Its pretty hard to take a person seriously when they don't understand simple grammar. Your sentences should read Some more THAN others and they are ALL hazier THAN the dry track then is a reference to time. than is used to compare

Secondly, it helps to have some understanding of audio before coming on here telling everyone to "give you a break". These clips were put up here, NOT with the intention of making them sound as good as possible, but for people to have a chance to hear the processing, so they could make comparisons.

Good question! haven't tried that yet.

I tried it with PSP Old Timer. 3 examples, one bounce with 24 tracks without any plug-ins, one bounce with 24 tracks with Old Timer set to no compression, Valve turned on, and one with Valve turned off(it shouldn't do anything anyways without the signal compressing). Perfect null? Nope. Hazy? Nope. Still haven't heard this haziness one speaks of.

Yes. I don't think my UAD2 will do 24 instances of anything.

Now that's poetry, kids.

I feel your pain there. You using the MKII 1176s/LA2's in your test? They eat DSP pretty hard. All the MKII stuff.

Well, chock it up to expectation bias then I guess. I'm not perfect.

The "haze" I heard was very subtle, noticed through high end open backed cans. Other adjectives I might use...slightly less focused or slightly shrouded.

I did blind A/B's and I consistently chose/preferred the untreated tracks, which sounded slightly cleaner and more open. I really, really wanted to find a plug that I could "soak" into every track, as a matter of routine, to give my mixes that special console glue sound. But maybe plugs aren't the issue. Maybe hardware has exactly the same negative effect. The guy I know who *wept* the day they delivered his vintage Neve console probably wouldn't agree.

means it isn't in THAT DAW. How about a second DAW set up as a dedicated processing box?

Its totally possible. Just not without conversion.
I use plugins in the analog domain every day here. One way is by driving a solid state guitar power amp and its cab, with Guitar Rig 5. A little different than what you are referring to I know, but I mentioned that because it might be something you've never considered.

The only point I had made was you couldn't use a plugin PRE conversion (re: tracking "through" plugins). You seem to be saying, "Sure you can, you just have to convert it first".

You can, of course, send whatever signal you want anywhere you want and, whenever it happens to be in the digital domain, you can apply plugin processing. But it can't ever get to the digital domain without conversion.

My 2 cents. I think this is pointless. I think #2 is hardware comp. Possibly #6 and #8. Listen to the bong/ of the very last tom hit (that pans!) it wobbles in the most of the files.

I've spent 30 years designing huge software systems. Computers are by design linear and uniform.

Hardware is, by the nature of line voltage and components and every other physical world factor, very non uniform and non-linear.

Which do you want in which mix?

For the record, it is in my opinion a ridiculous dry file to use as it is in no need of compression for control of dynamics in its dry state. Which is mostly why I use compression. It sounds like a bunch of triggers to me. And I don't mind saying so, nor do I care if I am "wrong".

I like the music that I make, with the gear that I chose.

Always consider the source.

From the Steven Slate Drums website:

"New in SSD4 are five kits in the Urban/Dance/House/Electro genre designed by producer Griffin Boice. These kits are processed with boutique analog gear to provide the fat radio ready sound you'll want for your pop, urban, and dance mixes!"

The CLA Drum Expansion:
"He then mixed all the drums in his classic style in his LA mixroom using the same processing chains that you've heard on all of his records. He even printed a sample layer of his famous SONY reverb unit on the kicks and snares."

I assume they mean his hardware and not his waves signature plug ins.

Plus in the Making of video, Chris brags, "One of the greatest recording rooms in all of California, with one of the greatest consoles, the 8048 customized. It's a magnificent desk with 1081 modules in it."

That's a Neve hardware console, not the VBC on the Neve setting, for those at home.

The making of video is nice. There's some nice shots of Chris with racks of hardware.


The Terry Tate drum expansion says, "10 Hard Hitting Kits recorded and mixed by Terry Date. Recorded in Famous HENSEN B Studio"

The gear list for Hensen studio B is here:
http://www.hensonrecording.com/PDFs/STUDIOBGearList.pdf

Great list. LA-3A, 1176, LA-2A...the usual suspects. The making of video is littered with great references to what drums go through what hardware.

