Members rasputin1963 Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 I'm perusing my SWEETWATER catalog and am reading with interest about the new breed of plugins devised by WAVES: their API, SSL and V-SERIES plugins. These modern VST plugins promise to give one's mix a "vintage" sound.... What-- other than noise and infidelity perhaps--- constitutes a "vintage" sound? I understand that some compressor pluggies can replicate the sound of vintage boards; I suppose I can wrap my head around that. But these plugins offer EQ's which are also described as vintage. How can an EQ sound old-fashioned? I thought you were just gaining and attenuating frequencies, right? Is it the peculiar shape of the "Q" they're talking about? Or what? Thanks, ras Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DevilRaysFan Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 Wow, Im looking forward to the answer to this one........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Rudolf von Hagenwil Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 Plug-in effects are sound tools. Today it's all Sound Design, the modern term for recording and mixing music. Every electronic circuit has a particular sound, so do the plug-ins which are software copies of the original hardware, okay I still prefer to use the original hardware, the plug-in stuff feels a bit like being married to an inflatable women. "Yesterday I didn't know how to spell engineer, today I'm one myself"Anonymous . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alfonso Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 I imagine they introduce some sort of saturation and harmonics balance similar to the effect made by analog media and tube circuits. If the results are good or not it's quite subjective. The fact is that the digital circuitry is the "science of the workarounds" when it comes to the emulation of the analog one, because only few things are achieved with a similar "philosophy", digital has its own rules and ways. Sometimes results can be pretty good, sometimes they are a joke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cooterbrown Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 I'm perusing my SWEETWATER catalog and am reading with interest about the new breed of plugins devised by WAVES: their API, SSL and V-SERIES plugins. These modern VST plugins promise to give one's mix a "vintage" sound.... What-- other than noise and infidelity perhaps--- constitutes a "vintage" sound? I understand that some compressor pluggies can replicate the sound of vintage boards; I suppose I can wrap my head around that. But these plugins offer EQ's which are also described as vintage. How can an EQ sound old-fashioned? I thought you were just gaining and attenuating frequencies, right? Is it the peculiar shape of the "Q" they're talking about? Or what? Thanks, ras Why not just buy some vintage gear and an old Revox or Ampex reel-to-reel if you're looking for that "vintage sound"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dean Roddey Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 You mean other than the tens of thousands of dollars difference in price? :-) I just picked up the URS Channel Strip Pro plugin. To me, this is a great addition that provides a huge number of options for emulation of various vintage analog hardware, tape, compressors, and EQ, all in one package. It's really a great plugin. Obviously it would be nice to have an LA-2A, LA-610, 1176, Great River, API, Manley, etc... in the rack. But that would cost as much as my whole studio so far, so it's not too practical. Another option is a really flexible single unit, like the Distressor, which can emulate various types of vintage gear. I'm seriously considering this as my first piece of outboard hardware (other than the pre-amp of course, which is vintage sounding already, a UA Solo/610.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members slight-return Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 fermentation of fruit sugars Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dean Roddey Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 How can an EQ sound old-fashioned? I thought you were just gaining and attenuating frequencies, right? Is it the peculiar shape of the "Q" they're talking about? Or what? These vintage units were 'imperfect' in their operation in various ways and had side effects of one type or another. Many of these side effects were considered nice sounding, and we've come to associate them with that vintage sound. They might have various types of ringing around the EQ frequencies, or unusual compressor release characteristics (LA-2A, Fairchild), and so forth. And they tended to have considerably more THD than modern equipment and often affected the low/high end in different ways or added odd/even harmonics of various types. So an emulation plugin tries to duplicate these characteristics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Thrashy Posted April 18, 2008 Members Share Posted April 18, 2008 the plug-in stuff feels a bit like being married to an inflatable women. The first thing that jumped into my head was inflatable women are pretty much no maintenence. Not making any claims based on Plug ins vs. hardware. but does the "vintage" soind mean it is