rather than on a redundant pair of gefell line array or schoeps shutgun mics - and yet the audience did not miss nor couldn't understand a word...

these are just very few of my observations - of course i could also share some of my stories of successful use of hi-profile gear in hi-profile situations but imo there's not much to be leaned from!

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maybe this explains why i'm not giving THAT much about gear and even less about those to claim that they absolutely NEED to have a specific piece of gear or else their chance of achieving stellar results is compromised from the start... - on the contrary actually:
i applaude and respect those who manage to achieve outstanding results with relatively modest or even cheap gear under less than ideal conditions!


no kidding, see above - clinging onto vague attributions such as 'inspiration', 'no compromise', 'mixing being an art in itself' etc. imo isn't very expedient other than maybe to get applause from those who already share your conviction or believe...

i'm using the term 'tech' to illustrate that only very few folks twisting knobs and pushing faders or a mouse are 'engineers': tom dowd clearly was one of them! george massenburg come to mind! jürg jecklin too (who i assisted for 15 years) although hardly anyone remembers the electrostatic headphones he manufactured in the eighties, let alone the tube gear he designed... - great topic for another thread btw! anyone else you'd like to mention?

but before i forget, relating to the use of primitive gear: how about art brut?!

not so sure who hasn't got a clue...

I didn't set out to attack you in this thread. I didn't carry forward animosity from another thread into this thread. I contributed to this thread in a genuine fashion, from a position of experience. Maybe look at how you contributed?

Ugh, the problem is your prejudice is blinding you.
I don't think anyone sensible in the thread has suggested a mythical magic in uber rare expensive gear. I don't think ANYONE has claimed you can't make great music on cheap, mainstream gear.
I gave the example of the $500 snare drum often being more useable than a $1500 one.
You seem to be missing the nuance that we are not making widgets in a factory.
Sorry, I'm making music 24/7/365, I'm not going to force myself to have fun and be inspired on less ideal, low budget gear - unless I had to, which of course many youngsters do. Sure, they are making better music than me, that's fine.
It IS about the ear, but also about the gear. Whatever gives you pleasure and inspires you. It is some kind of rigid dogma that you keep slamming people who get pleasure and feel inspired by using classic gear, or something with a bit of history behind it.

A lot of your anecdotes relate to live sound. Live sound is a completely different story to making landmark recordings.

Sure, we all get that. But Pet Sounds, Sgt Pepper and Dark Side Of The Moon were all made using the most expensive, most technologically cutting edge gear that was available at the time.
The problem you have is you keep demanding there is only YOUR way. There is both, and many small variations in-between.
Classic hip-hop was made on a $200 tape machine using a $50 synth and a turntable. We get it!
But it shouldn't be a rule that everyone has to live by. The rule is - whatever gets you to where you need to be. And you are not the judge of that.

Call it a day and move on fellas? It's been the same argument for at least a couple of pages now.

I have bin with uad from the start of their dsp platform. 3 main reasons I bought the mackie cards back in the day, was dsp powered plugins, it being Universal Audio and the comps they emulated.

Now in 2020, there are several companies that offer the same type of emulation.
I dont think Uad sounds anything better then many of the native options. I think uad preforms well caus of the emulation tech they use and the picking of the unit they want to emulate. The emulation is so close to the original unit, that I belive that is what makes the uad plugins sound so "good". They marked that they emulate hardware, and they have proven over and over again, that the end user will get a good emulation of the hardware.

I have seen threads like this over and over again. They always track off with some geeky sh.. If you are in to classic gear and dont have the cash to buy the hardware, then these emulation plugins from not only uad, will get you there "in software land" for way less cash. If you are just looking for good sounding plugins then go nuts and demo what ever you can find on the www. Dont need uad if you are just looking for good plugins, they are all over the place.

Wow, was a big reply - thanks.

I read your reply carefully and here's the thing, intellectually I totally get where your coming from but the problem is ....

My ears don't agree with you - and in all matters in the art of creating music, my ears rule.

So we shall have to agree to disagree but agree to part as friends

i appreciate that you have taken the trouble to rummage through my perhaps a little overflowing descriptions from the perspective of a tech working in studios, live and in broadcasting.

i guess we don't even disagree (much) in terms of 'sound': the ears rule! what sounds good, is good!

what i was trying to do in my previous posts (and maybe failed to achieve) is to point at the possibility or even the probability that 'good sound' doesn't necessarily always need to stem from the more exclusive gear and/or from the more complex setup (which mostly offers more options to tweak sound though) - both of which sometimes can be a bit hard (if not impossible) to accept...

I don't doubt for a nanosecond that great hardware sounds better than great software.

I don't doubt for a nanosecond that great software in the hands of someone really skilled at using it sounds better than great hardware in the hands of someone who isn't.

You spelled "decades" wrong.

Much dedicated DSP logic chips at their disposal.

People! Personal bickering is really annoying to read and reduces the utility of threads.

Please PM yourself or go get a pint or something ...

Peace!

In terms of end product, I think 95% of Gearslutz would agree with you, probably 99% of the old stagers.

I'm releasing music all through the summer made on a laptop, largely with plug-ins apart from a few hardware synths.
I don't think that was ever the point. The end product is separate to the process.
The point being, in the creative process some people appreciate using classic gear, that has a history, and if it feels good then they are going to enjoy their music making even more.

Sure, totally agree.
If being good at what you do is a given, what would you rather use?
For me the answer is both, not excluding anything because it's either common/cheap or rare/expensive..

If this is what you were attempting to convey in the past few pages, then I think you did waste a lot of words.

IMO what you are saying here... most everyone would agree.

Nah, I think you would struggle to find anyone who has done this for a while who finds that 'hard to accept'. "Quality" of sound can come from lots of less than classic tools. However, some of those classic tools just do 'a thing' which becomes an emotional connotation. Like boosting 2.8 with a Helios on guitar music. Makes it go to "that place". And sure, you can boost 2.8 with most eq's but it won't necessarily be quite the same place.

Anyway, you guys need medals for lasting this long with this one point. Next set. lol

right... the plugins are coded by the same developers that code the native versions for the most part. the only thing that may 'sound better' usually is the dedicated hardware the plugs access but to be honest not all UAD plugs sound 'better' imo the biggest 'pro' for UAD gear is off system (onboard processing) which is great for tracking with little to no latency. but something sounding 'better' is quite subjective.

again this is just my opinion cheers

... when there is a native version, right? In other words if they get a license to use a Sonnox plugin they'll have the Sonnox programmers port it over to UAD-2 is what you're saying. But the same won't be true for an 1176 plugin because it doesn't originate as a native plugin, right?

well from my understanding UAD has their share of exclusives... but yes the plugs that have native equivalents are done by the same company/coders. wouldn't exactly call them ports but i am sure the majority of algos are interchangeable math wise. cheers

That's pretty useful then. If you do maths.

just when we thought we had totally killed the monster, it came back to life!

I would be interested in seeing a list of UAD plugins and then then a list of native plugins that sound virtually identical.

You have to define "virtually identical" unless you mean null.

Or close...how close is close enough...never ending subjective forum posts...