At 3:45 he says, "The Altec saltshaker mic, middle of the room, through the SSL listen mic outboard"

At 3:57 Terry says, "It's lacking some stuff so I'm going to get in here with this 1073"

Love the Smart reference at 4:25, "Best button in the world, the crush button" when using the compressor on the kick drum.


Listen, it's up to everyone to do their due diligence when considering the source. Obviously for Slate, when selling his products, he brags about the use of hardware as a selling point. From the use of "boutique" analog gear on his own SSD plug in to the hardware compressors, EQs, desks, and pre-amps of CLA's mix chains and Hensen's studio B.


He doesn't brag about tracking it through Slate Fox pre amps and Slate VBC.

That should tell you everything you need to know.

I'm sure Slate Fox pre-amps are great, but obviously there's something to vintage analog gear that it's a selling point for Slate's products. Either it's used because he feels it brings something to the recordings that plug ins don't (in Griffin Boice's kits it clearly says, "These kits are processed with boutique analog gear to provide the fat radio ready sound") or he's bragging about using analog hardware because it's a great way to sell your product to customers, which might sound a bit manipulative, but you have to remember Slate is a salesman, first and foremost.

Hardware is great. Plug-ins are great. Use whatever gets you through the day. But don't get angry at me for not accepting the word of a salesman who's sales pitch on his website is contrary to his spin on this forum.

Regards,
Frank

Hi Frank. I'm afraid I have no idea what the point of your post is, or what you are trying to prove.

I absolutely love analog gear. I love classic analog gear. I own lots of gear. I MAKE analog gear. I make my living studying analog gear and reproducing its sound digitally. I take no issue with guys like Chris Lord Alge or Terry Date using analog gear... they obviously are making great sounding records and have developed a workflow over the past few decades with various analog gear. Frank, you can interview Tchad Blake or Serban Ghannea and they can tell you about all the plugins they use for their ITB mixing... so what does that mean? It means that there is no right or wrong way to make music, and different engineers prefer different methods. Not exactly a huge revelation. Where is the contradiction?

Frank, you say you don't 'accept my word'. What does that mean? What word? Did you listen to the files I posted? Can you tell me which files used analog compressors and which used plugin? I don't get it.

The point of my post is to offer evidence that shows that plugins do not create an audible haze to audio.. and in fact, it seems that no one can even tell the difference between drums compressed with 10k worth of analog compressors verse plugins.

When I recorded my first drum samples, I used a huge rack of analog compressors and eqs. I recorded some drums two weeks ago using a beta version of our Virtual Mix Rack plugin. In the end, I'm making music, and I'm confident with either analog or digital tools. My intentions here are to make sure that generalizations like "plugins are hazy" are debunked, because they are clearly not true.

Cheers,
Steven

does anyone know how to vote in these threads?

i wanted to give frank a vote but can't see any options.

oh and h89 as well. he's/she's got passion!!

I understood the point of Franks post , it was very clear ...

Hi guys. What's clear is that neither of you can pick out 10k worth of compressors from a few hundred dollars worth of plugins.

Revealing the shocking news that Chris Lord Alge likes his analog gear doesn't change that.

Cheers,
Steven

U quoted you but wasn't referring to you regarding conspiracy. I apologize i wasn't clear.

Btw he said numerous times, really numerous times, he used DIFFERENT plugins, DIFFERENT hardware. Isn't that enough for you.

In other way - why do you persist and expect files to sound the same?

I am still under impression you totally missed the point of this test.

Im not actually a part of your marketing machine Mr. Slate , Im capable of making audio related decisions on my own .. But thank you just the same

Now i am sure you're not understanding this test. Look what are you asking doesn't make a sense. Why? Be it a sample set or a clean recorded drum set or a 909 drum machine or some twisted Steven Slate dry file which will cheat people.

It's not even important if there are drum files soaking in reverb and two chained Eventide pitch shifters...


People there is 10db of compression working here

but so be it let us say that files aren't dry as they need to be in some weird scenario, let's say that Slate intentionally somehow pulled super biased files, something which is somehow ironically totally flawed and created for the purpose to cheat people. Let's say that files are flawed and not recorded like many scientist in this thread expect them to be.

There is still 10db of compression. On them. Really i am shocked. This thread isn't becoming plug or hardware anymore. I am really curious what are you guys listening.