noisy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FranklinPearl Posted April 20, 2008 Members Share Posted April 20, 2008 tubes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lee Flier Posted April 21, 2008 Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 These modern VST plugins promise to give one's mix a "vintage" sound.... Well, as far as I'm concerned, they won't. What-- other than noise and infidelity perhaps--- constitutes a "vintage" sound? Everything - digital gear included - imparts its own characteristic sound. People could mean any number of things when they say "vintage sound" though and that's why whenever anyone makes that claim, it's usually a load of marketing BS. Not to say these plugs might not sound good - but the particular things I find pleasing about "vintage" gear I have not heard emulated by any plugin. But these plugins offer EQ's which are also described as vintage. How can an EQ sound old-fashioned? I thought you were just gaining and attenuating frequencies, right? Well yes, but different EQ's boost and attenuate frequencies in different ways, and therefore affect the rest of the harmonics in the signal differently. Let's be honest about it - EQ (or any effect) is a type of distortion. It doesn't surprise you when different types of say guitar distortion stompboxes sound different from each other, right? There's "fuzz" and there's "overdrive" and there's "treble boost" and there's fuzz produced with germanium transistors and there's digital distortion (intentional or not)... etc. They all sound different and anyone who listens can tell there is a difference. People who've heard them enough can usually even pick out which is which. EQ is really the same. There is definitely a difference in sound between different types of EQ, and different plugins even. Analog hardware does generally behave differently from plugins, some would say more "musically" because it produces a more natural post-EQ curve and harmonic spectrum, and some plugs have attempted to emulate that (with varying degrees of success). I'm actually pretty pleased with the Kjaerhus Golden EQ plug which I've been using for a couple of years now; it does a pretty good job of emulating hardware and sounds very natural and solid/coherent, unlike a lot of digital EQ's I've used (including Waves). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nerol1st Posted April 21, 2008 Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 Noise and distortion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted April 21, 2008 Moderators Share Posted April 21, 2008 See here. This is great. {censored}ty is pretty... http://www.phobospeepl.dk/documents/{censored}ty1.pdf http://www.phobospeepl.dk/documents/{censored}ty2.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted April 21, 2008 Author Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 See here. This is great. {censored}ty is pretty... http://www.phobospeepl.dk/documents/{censored}ty1.pdfhttp://www.phobospeepl.dk/documents/{censored}ty2.pdf LOLOL. I'm wondering just to what degree Gabriel Roth is being serious here.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 21, 2008 Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 If you want truly vintage sound, go for wow and flutter. I don't know what "vintage" is, and it seems that it's primarily a marketing term. I mean, how would anyone define it? I guess most people think of "warm" and "fat". Is that it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members slight-return Posted April 21, 2008 Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 I mean, how would anyone define it? The year the frigging grapes were harvested, and subsequently made into wine -- as in "to vint" In wines that can be blended (champagne, ports, etc) it's all from the same year...could be 2007! the rest is so much crap - CRAP I SAY - that ebay has given it "keyword" status and breaks the search into gaterogies I hope, for the sake of humanity, that more evolved lifeforms visit the earth and purge "vintage", "fair use", "zero sum game", and "No, I won't do that to your private parts" from all human language not b/c they aren't valid concepts (ceptin the last), but /c they get misused so often (the last one is always misused) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jimbroni Posted April 21, 2008 Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Super 8 Posted April 21, 2008 Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 It's like McDonalds. They're selling flavors. It almost doesn't matter what they put the flavor onto, it will taste like that flavor. Musical gear seems to be about flavors anymore. Well, as far as I'm concerned, they won't. Of course they will. It's only a matter of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jimbroni Posted April 21, 2008 Members Share Posted April 21, 2008 LOLOL. I'm wondering just to what degree Gabriel Roth is being serious here.... If you pour funk in your pocket it will disappear like water. But like water if you stand outside when its raining, you will come back in wet. I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I do know this: If you are gonna write a funk track, you got to make it ROUGH AND NASTY. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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