As the subject says. I am gettIng more serious about my recordings and I’ve been wondering about this lately. I am running a Scarlett 18i8 and it works reasonably well, though I notice high end information seems to not make it to my tracks. I’ve been thinking lately about trying to mimic the benefits of using a hardware mic pre on the way in when recording (especially) vocal tracks.

I saw a video from Graham at Recording Revolution where he was talking about tracking with plugs but what he basically did was apply 1 level of dynamics control and some slight Eq moves, then printed the track, which I guess is almost the same, or can yield the same effect right?

Do any of you guys try to emulate such things? Another benefit I see is that I’ll use less instances of plugins in my mix which I know my PC will appreciate. My thoughts were to try to really emulate a more classic recording flow I would add what ever plugins to simulate a mic pre, eq slight dynamics, maybe the tape from prochannel then print. When I import that track I’d probably throw a SSL channel strip on the vocal bus, another comp, de-esser, delay and then an Aux reverb channel. Does this sound right to y’all? Does anyone have any other suggestions?

Also what plugins do you like to use for hear kinds of things?

Thank you all!

Emulation of preamps doesn't really work, imho. Short of things like the liquid pres.

Neither does Mic emulation. The real thing is the real thing.

Black Rooster Audio VPre-73 VST is one.

your comment on printing eq/comp moves on the way in sounds exactly like what engineers used to do, which is spend time (and skill) on getting the desired sound before recording it. still think it's a good idea. 
 
UAD is marketing an entire product category for this. 
https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/unison.html
 
which could be interesting and useful in the hands of an experienced engineer. however, i'm currently trying to salvage a mix done with these plugs by a client who has more money than experience. every track with a unison plug-in has been completely over-cooked and sounds awful. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=exItqtzax5o

The above link was created using nothing but emulations, and in particular Abbey Road via Wave's plugs. Whilst I agree with one of the above posts - that you can't emulate microphones...everything else is possible. But you need to emulate the signal flow exactly as the rock avant-gardes did - but remembering there were quite a few signal flows within the rock avant garde paradigm. Think again Abbey Road versus Olympic or Trident studios. And you have to understand advanced digital audio theory 64bitfp versus the rest.

Ben

This one does mics and preamps.
It looks interesting because they use a controlled environment using a very "flat/neutral" microphone as the source for their emulations.
 
http://slatedigital.com/virtual-microphone-system/
 

gswitz
Emulation of preamps doesn't really work, imho. Short of things like the liquid pres.

 
That is tired and old view. Things are getting way better now. I have the Waves Scheps 73 and also Omni Channel. Both of these are outstanding. Studio One allows you to insert these things on the input signals before they even reach the track for recording. They can sound excellent. 

Jeff Evans

gswitz
Emulation of preamps doesn't really work, imho. Short of things like the liquid pres.

 
That is tired and old view. Things are getting way better now. I have the Waves Scheps 73 and also Omni Channel. Both of these are outstanding. Studio One allows you to insert these things on the input signals before they even reach the track for recording. They can sound excellent. 

 
I'm not saying that the FX don't sound cool. I'm saying they don't really sound like what they're emulating. For years I thought they did. I faithfully used Amp Sims sure that it got me the same thing for fraction of the cost. Slowly over the years, I bought some of these mics. I have some nice preamps. I decided one day to record a short segment on my guitar and try to see if the royer ribbon R-121 I own sounds like the Royer in TH3. 
 
There were things I found... Like my Royer Ribbon sounds almost exactly like my MXL Ribbon which cost half as much. That doesn't mean the Royer isn't more durable or otherwise cool. It just means that the type of mic had a lot to do with the awesome sound. The expensive version might be easier to replace the ribbon. Things like that. Idk. I'm not saying the R-121 isn't worth the money, in other words. I'm saying that it might not be what everyone needs.
 
And I'm definitely saying that the Amps, Mics, and Preamps make a real difference.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3GKLkHxGqI
 
I might not be that great at matching using TH3, but the differences here are obvious. One next to the other they really don't sound alike.
 
This was a precursor video where I just compared an SM57 with a Ribbon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s67PQ8ZoBKk
 
When I got my first Ribbon I suddenly realized how awesome the sound was. I also realized that I was hearing something new that wasn't coming from the amp sims.

You are off topic a bit. The OP was about emulating Mic Pres nothing more from what i can see. You are into guitars, amps and speakers now and yes I tend to agree with you on that front for sure. They still seem to sound very good although I think they have made some quantum leaps in the guitar amp simulations area.
 
But as I have said many time though if you can play as well as Frank Gambale for example it doesn't matter squat. People like that are going to make your drop no matter what they use. Talent and skill overrides everything. 
 
 

Jeff Evans

gswitz
Emulation of preamps doesn't really work, imho. Short of things like the liquid pres.

 
That is tired and old view. Things are getting way better now. I have the Waves Scheps 73 and also Omni Channel. Both of these are outstanding. Studio One allows you to insert these things on the input signals before they even reach the track for recording. They can sound excellent. 

Yeah the Waves ones are great.

I also like Lindell Audio’s emulation of their own hardwares preamp EQ’s, you can find a limited CM version of the preamp with Computer Music Magazine

Regards, Thomas