If you can't hear compressor in action, by no means i am not joking, if you really can't hear it then just wow - i as poor amateur instantly feel like a professional when i am reading these comments.

i don't expect the files to sound the same. not at all. they were all processed differently so they cannot sound the same.

i mentioned sounding the same because initially some people said they could not hear a difference and i questioned that idea.

if you think i missed the point then that's fine.

ok,

But already several people repeated and tried to explain to you that when people (in this thread) said they could not hear a difference they are referring to the haze vs not haze, muscle or no muscle..

I am still confused how can you not get it. It is so simple yet you are focusing to the same thing again and again and again. At this point i am starting to believe you are just arguing for the sake of arguing..

Really it's fine

whether i can or can't is unknown but certainly seems to be a lot clearer than the methods used in the test.

yes i understand that.

yes i know your confused.

no i am not arguing for the sake of it. if you take away from this test that digital and analogue can't be distinguished then that's good for you.

So why don't you try? Supposedly some of you guys can easily pick up hardware in action.



I have that idea...Why don't some of you scientist open some thread, post some files and vote which file is best to be used in such test. After you all agree on file (i am sure voting will be historical) post it here and Steven could use it? Yes?

That should sort quite a lot of troubles..

Maybe you want to pick a fight with ME. I'm one of the people who encouraged him to do this and subscribed to this thread so I wouldn't miss the test.

I don't know Mr Slate, I don't own any Slate plugs (that I know of, though I might have a freebie drum kit or two that came with the 'pro' version of my DAW) and don't have any plan to buy any plugins. I use some hardware and mostly plugins. I'm agnostic on whether plugs can fully mimic specific hardware.

But I was interested in this simple 'test.'

So, instead of heaping all this withering scorn on Mr Slate for proceeding as I and others encouraged, maybe you ought to be picking your fight with me.

I essentially agree that your test or most any other test, as far as I know, will show that plugins aren't hazy. I don't even know what hazy really means.

The hardware apparently imparts no identifiable sound either in your test.

So maybe, unless someone can show that plugins are hazy, we move on from that.

Because I think the issue is more about the muscle aspect that the OP actually meant.

Do you think plugins equal hardware in that department. Making drums, for example, slam and all that. Driving them hard.

Thanks, btw, for answering the question that you now do use software exclusively.

I am still curious though if the drumloop you posted is from the sample set that people have mentioned and, if so, was it processed in any way when originally recorded? You said no before, that they are entirely raw drums. Just want to clear that up as I do think it's relevant, obviously.

Thanks. I'll post some more audio this week. I'll try some different sources too.

Hi Murray. From the files I posted, which sound like they have 'muscle' and which lack it? Do certain examples 'slam' more than others?

The drumloop has zero compression on the dry file, they were raw. Not that it should matter, but it is the case for the record.

Cheers,
Steven

Even the dry file sounded quite punchy, so I'm not sure any of the wet files are any more punchy. I'd have to listen again though.

Usually a raw drum loop sounds pretty obviously unprocessed, and then when compressed, there is quite an obvious change, as usually people like to lay it on in a pretty obvious way. I'm not sure that's the case here. There are differences, but I don't recall thinking that the drumloop is now a lot more punchy.

How was the original drum loop recorded? I know people keep saying it doesn't matter, but I still think it would be interesting to know.

Is this from a sample set? You mention using processing on other samples you've made, but not on this one?

I'm also still curious as to why you decided to use so many compressors with a tiny amount of compression each. What was the point of that?

I don't mean to grill you in any way, I'm just curious about those things.

Hi Murray, the Deluxe drums were recorded in a great room, with great mics and positioning, with great pres, and a fantastic drummer. There was no processing. I have some other drum tracks that don't sound as nice, I can redo the test using them and I think it'll be interesting to hear. My prediction is that it'll actually be harder to tell a difference on them, not easier.

I used six compressors because the assertion was made that the audible difference with plugins and hardware is more easily discernible when using multiple processors. And I never said there was only a tiny amount of compression.. in fact there was pretty heavy and fast compression on the room mics.

Cheers,
Steven

If your goal here was to present yourself as a complete dip-weed then mission accomplished.