mike_mccue

In that example I think the over time is very short... comparable to the attack and release times on a compression.

best regards,
mike

I wish they would be more specific about these things. I first learned about that by reading it somewhere, now I can't find where I read it, and I accidentally came across that video today while looking for something else.

That TL-64 VST is a nice VST for what it is. I'm surprised they don't make a bigger deal out of it and the others in that series.

Danny Danzi

Bub

Danny Danzi

Bub, is it possible you had that track frozen and then re-enabled the CE? The reason I ask, when you freeze track with the PC enabled, it disables PC completely as it is included in the freeze. Or, I've noticed that in some older projects, the master PC light at the top right, was turned off. I'm sitting here working not even noticing the master on/off on the channel was off until nothing I changed made a difference....then I noticed the light was out.

Nope, it was never frozen.

I haven't experienced any of those old anomalies we had in X1 with the on/off thing thankfully. I can say this though...older projects not created in X2 have always been a bit strange for me to where I've had to alter things. I can't remember exactly what I've had to fix, but let's just say that when I had enough of listening extra hard and watching every little thing, I started labeling my songs "name of song X1" or "name of song X2" or "name of song 8.5" so I never make any mistakes. I've found that is's best to always finish a project in the version your started it with just to keep things cool.

It's a new project started in X2. That's a good idea about naming them with the version number they were started with.

One of the things that I DO remember that always happens to me with older projects and X2 is....it always tells me "can't find wave data, so silence will be inserted". Open the project in 8.5 where it was created, it doesn't do that.

I haven't had that happen in a long time but I do remember it happening.

As for the CE, I hear absolutely nothing while using the bus CE. The channel CE just gives me a little drive and makes things a little crisper. The only thing I've found this useful on so far has been newer bass guitar tones where a client is crying for a little drive and sometimes on backing vocals to give them a little "zip" so to speak.

I don't hear anything either. I'm still scratching my head over those Craig Anderton A/B comparison's he did upstairs a while back. I heard a 'tiny' difference when I used them on strings once, but that's it.

The good thing about the CE drive is...it's good drive. One of the best "drive" sounds I've ever heard from a digital plugin to be honest. It's close to a saturation or sorts depending on which model you use. I've tried enabling one on every track like they recommend and then mixing that way. Then, when you turn them off, you're supposed to hear a pretty decent difference. There's a difference, but not one that I personally welcome. I've worked my entire life to keep drive out of my mixes....it's not something I want or need on every track and to be honest, I can't even tell it's being used unless I crank up that gain a considerable amount. I don't WANT gain on my stuff, so I've stopped using these things.

I tried setting it up the way they recommend too. I have it on all my tracks in this project, and buses and tried to A/B it and heard absolutely no difference until this happened. You are 100% right, it did sound just like a nice saturation once I backed it off.

The Waves versions of these are a little cooler as they give you 32 modeled channels to choose from and each channel has it's own distinct sound without using ANY gain at all. So that to me is a little closer to the way this stuff SHOULD be working. But to be honest, I still don't think I need that and definitely don't need it on every track. To be honest....I think some guys just think they like the sound of those things because they look so cool in your project. :)

I was trying it just to see if I could get anything out of them if you know what I mean.

BTW ... I opened up the project again tonight, now it's not working again. I can crank it all the way up and no difference.

I honestly think the people who say they can't hear a difference are telling the truth because there is no difference. I think this is a flaky plug-in and it's not turning on like we saw with the other Pro Channel modules in X1. I never would have thought this if I hadn't heard it work on this system for 30 seconds.

I'm done. All my stuff will be done in another DAW from now on. I'm cutting my losses with X2. This isn't even funny anymore. It's sad.

After all you've been through, I can't say I blame you. Just make sure you stick around and hang with us. :) Bub, I know it's silly to even bring this up, but have you ever tried a different soundcard? The reason I ask this is because, we run several different interface rigs over here and I've been seeing different quirks in each one. For example, all the Echo Audio stuff we have (Layla 24/96's, Audiofire 12's, Echo Mia) all have the same issues no matter how new or old they are. We crash when we do certain changes when buffer sizes are at 64, and we get a nice gap in our audio when using that arm on the fly option during punch-outs.
 
