The plugin scam exposed. Did you fall for it?

[bitflipper]

Nearly every YouTube advice-giver starts with the same premise: I've found a secret that nobody else knows about...

[Sergix]

[dubdisciple]

Dan Worrell made a better case.  A video showing how things almost null is a somewhat  nebulous argument. I think anything less than a total null leaves wiggle room. A pinch of salt makes a huge difference between bland , salty and just right . With that said, most of these products will knull but the time to do so may not be worth it.  I am convinced that MAutodynamic EQ can be made to null with 99% of available software EQs but the perpetual question is whether it is worthwhile.  Mturboeq under the hood is just the core melda eq broken into presets. You can literally achieve every emulation in Mturboeq in Mautodynamic, but who has the time and patience for that? I'm not saying we should all use just the stock EQ ( although that is my go to for basic tasks) , but we are all probably guilty of having too many  EQs that are not actually making our mixes better. Thanks Larry and Bapu!!

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Interesting.

Did any of you guys pick up the new Sound On Sound ? The article Hardware Vs Plugins of a 48 channel mix?

The guy mixed a track on his Neve console with a load of outboard

Then he set about recreating the same mix as closely as possible by using an analyser of the hardware EQ curves etc. and re-did the whole thing in the box.

TL:DR - the mixes sound very similar 

The big take away for me though is it was easier to get the mix sounding good on the analogue gear. It had a wider sweet spot and was hard to make anythign sound 'bad' per se.  The "in the box mix" took more work and required a better understanding of the plugins to get the same result but at the end of the day it was achieveable. 

I think this also applies to the argument of different EQ plugins. You can probably get them all to sound pretty close to each other if you know the plugin well and can match the curves etc. But it will likely take you longer.  So I choose to use different EQ plugins for different things.

1 - Pro Channel EQ - just to lo pass filter and get rid of rumble etc : Because it's there and low CPU

2.- ProQ 3 - This is my day to day EQ : Because it has a great interface and is like a swiss army knife

3.- API 560 - I prefer this for my drum buss : Because it's a graphic EQ  and I find it easier to get the sound I want

4 - Maag EQ4 - For mastering : Because it's got a nice air band and the fixed bands work well to subtle sculpting

Could I get the same result just using ProQ3 ? Yes probably, but on certain tasks the others are quicker and easier. 

Also - I see many posts arguing this EQ , or that compressor plugin ( across various audio/music forums ) and often when I go their profiles and take a listen to their music it's often not very well performed or mixed. i.e. They aren't even outperforming the stock plugins never mind fawning over some percieved esoteric difference provided by an expensive plugin.  

Edited May 24 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[pwal³]

tbf, stock plugs are really rather good

[dubdisciple]

On 5/23/2024 at 9:39 AM, bitflipper said:

Nearly every YouTube advice-giver starts with the same premise: I've found a secret that nobody else knows about...

"The secret technique the pros don't want you to know revealed!"

[Carl Ewing]

1 hour ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

The big take away for me though is it was easier to get the mix sounding good on the analogue gear. It had a wider sweet spot and was hard to make anythign sound 'bad' per se.  The "in the box mix" took more work and required a better understanding of the plugins to get the same result but at the end of the day it was achieveable. 

 

I don't think it's so much sounding good - what we think sounds good is product of 100 years of recorded music made on very specific pieces of equipment, by a relatively small group of people, who essentially hammered the sound of "good" into our brains. In a parallel universe, where entirely other engineers made entirely different pieces of gear, it's likely our idea of "good" would be entirely different. That universe may have had colder sounding 70s rock, or more washed out sounding funk, or whatever. Maybe the 32C was never made and disco never sounded the way it did.

Let's take the 32C. A console with a very unique EQ. It is unmistakable.  You'll notice that sound across all of ABBAs work, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation, tons of R&B and disco. That EQ is a huge part of the sound of disco, early Chicago house, and 90s r&b. What do these all have in common? A total and complete - absolutely complete - lack of harshness. It's a gorgeous sounding EQ for music that will eventually be played in clubs - of a certain era. 

