The new console emulator. You be the judge.

(headphone listen only) 1 sounds louder, but not in a good way. I prefer 2. Dont know the emulators well enough to say which one they were used on. guessing 1 because of the apparent loudness.

Listening on earbuds/iPad - the first one has more brightness, maybe even a *little* harshness (e.g., in the rhythm guitar), but also seems to have a little better stereo image, depth, and definition.  The second one defintely sounds a little duller and, yeah, seems to be quieter.  Overall, though, the differences are subtle.

2 sounds better-guitar is more controlled, not in your face

myconsumerclub


I like it more in your face sounding of course I'm a guitar player so I would right?

I am too-but I thought it was a bit too much in your face in that take :-)

The second one sounds a little creamier so I'm going with that one. 

Hm....OK, I'll go out on a limb here. I think the one with 202 in the filename (the second one) is the one with the emulation and I think it's the SSL setting.

BTW, getting this wrong not only disqualifies you from being a decent musician or engineer, it actually makes you a bad person and will make the baby jesus cry. 

So.....ya know....let's hope I'm right.

Dean

With the demo that Brandon and Seth did I immediately heard the difference and liked the version with Console Emulation on better. 

I think this is due to 3 things.

1. I do think it imparts some euphonic character to the sound
2. Given the driven nature of the emulation it sounds a bit louder by definition, and we generally perceive that louder is better (until driven to the EXTREME)
3. They were mixing with the emulation on, so every other choice they made was directed in part by that fact. If they had just randomly turned it on after mixing with it off I would very like have preferred the results without it.

I think the best practice with this is to try a mix with it turned on for each channel and find settings you like with it before you do much of anything else beyond basic EQ (low/high rolloff, etc.) This way everything else you do will be working with the emulation, rather than working against it. This would more closely parallel what you would do with a real console anyways. The sound it has is the sound it has- everything else would be done with that assumption in place.

Peace,

Tunes

Depending on which module you used could have a difference. The A-Type module will make things seem a little brighter in some cases. However, the S-Type can smooth out highs. I'm going to take a shot and say the second mix has Console Emulation enabled using the S-Type. It seems smoother to me with less of a top end edginess. 

I think to get the most out of console emulation you are going to have to start with the plugin engaged on your tracks at the beginning of your mix stage and make decisions from there. Just throwing it on an existing mix might not be all that complimentary. I'm not saying that is what you did but considering it was posted today my guess is most likely. 

Then again I could be entirely wrong!

I'm gonna guess the second one.

Brandon, aren't you gonna venture a guess?

I should have said that all I did was just inserted the CEM and left it at that. They are at the default setting. It is the second one that has the CEM added.

I agree with Tunekickers comment. The only thing is, I would have had to rebuild the mix entirely which would have skewed the results anyway. I though about it and decided that leaving the mix the way it was was the best way.

Once I added the CEM to the entire console, I like it a who lot better. Now it's a matter of starting the mix with the CEM and moving on from there.  The CEM is a cool addition!

I would say the second one

I listened last night, and based on my opinion of what a console emulation might do, I also thought it was the second clip that had it engaged. I feel a little bit satisfied that I guessed right. Hansenhaus's comments about different consoles imparting different, perhaps almost opposite effects, are interesting. This leads to my question, Guitarpima, which emulation was used? I also got a kick out of the song itself, I thought the new lyrics were very amusing.

Hey, I was right! *whew* Religious crisis averted. I was a bit nervous that if I made the baby jesus cry there would be riots and burned embassies all across the bible belt. Tho I have always wanted to be burned in effigy....

On another note, I just noticed I'm a silver member now. I had been taking some pride in the fact that I've been on this board for nearly 10 years (and the newsgroup before that) and was still only bronze....


Dean

Why put it on every track?  Why not just buses? 

If you're modeling the whole console, you've got channels and buses.