All our cards do this but our RME FF 800. We can use arm on the fly with tracks 1 &2, but from tracks 3-12 we get a big hole in the audio during a punch and these crashes at 64 samples are nuts with certain VSTi's. We can record at 64 buffers but as soon as we're done, we have to up the buffer size before we do anything.
 
In my case, I think Echo and Sonar don't seem to play too well together. Our RME seems to be ok though even at low latency. I know this has nothing to do with your problem....but the reason I bring it up...remember when we had that issue in X1? It NEVER did that with my RME and it didn't do it with my stupid Realtek's either.
 
But it did it with our Echo stuff at random and it happened several times per week. I'm just wondering if some of these weird gremlins may be soundcard related? Come to think of it, I DO recall the CE being on about 3 weeks ago and not doing anything with the knob all the way up. I closed the project, reopened and it was ok. I've not seen that since, but I really don't use those things anymore. The new plugin manager has wreaked a little havoc on me as well...but it seems to be stable finally.
 
What I really don't get that drives me nuts....my test boxes that have all sorts of crap on them for all the beta work I do for other companies....barely gives me any issues when I use Sonar without testing weird plugs and other strange things. How can a Dell with a Realtek maintain itself with a load of crap on it yet I have issues with my good boxes that are all clean? LOL! I don't get it.
 
-Danny

I've wondered that myself. I even wonder if there are different hardware versions of the same unit. You know what I mean ... the same M-Audio Fast Track Ultra's, just with different chips inside.

I was using my onboard sound card for months when I was remixing things and never had a problem. I never recorded with it though.

I know my DAW and FTU works with reaper, so I'm going to go that route. I'll use as many VST's and Synth's from Sonar as I can, but honestly, for what I do, Melda is all I really need. Trying to think of what else I use from Cakewalk? Dim Pro on occasion, Session Drummer 3 all the time, and that's it really. I really didn't miss anything in Sonar when I started using Reaper. It's got all the basic features, FX Chains, PRV, it says it does Screensets, but I'm not really in to those so I haven't tried it. It's basically the same, except it works smoother and looks nicer.

Anyway, no sense beating a dead horse. I'm done with it.

I'll still come here and be a nuisance though.

Thanks for all the help.

You're not supposed to be able to tell whether CE is turned on or off on a single channel just by listening to a single channel.

You're certainly not expected to hit it hot and declare that it's overdrive sound is terrible.  Of course it is, have you ever heard an input channel of a Neve or Otari or Soundcraft or Yamaha desk that's been pushed to overdrive by a way to hot signal?  It is bad, I assure you.

Mixing desk channels, inputs or busses, are not FX units.  The aim of any mixer is to be as transparent to the audio as possible and the only colour added should be through deliberate use of the EQ section.

The reality of old and modern electronics means that a perfectly transparent mixer is not possible.  The more you spend on circuit design and high quality components the closer you'll get, but it'll never be perfect. The mixer will always impart some colouration to the audio.  Differences in circuit design by different manufactures will give different colour to the sound, hence a Neve sounds different to a Yamaha which sounds different to a $50 Radioshack DJ mixer.

Which you think sounds better is purely subjective and everyone will have their own oppinion.  The differences in sound between most high end mixers is so small as to be insignificant in most cases because the rest of the equipment has much more effect.  The size and type of studio monitors, their possition relative to the mixer, your possition relative to them, the volume you have them set at, the way they're mounted....  each of those alone has more effect on the audio than the "sound" of the mixer.  Add them all together and the mixer is almost irrelevant.

To compare two mixers in a studio setting you'd need to use one for several days to learn its "sound" with different instrument sources, maybe do some recording and mixing to see how it balances different frequencies and how they interact with each other in the busses.  THEN you'd rip it out and replace it with another mixer, using all the same outboard equipment and cables, making sure everything is exactly as before. Then spend another few days doing the same routine of learning the sound of the mixer...