What is special about it? Why can't you just reproduce what it dose with a surgical EQ like Pro-Q 3.

Try it. 

Take a harsh sounding mix (annoying crash cymbals or ringing snare or brittle metallic bass) and try to tame it with any other EQ. Then, after a day of experimenting, switch to the 32C emulation (which is pretty good). You'll solve many of those problems in seconds. BUT. There's a tradeoff. It will have a very specific sound. I personally don't like the sound for my own music. That EQ is exceptional, but not for me personally. It might be because I recognize the sound of that EQ on bass and it reminds me of 90s r&b. 

But this goes back to my first point - why do I think it's "removing harshness". It's likely because it's removing things that were also removed in 1000 other albums in the past, and I've learned to consider these harsh. It's also why so many emulations are made of literally every EQ ever built - because many people like the sound of certain EQs, and don't want any other options. It's not that the sound couldn't be replicated with a complex EQ like Pro-Q 3, it's that people want that sound. They want those bands, and that HP / LP filter slope, because it simply / easily replicates a sound we've all grown to love.

To go on a tangent. For me personally - I was using the Amek 9099 emulation for about a year almost exclusively. I started to get a lot of comments about a change in the tone of my tracks. Something about the mids / mid-highs. "I like your old mixes better."  What is going on? I love the sound of that EQ. And I'm using essentially the same bands and Qs as on other EQs before? At least I think? And I particularly like the high end air (more than the Clariphonic, Abbey Road stuff and Maag 4), and I love it for taming midrange harshness. It became essentially my only EQ for 12 months. 

But with all these comments I threw it into plugin doctor. It's the "Sheen" button on the high frequency band. I thought I loved it. But what it was actually doing is smearing the high end. It does a beautiful thing with the stereo imaging of stuff above 10K, and I got so used to it I didn't notice that it was totally *****ing with the higher midrange and giving it a kind of phasey sound.  But...although it's not a big deal on a single track / group bus, when that phasey smearing sound is across all tracks the final mix sounds "off". I didn't realize how off till I started checking older mixes in other studios. It was clear as day - I just got used to it on my monitors and thought it sounded great.

That's one button, on one EQ that can have an enormous impact on the final mix. So imagine how using a Pultec emulation vs. a Harrison 32C emulation will alter a sound. There are features very specific to the Pultec (and passive EQs in general...other than the tonal difference), but for the Pultec that's the ability to boost and cut the same band at the same time. This results in a fairly complex frequency curve that cannot be replicated with something like a 32C or a parametric EQ. However, something like the Plugin Alliance Kirchoff EQ has an option to replicate this behavior in parametric form. However - many people won't use this because they specifically want the limitations of the Pultec, again...going back to history...it's the unmistakable sound of so many classic mixes...precisely because it has so few options with very unique-to-that-device curves.

Anyway - all this to say. There are many ways to draw an EQ curve. Almost every EQ approaches this differently. It would be absurd to "null test", say, a Pultec vs a 32C vs. a Api 5500, because they have totally different features. Sure, you might match a certain frequency boost curve on one band, but you're likely also pulling out a 32C for additional band control or its incredible LP / HP filter, or pulling out a Pultec for the attenuation curves to get a specific kick sound. Neither of these EQs can do what the other one does - it's literally impossible. A more fair test would be to compare 2 EQs with the same features - say multiple 4 band parametric EQs with no additional unique features. For example, even the Harrison 32C LP / HP filter isn't available on other EQs of the same type, so it's never going to "null" with comparable EQs without that feature, when that feature is being used. (duh). And as has been said 100 times, you can probably replicate it with Pro-Q, but why would you do that if you want the 32C sound and the plugin is sitting right in front of you?

