Crazy buildup of hiss in a track - analog modeling

I can't be alone in thinking the amount of hiss that "analog" style plugins add to a track is just ridiculous. It's not that bad if you're only using one instance, but if you have multiple instance in the project (like one on every track) then the buildup of hiss is horrible! And sometimes I can't even work out who the biggest culprits are, for example I'm trying to reduce hiss in a project right now and my first idea was the waves H-comp which has these analog modes which create hiss. But the instance I'm using has its analog control set to "off," and when I turn it on the hiss actually reduces in noise. 
 
Sometimes it's really hard to trace. For instance you might turn off a plugin and the hiss reduces in volume, but is the hiss coming from that plugin or is the plugin simply increasing the gain of pre-existing hiss somewhere else up the chain? 
 
Does anyone actually think this hiss adds anything good to a track? It's noticeable for me in quiet parts and it bugs the crap out of me. I really like the sound of some of these plugins but WHY the hiss. Some of them you can't even turn it off. I can't help feeling that in 10 years time when the novelty of analog modeling has worn off, we're going to look back and laugh at this ridiculous hiss. And what about electrical hum as well? Ooo look, you can have 50Hz or 60Hz. Decisions decisions......

I agree, it's not natural sounding at all. I have the RC-20 Retro Color plugin and while I think the vinyl surface noise, tape wobble and tape dropouts can add some nice color and interest to a track, I'm at a loss as to why you'd want to add any of the other varieties of noise they offer. 
 
I mean there's VHS noise, cassette noise, "studio noise" (two kinds), white noise, pink noise, 7.5' tape noise, 15" tape noise, tube noise, DC noise, "Muff" noise (from the Big Muff pedal?), radio noise, 8-bit noise and something called "Apollo." I don't think you'd ever want any of them in a track unless you were genuinely trying to recreate those sounds for a movie or something. 
 
And I hear some people say "oh it adds air"! Really? There are, surely, far better ways of adding air to a track. 

Usually the first dial on an analogue emulation plugin that I reach for is the noise dial or noise on/off switch. WAVES e.g. always has it enabled by default when you insert the plug and I definitely turn it off first thing (although there were occasions when I added some of it back in .... but more for FX than "reality")
 
What I really do not like is when the amp sim modellers also model noise/hum but often without the option to turn it off! I have several bass amp sims which I don't use anymore for that particular reason.

telecharge

sharke
But the instance I'm using has its analog control set to "off," and when I turn it on the hiss actually reduces in noise.

I wonder if this isn't some kind of phase cancellation going on.
 
I also wonder if you bounce it down if you could use a transient shaper/designer to reduce or eliminate it.

That sounds possible. 

Jeff Evans
It is a totally dumb concept if you ask me and it is taking analog modelling way too far. I remember going to great lengths years ago to remove hiss or reduce it as much as possible and now they are putting it back.
 

Maybe it the necessary removal processes that really made the analog sound what it was.
 
 
 
 
kidding of course, that'd be awful.

davdud101Maybe it the necessary removal processes that really made the analog sound what it was.

There's a lot of truth in that.

An example - a cranked Fuzz Face into a cranked Marshall with the amp inputs jumpered and everything on ten.

Result is a huge amount of hiss and hum because the fuzz takes the incoming background noise, adds it's own noise and massively compresses and amplifies it. Then the Marshall repeats the process. The resulting noise floor is dreadful and, as Pete Cornish puts it, not fit for serious use.

Use a bit more restrained settings on the fuzz and turn the amp down a bit and you can get all the sustain and fuzz out of the setup anyone's likely to need and.... much less hum, hiss and buzz and as a bonus everything's much more managable and more predictable to play into. And that's how it was (and is) done.

The same applies to compressors, even good studio ones. Feed something noisy into a compressor and squash it and the noise floor rockets upwards. So when working in the analogue realm gain staging is crucial and some things have to be avoided simply to keep the noise down.

Vintage studio equipment generally simply couldn't handle modern +4dB levels without instantly and undesirably distorting so levels were kept down to what the gear could handle and that in turn also helped keep the noise down. In modern K-system terminology the levels used were often somewhere around K20 to K14

As for amp sims, I can understand one being noisy if it's "amplifying" an already noisy input chain, but there are some that are so noisy with nothing going into them that if I owned that amp I'd be thinking of trying a valve change in the preamp's gain stage, getting the filter capacitors replaced or trading it in. I have sometimes wondered if the sim programmers simply wanted to add lots more gain to the "simulation" that the real amp is capable of and the noise is a side-effect of that or whether they simply modelled a defective amp :-)