At the end of it you'd either swear that "A" was way better than "B" (because you tried to match the sound of "A" and couldn't) or after 3 days trying to make "B" sound like what you thought you remembered "A" sounding like, you  finally admit that you've forgotten...  (because you can't actually tell a difference)

Either way,  in Sonar it appears to be easy to make comparisons.  You just change the emulation setting don't you?  Well,  no.
First, you have to use the CE on EVERY channel and bus.  Then you need to do a mix from scratch with each of the emulation settings and also a mix with no CE at all.   The CE will alter the frequency responce and harmonic content of the channel/bus, thus you have to start from scratch with your EQ at the very least.
Finaly, when you have been through the entire process for each emulation (incuding none) and you have a set of 2 track masters, you can do a blind listening test to see which one you think sounds better.  This then assumes that any differences you hear are actually due to the CE and not simply because you mixed the same track 4 times and got better at it each time....

OMG look at that post....  I'm turning into Danni

Karyn


You're not supposed to be able to tell whether CE is turned on or off on a single channel just by listening to a single channel.

You're certainly not expected to hit it hot and declare that it's overdrive sound is terrible.  Of course it is, have you ever heard an input channel of a Neve or Otari or Soundcraft or Yamaha desk that's been pushed to overdrive by a way to hot signal?  It is bad, I assure you.

Mixing desk channels, inputs or busses, are not FX units.  The aim of any mixer is to be as transparent to the audio as possible and the only colour added should be through deliberate use of the EQ section.

The reality of old and modern electronics means that a perfectly transparent mixer is not possible.  The more you spend on circuit design and high quality components the closer you'll get, but it'll never be perfect. The mixer will always impart some colouration to the audio.  Differences in circuit design by different manufactures will give different colour to the sound, hence a Neve sounds different to a Yamaha which sounds different to a $50 Radioshack DJ mixer.

Which you think sounds better is purely subjective and everyone will have their own oppinion.  The differences in sound between most high end mixers is so small as to be insignificant in most cases because the rest of the equipment has much more effect.  The size and type of studio monitors, their possition relative to the mixer, your possition relative to them, the volume you have them set at, the way they're mounted....  each of those alone has more effect on the audio than the "sound" of the mixer.  Add them all together and the mixer is almost irrelevant.

To compare two mixers in a studio setting you'd need to use one for several days to learn its "sound" with different instrument sources, maybe do some recording and mixing to see how it balances different frequencies and how they interact with each other in the busses.  THEN you'd rip it out and replace it with another mixer, using all the same outboard equipment and cables, making sure everything is exactly as before. Then spend another few days doing the same routine of learning the sound of the mixer...

At the end of it you'd either swear that "A" was way better than "B" (because you tried to match the sound of "A" and couldn't) or after 3 days trying to make "B" sound like what you thought you remembered "A" sounding like, you  finally admit that you've forgotten...  (because you can't actually tell a difference)

Either way,  in Sonar it appears to be easy to make comparisons.  You just change the emulation setting don't you?  Well,  no.
First, you have to use the CE on EVERY channel and bus.  Then you need to do a mix from scratch with each of the emulation settings and also a mix with no CE at all.   The CE will alter the frequency responce and harmonic content of the channel/bus, thus you have to start from scratch with your EQ at the very least.
Finaly, when you have been through the entire process for each emulation (incuding none) and you have a set of 2 track masters, you can do a blind listening test to see which one you think sounds better.  This then assumes that any differences you hear are actually due to the CE and not simply because you mixed the same track 4 times and got better at it each time....

OMG look at that post....  I'm turning into Danni

Best post on DSP hardware emulation I've read EVAH!!!

{Blush}

It doesn't seem convoluted at all.

:-)

Karyn


{Blush}

It's the truth, it's exactly why I'm a fan of pioneers like Bootsy that are not even bothering to pay homage to vintage hardware but are looking to colour the starkness of digital in a meaningful way without re-introducing the drawbacks and artifacts that everyone at the time would have given anything to be rid of.

the starkness of digital

I would say "pureness of digital"
 
In the analogue world, the inconsistencies of component manfacturing alone means that 1 + 1 is approximatly 2.  If you're lucky, the inconsistencies can hide bad stuff or enhance the good stuff.  If you're very lucky you get both.
 