I have 7 default EQs installed. Pro-Q 3 gets used most of the time. But I use the rest for different reasons. 4 of them are hardware emulations (Pultec, Amek 200, API 5500 emulation,  and Massive Passive), each used for different purposes, and the remaining 2 are specialized (eg. Soothe 2). If it was back in the day and everything was still hardware, I would own hardware units of each of these. And 7+ EQ types in a studio has been common for decades - it's not unique to the digital age or "hoarding" or "we have it so good".  It's fairly standard to have a lot of options (comps, reverbs, delays, EQs, etc.) in any studio since the beginning of recorded music. Literally nothing has changed, except poorer people have access to more options today. Which is a good thing if you can control the GAS and learn what it is you're using or actually need vs. think you need.

 

[pwal³]

11 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

I don't think it's so much sounding good - what we think sounds good is product of 100 years of recorded music made on very specific pieces of equipment, by a relatively small group of people, who essentially hammered the sound of "good" into our brains. In a parallel universe, where entirely other engineers made entirely different pieces of gear, it's likely our idea of "good" would be entirely different. That universe may have had colder sounding 70s rock, or more washed out sounding funk, or whatever. Maybe the 32C was never made and disco never sounded the way it did.

Let's take the 32C. A console with a very unique EQ. It is unmistakable.  You'll notice that sound across all of ABBAs work, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation, tons of R&B and disco. That EQ is a huge part of the sound of disco, early Chicago house, and 90s r&b. What do these all have in common? A total and complete - absolutely complete - lack of harshness. It's a gorgeous sounding EQ for music that will eventually be played in clubs - of a certain era. 

What is special about it? Why can't you just reproduce what it dose with a surgical EQ like Pro-Q 3.

Try it. 

Take a harsh sounding mix (annoying crash cymbals or ringing snare or brittle metallic bass) and try to tame it with any other EQ. Then, after a day of experimenting, switch to the 32C emulation (which is pretty good). You'll solve many of those problems in seconds. BUT. There's a tradeoff. It will have a very specific sound. I personally don't like the sound for my own music. That EQ is exceptional, but not for me personally. It might be because I recognize the sound of that EQ on bass and it reminds me of 90s r&b. 

But this goes back to my first point - why do I think it's "removing harshness". It's likely because it's removing things that were also removed in 1000 other albums in the past, and I've learned to consider these harsh. It's also why so many emulations are made of literally every EQ ever built - because many people like the sound of certain EQs, and don't want any other options. It's not that the sound couldn't be replicated with a complex EQ like Pro-Q 3, it's that people want that sound. They want those bands, and that HP / LP filter slope, because it simply / easily replicates a sound we've all grown to love.

To go on a tangent. For me personally - I was using the Amek 9099 emulation for about a year almost exclusively. I started to get a lot of comments about a change in the tone of my tracks. Something about the mids / mid-highs. "I like your old mixes better."  What is going on? I love the sound of that EQ. And I'm using essentially the same bands and Qs as on other EQs before? At least I think? And I particularly like the high end air (more than the Clariphonic, Abbey Road stuff and Maag 4), and I love it for taming midrange harshness. It became essentially my only EQ for 12 months. 

But with all these comments I threw it into plugin doctor. It's the "Sheen" button on the high frequency band. I thought I loved it. But what it was actually doing is smearing the high end. It does a beautiful thing with the stereo imaging of stuff above 10K, and I got so used to it I didn't notice that it was totally *****ing with the higher midrange and giving it a kind of phasey sound.  But...although it's not a big deal on a single track / group bus, when that phasey smearing sound is across all tracks the final mix sounds "off". I didn't realize how off till I started checking older mixes in other studios. It was clear as day - I just got used to it on my monitors and thought it sounded great.

That's one button, on one EQ that can have an enormous impact on the final mix. So imagine how using a Pultec emulation vs. a Harrison 32C emulation will alter a sound. There are features very specific to the Pultec (and passive EQs in general...other than the tonal difference), but for the Pultec that's the ability to boost and cut the same band at the same time. This results in a fairly complex frequency curve that cannot be replicated with something like a 32C or a parametric EQ. However, something like the Plugin Alliance Kirchoff EQ has an option to replicate this behavior in parametric form. However - many people won't use this because they specifically want the limitations of the Pultec, again...going back to history...it's the unmistakable sound of so many classic mixes...precisely because it has so few options with very unique-to-that-device curves.

