Here's a couple of questions.. I am assuming that the N-Tupe is a Neve, The S-Type is an SSL, and the A-Type is the Trident A Range, this isn't my question but if that can be confirmed that'd be totally cool too.

1-Is the emulation of the console only in that particular module to say that it does not influence the PC eq to behave more closely to the channel strip/board it's modeled after? If not, how cool would that be?

2-So the more instances of the CE the more effective it does overall due to summing? If this is the case, then how does it affect said summing if you want the drums to have that Neve sound, the guitars and bass to have that A-Range sound and the vocals to have that SSL sound? So the real question is, does it mess with the summing if you have different types selected on the CENSUS?

3-How does the summing work any way?

4-why doesn't the Channel or Buss compressor model not have high pass capability?

stm113cw
Here's a couple of questions.. I am assuming that the N-Tupe is a Neve, The S-Type is an SSL, and the A-Type is the Trident A Range, this isn't my question but if that can be confirmed that'd be totally cool too.

 
That's correct.

1-Is the emulation of the console only in that particular module to say that it does not influence the PC eq to behave more closely to the channel strip/board it's modeled after? If not, how cool would that be?

 
It does not influence the EQ. However, bear in mind that the QuadCurve already emulates four different EQ types. As a result you can mix and match console type and EQ type.

2-So the more instances of the CE the more effective it does overall due to summing? If this is the case, then how does it affect said summing if you want the drums to have that Neve sound, the guitars and bass to have that A-Range sound and the vocals to have that SSL sound? So the real question is, does it mess with the summing if you have different types selected on the CENSUS?

 
The CEs don't affect the summing per se. Summing simply sums the individual channels. So if the drums have the Neve sound and the bass has the Trident sound, then in the final mix it will sounds as if the drums were mixed through Neve channesl and the bass through Trident channels. 

3-How does the summing work any way?

 
It's a mathematical operation.

4-why doesn't the Channel or Buss compressor model not have high pass capability?

The Bus compressor is modeled after the 4K, which didn't have high pass capability (the G Series one did). The 1176 compressor didn't have a high pass filter, either.
 
Regarding the question about tape emulation, it depends on the effect you want. If you want to sound like you're sending signals from a digital multitrack to a master analog tape machine, insert a tape emulator in the master bus. If you want to sound like you recorded each track to an analog multitrack, then insert a tape emulator in each track.

Thank you for the great information, you never disappoint on the knowledge front. Unless of course you're telling someone something can't be done lol.

stm113cw
You use the tap emulation on most tracks? I don't know why I always thought that should just be on the master for authenticity. In my mind it goes through the console to tape right? Am I missing some sonic goodness here?

In a tape-based studio every track is recorded to tape, as is the output from any aux tracks handling reverb etc.

On mixdown the tape is played back through the desk and summed to a master bus which in turn is recorded to tape as a stereo mix.

So to emulate a tape based studio a tape emulator is needed on every track and bus/aux channel that handles send effects, and on the master.

If you want to go further and emulate the days of the Beatles, Hendrix etc. and earlier you might also want to do sub-mixes through aux channels which also have a tape emulator then use the bus not the relevant tracks as your source during mixdown. This being to emulate the practice of bouncing recorded tracks down to a single mono track or stereo pair to free up tape tracks for other use in the days when recoders were four or eight track machines and if you wanted to record more tracks you either spent a fortune on more tape decks and handled issues like getting them perfectly time-synchronised or bounced some tracks down.

Approaching a project in that way, using only (emulations of) technology that was in use at a particular period in the way they were used back then can be quite an interesting exercise. I've done it a few times over the last year or so, pretending it was 1972 or the early 60s using Waves' Abbey Road plugs and a few others of the right period and my respect for what engineers and producers achieved back then has increased enormously.

It's maybe worth remembering that the technical history of the studio multi-track recorder (and consoles) was a process of developing more and more "transparent" tapes and recording technology, minimising phasing issues, minimising distortion introduced by necessary technology and generally trying to achieve as little distortion/audible effect as possible.

Having said that, it's also the case that there are distortion components which humans seem to find very appealing.

tlw
If you want to go further and emulate the days of the Beatles, Hendrix etc. and earlier you might also want to

... restrict yourself to 4 tracks

Although it's often been said Sgt. Pepper's was cut on a 4 track, there was a lot of bouncing between machines.

Even more console emulation questions...
 
I understand that an emulator can go pre or post fx bin, can be placed anywhere from first to last in a PC strip and that different type emulators could be used on different tracks. IF my goal was to attempt to record something as completely true to the realities imposed by actual analog recording, what would the typical signal chain look like? I have very limited experience with actual analog consoles, but in my mind I am thinking that some tracks would prob use the emulator post fx bin, like a guitar with stomp boxes, where the guitar signal would go to stomp box then to console. And other tracks, like keyboards, for instance, would be plugged directly to the console with perhaps some effects added via send from the console, therefore the console would be first in the PC strip. I have trouble visualizing how anything other than outboard effects applied directly to an instrument's output would go before the console. So I am thinking that the console first in the PC strip but post fx bin would be most "real world". I am prepared to be schooled on these assumptions, so fire away and point out the flaws in this argument. It's not like I have much experience with this, just trying to emulate how things were set up back in my long ago analog past.  

There was no one way to do analog recording, so there's no one way to emulate it. With classical guitar recordings, I usually patched the mic pres directly into the tape machine to bypass the console. Sometimes effects went into insert jacks that were post-input transformer, sometimes they went into the console inputs and were pre-input transformer. However IMHO the "sound" of a console wasn't fully revealed until the output summing bus, so to me, a console emulator would go at the end...unless you specifically wanted the sound of processing with an input transformer, in which case that would be more important than emulating console non-linearities, so I'd place it at the beginning.

Thanks for that insight, Craig. I guess analog routing was/is more flexible than I was thinking. Variable placement of the console makes more sense to me now.

pwalpwal

tlw
If you want to go further and emulate the days of the Beatles, Hendrix etc. and earlier you might also want to

... restrict yourself to 4 tracks

Or four busses each carrying a tape emulator fed by sub-mixes from tracks. Maybe as many as eight tracks if you're wealthy enough to own such a high-tech state of the art desk.

Then there's the whole Les Paul way of doing things with repeated tape overdubs and pretty much everything controlled from a panel on the guitar or Robert Fripp's Frippertronics. Live looping nowadays is quite a bit simpler and much cheaper.

I wonder if there's a market for an emulation of a 1920s/30s mono disc-cutting recorder, complete with crackles, pops, wow, surface noise and a 12KHz low pass filter....