Console Emulation

My understanding is that it is fairly subtle but gets less subtle as you turn up the drive. Also, if you put it on all tracks, including the buss tracks, it also has more of an effect. 

I was curious as to what it did so I loaded up a track, cloned, inverted and then turned the console emulation on for just one track. If you do this, you can hear what it is doing.
There is also another posts here (several actually) that go into it in more detail. There is one that shows spectral analysis so you can "see" what it is doing to the signal.

Of course I was turning the driveknob, but still if this is subtle, then it is reeeaaally subtle :-)

I can hear a huge difference when enabling the console emuation. If you cant hear it then its your monitoring chain and room that is holding you back. Or it can be your ears.


Cj

Ok, I´ll give it another go later when I slept enough,

CJ, btw I have Blue Sky´s in a acousticly well treated room, so that´s not the problem..

thanks

Thanks, so I´m not the only one here 

tbosco


Maybe it's just me, but I notice little or no effect on the console emulations....and I have pretty good ears.  However, I have not utilized them in the same fashion as in the webinar.
So the jury is still out in my studio.

Definitely set up a mix, put them across all channels and of course bus emu on all buses then listen to the total sound. 

You definitely have "Use Multiprocessing Engine" checked in Edit > Preferences > Playback and Recording?  SONAR should definitely spread them pretty evenly across cores.

Maybe it's just me, but I notice little or no effect on the console emulations....and I have pretty good ears. However, I have not utilized them in the same fashion as in the webinar.
So the jury is still out in my studio.

 
This effect will not change your sound. Have you ever did any kind of analog summing through a "good" Mixing board? If yes, then you'll know that the change of the sound is very subtle. Just as these effects are very subtle. That is what this effect basically does..
 
Running your mix through a console doesn't do any dramatic changes, so why would the console emulator do any dramatic changes?
 
CJ

synkrotron


I was reading the X2 Reference Guide earlier with regards to the Console Emulation. I know nothing about this stuff so I have to believe what I read.

Basically, the "guidelines" are that you place an instance of Console Emulation on each track and bus and at the beginning of the chain, and this is even before you start listening to your recordings and start the mixing process.

And there is only one parameter to alter and that is Drive, so that is crucial to how the emulation will sound.

I'm a way of checking this out yet but I have made a note to self for the future.

That's a pretty accurate understanding.  There is a little extra magic: The default settings are a console's "natural" state.  That drive control can be backed off, causing less impact than a hardware board would, and can be driven extra hard, resulting in a bigger impact than is possible with its hardware counterpart.  

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk
]

You definitely have "Use Multiprocessing Engine" checked in Edit > Preferences > Playback and Recording?  SONAR should definitely spread them pretty evenly across cores.

Yes that was checked.


I basically loaded a project from X1 which behaved perfectly for 2 hours until i followed the recommendation of using the console emulation on all channels/busses which overloaded core 1. 


However...... Having deleted all instances of console emulation, the project still overloads, which wasn't happening beforehand. As i only have 3 softsynths and 4 fx in total on various channels, all of which i have turned off to see if there is any difference, which there isnt, i can only conclude that X2 has somehow corrupted the project as even after pc restart etc it still overloads and is unplayable.


Maybe a bug? It seems that noone else has reported this behaviour so im not sure but i am very hesitant to use X2 again until the cause can be established.


Bibs

wizard71

Bill Jackson [Cakewalk
]

You definitely have "Use Multiprocessing Engine" checked in Edit > Preferences > Playback and Recording?  SONAR should definitely spread them pretty evenly across cores.

Yes that was checked.


I basically loaded a project from X1 which behaved perfectly for 2 hours until i followed the recommendation of using the console emulation on all channels/busses which overloaded core 1. 


However...... Having deleted all instances of console emulation, the project still overloads, which wasn't happening beforehand. As i only have 3 softsynths and 4 fx in total on various channels, all of which i have turned off to see if there is any difference, which there isnt, i can only conclude that X2 has somehow corrupted the project as even after pc restart etc it still overloads and is unplayable.


Maybe a bug? It seems that noone else has reported this behaviour so im not sure but i am very hesitant to use X2 again until the cause can be established.


Bibs

Interesting.  I bet it's some other plug-in in the project.  Can you narrow it down by bypassing FX Bins, Synths in the rack, & ProChannel Modules?

Maximumpower's method is the best method to hear the difference between each emulation. It can be done as follows:

1: Load an audio track with loop added (for example a drum loop).
2: Clone the track so that you have two identical tracks routed to the same output bus (eg master).
3: Enable the console emulation on only one of the tracks.
4: Invert the phase of only one of the tracks. (this is done in the console view)
5: Now you can toggle between the different emulations on the track which it has been enabled and hear   exactly what each sounds like. (at this point also alter the trim and drive dials).

To me, it sounds that the N type is adding more presence to the top end. I set the trim to 0db and drive to +3db then toggled between each emulation.

My experiment was limited to two different tracks. Guitar - clean sound through a 212 box and 57mic light reverb, subtle amount of delay. And Guitar - driven / crunch through same box and mic position... For me, A- Type provided the best, or most noticeable, improvement. And between the two sounds, CEM made the most impact on the Clean sound. A-B'd it about a dozen times or more just to see if I was really hearing the change. The crunch sound also smoothed out just a bit but was not as dramatic for me. In both instances the CEM was at the bottom of the chain. My setting was -1 db (trim) and plus 1.5 (drive). I can tell I"m going to love it on acoustic and vocal materials.