Anyway - all this to say. There are many ways to draw an EQ curve. Almost every EQ approaches this differently. It would be absurd to "null test", say, a Pultec vs a 32C vs. a Api 5500, because they have totally different features. Sure, you might match a certain frequency boost curve on one band, but you're likely also pulling out a 32C for additional band control or its incredible LP / HP filter, or pulling out a Pultec for the attenuation curves to get a specific kick sound. Neither of these EQs can do what the other one does - it's literally impossible. A more fair test would be to compare 2 EQs with the same features - say multiple 4 band parametric EQs with no additional unique features. For example, even the Harrison 32C LP / HP filter isn't available on other EQs of the same type, so it's never going to "null" with comparable EQs without that feature, when that feature is being used. (duh). And as has been said 100 times, you can probably replicate it with Pro-Q, but why would you do that if you want the 32C sound and the plugin is sitting right in front of you?

I have 7 default EQs installed. Pro-Q 3 gets used most of the time. But I use the rest for different reasons. 4 of them are hardware emulations (Pultec, Amek 200, API 5500 emulation,  and Massive Passive), each used for different purposes, and the remaining 2 are specialized (eg. Soothe 2). If it was back in the day and everything was still hardware, I would own hardware units of each of these. And 7+ EQ types in a studio has been common for decades - it's not unique to the digital age or "hoarding" or "we have it so good".  It's fairly standard to have a lot of options (comps, reverbs, delays, EQs, etc.) in any studio since the beginning of recorded music. Literally nothing has changed, except poorer people have access to more options today. Which is a good thing if you can control the GAS and learn what it is you're using or actually need vs. think you need.

 

maths

[kitekrazy]

Imagine if there was one similar on softsynths.   Many of us have way too many of those.

[Starship Krupa]

I've gone through phases in my development as a mix engineer, and as the audio software industry has changed over the past decade.

Initially I budgeted nothing for plug-ins, just went with whatever was bundled with Mixcraft (which, admittedly, is known for bundling some nice plug-ins, such as the way underrated ToneBoosters stuff).

At the time, the industry was moving to 64-bit, and the one-person freebie developers were stuck with SynthEdit, which took a LONG time to get a 64-bit replacement. Now we have JUCE and others.

Then MeldaProduction kicked off this era of loss leaders by topflight developers. That was a watershed moment. MeldaProduction has since made a fortune from people who tried their free bundle and were hooked (like me). The sound and features were so far ahead of anything else available for free.

Got deals on the iZotope Elements suites of the time.

At that point, my mixes and masters got the the point where I was no longer frustrated with the results I was getting, it was then all about shaving off that final 10% of skills and tools.

Being a fixed income frugal dude, when I switched to CbB as my primary DAW and discovered this forum, it was off to the races.

Plugin Alliance virtually giving away licenses, IK Multimedia TRacks freebies (I now have every TRacks processor I ever wanted, not paid a dime for any of them), Plugin Boutique freebies (which have included some top-tier things like sonible and Kilohearts specialty EQ's), Native Instruments freebies, iZotope Exponential $10 reverbs, Waves freebies, I now have a FEROCIOUS collection of top-tier processors and synths for which I've paid very little in the scope of the hobby (and thanks to my main DAW being freeware).

I think the only thing anyone would find "lacking" in my quiver of tools would be if they were really fond of Waves, FabFilter or UAD.

The only plug-in categories that now interest me for acquisition are sound-design-y things like Unfiltered Audio, Glitchmachines, Freakshow Industries and the like. Also synths, but only freebies.

There's no way I don't have all the bread-and-butter mixing and mastering categories covered multiple times over. I have so much stuff that I've barely touched the iZotope bundle since I got it. No buyer's remorse, it's industry-standard stuff and I'm glad it's there.

On 5/23/2024 at 9:39 AM, bitflipper said:

Nearly every YouTube advice-giver starts with the same premise: I've found a secret that nobody else knows about...

Indeed. And heaven knows plenty of "This One Secret!" videos that were "all you need is your DAW's stock plug-ins." 🙄

They get clicks, though, even from us jaded skeptics who click on them just to roll our eyes.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

3 hours ago, kitekrazy said:

Imagine if there was one similar on softsynths.   Many of us have way too many of those.

I use Akai VIP ( sadly discontinued but it came free with my midi controller ) which brings all your softsynths into one place and you can quickly browse all the presets from multiple synths from one big centralised GUI.

The thing it made me notice , is that when you can 't seen the synths own native interface... they all kinda sound pretty much the same.    

Edited May 25 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Carl Ewing]

Just wanted to add one important point, especially when comparing passive vs. active EQs. A passive EQ, like the Massive Passive or Pultec, don't actually "boost" frequencies. What actually happens is that when you "boost" a frequency by 2db it will drop other frequencies by 2db (*), giving the perception that the target frequency is being boosted. Depending on the unit (or emulation) 2db of makeup gain is then added to the entire signal. (**) Because of this process, technically, a passive EQ does not require a power supply except for the purpose of a providing a kind of "auto gain" to compensate for lost signal. And of course the gain amp in many passive EQ units gives each unit a very signature sound.

* = the frequency curve of this process wildly differs between models. Some do steeper cuts to frequencies closest to the target frequency, others have a more uniform curve across the whole spectrum.

** = again, how this is done differs wildly between models. For example, you get quite a different sound if the fixed-gain amp is before or after the EQ circuit. A proper emulation of these units would have to take this circuitry into account. 

I noticed that a lot of these "all these EQ plugins sound the same" claims often mix match entirely different types of EQs without understanding the circuitry / physics and how it would be literally impossible for them to sound the same.  If they are getting a "they sound identical", then there is either something wrong with the emulation (quite possible), or something very wrong with the test.

Not sure if I explained that correctly - but here's a Sweetwater site explanation: 

Quote

Passive vs. Active EQs:

Another difference is that the emulated EQ may have a passive or active circuit design. Passive EQs don’t use gain in the filter sections themselves, so theoretically the filters can only cut, not boost. However, many passive designs include an output amplifier that adds makeup gain to all the filter sections, and the filters’ boost/cut controls add a constant amount of attenuation at the “0” setting that offsets the amount of output boost. Therefore, when you’re boosting at a particular frequency, the filter circuit itself is simply reducing the amount of attenuation, which results in a “boost” by taking advantage of the gain provided by the output amplifier.

Active EQs are variations on amplifiers, so they can boost as well as cut and can add resonances that would be difficult to achieve with passive EQs. Many people consider passive EQs gentler and more “musical,” and active EQs better at problem-solving.

 

 

Edited May 25 by Carl Ewing

[Jesse Screed]

16 hours ago, Carl Ewing said:

I don't think it's so much sounding good - what we think sounds good is product of 100 years of recorded music made on very specific pieces of equipment, by a relatively small group of people, who essentially hammered the sound of "good" into our brains. In a parallel universe, where entirely other engineers made entirely different pieces of gear, it's likely our idea of "good" would be entirely different.

[Mr No Name]

What music would sound like if everyone used only one digital eq.

 

 

[telecode 101]

20 hours ago, pwal³ said:

tbf, stock plugs are really rather good

Yup. I wish I had followed this path when I first started getting into ITB DAW. I have found that trimming down the plugins you have at your disposal improves productivity. Less options to tinker with and more time really focusing on and learning how to use well the plugin you have and what it can do. 

[Zo]

Waiting for the HW version !

[jude77]

23 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

"The secret technique the pros don't want you to know revealed!"

So true.  And that secret technique is don't spend your day watching videos on Youtube.

[kitekrazy]

On 5/23/2024 at 9:39 AM, bitflipper said:

Nearly every YouTube advice-giver starts with the same premise: I've found a secret that nobody else knows about...

It's really all about making youtube videos and getting clicks.  I'd probably say that every youtuber buys something and does a short video with it and never use it again. 

 You see the same type of videos in the gaming community regarding tips.

Then there's the ones who haven't figured out to do a voiceover (plenty of tech people) and they need to stop. 

[Mr No Name]