In the digital world 1 + 1 always equals exactly 2, regardless of your DAW manufaturer.  Thus all DAWs sound the same.  Whatever you get out of a DAW will always be a pure mathematical certaintly based on what you put in.

So Karyn ......what is it exactly that you are saying?

Hi Karyn! Haven't seen you around here in quite a while, it's good to see you back! Thanks for taking the time to reply in such detail.

Karyn

You're not supposed to be able to tell whether CE is turned on or off on a single channel just by listening to a single channel.

You're certainly not expected to hit it hot and declare that it's overdrive sound is terrible.

I did that because I was hearing nothing at all and my thinking behind doing that was to see if eventually there was a difference. I figured I'd have a better chance at hearing something if it was all the way up (Drive, not Trim).

Of course it is, have you ever heard an input channel of a Neve or Otari or Soundcraft or Yamaha desk that's been pushed to overdrive by a way to hot signal?  It is bad, I assure you.

Never have heard one in person.

To compare two mixers in a studio setting you'd need to use one for several days to learn its "sound" with different instrument sources, maybe do some recording and mixing to see how it balances different frequencies and how they interact with each other in the busses.  THEN you'd rip it out and replace it with another mixer, using all the same outboard equipment and cables, making sure everything is exactly as before. Then spend another few days doing the same routine of learning the sound of the mixer...

Well that sounds like it could be very expensive and time consuming! No way I'm doin' that!  

At the end of it you'd either swear that "A" was way better than "B" (because you tried to match the sound of "A" and couldn't) or after 3 days trying to make "B" sound like what you thought you remembered "A" sounding like, you  finally admit that you've forgotten...  (because you can't actually tell a difference)

Either way,  in Sonar it appears to be easy to make comparisons.  You just change the emulation setting don't you?  Well,  no.
First, you have to use the CE on EVERY channel and bus.  Then you need to do a mix from scratch with each of the emulation settings and also a mix with no CE at all.   The CE will alter the frequency responce and harmonic content of the channel/bus, thus you have to start from scratch with your EQ at the very least.
Finaly, when you have been through the entire process for each emulation (incuding none) and you have a set of 2 track masters, you can do a blind listening test to see which one you think sounds better.  This then assumes that any differences you hear are actually due to the CE and not simply because you mixed the same track 4 times and got better at it each time....

You could also use Quick Grouping to turn the CE off to see if you at least hear some difference. That's how I was doing it. I heard absolutely nothing. Then all of a sudden, mid take, the channel I was working on became distorted and it ended up being caused by the CE which I had left all the way up when I was tinkering with it before.

It's a simple project really. I have 4 Session Drummer audio outputs (Kick, Snare, Hi-Hat, Cymbal), 2 rhythm guitars, and 2 lead guitars. 8 tracks basically. I started it with the CE (Track Version) on every track and CD (Bus Version) on every bus, then mixed when I was done. I heard no difference whatsoever with the CE on or off. I used Quick Grouping to turn the CE off and on to A/B. I learned that from watching Craig Anderton's Console Emulator Vid on U-toob.

This was very interesting to me (from Craig's video) ...

"It's important to start your mix while the Console Emulators are already in place and do your mix with all of them enabled, adding them after the fact to an existing mix is rarely as effective."

I don't understand why? If you mix your project so it sounds good, and then you add the CE, it should add 'something' to the mix, good or bad. Even if it emphasizes the high end, and creates distortion, you should still hear something. Another thing bad about this is, it's kind of odd to have it work this way, especially if you want to go back and add it to an existing project. You'd have to reset the desk and start from scratch. That just doesn't make sense to me.

My thinking on this is, I was running in to the problem I had with X1 with the Pro Channel Modules turning on/off by themselves. No matter what the reason, something definitely went haywire with this particular channel in X2. It should not function (whether it be right or wrong) at one time, and not at another. In other words, if it's distorting horribly at one point, it should have been doing that all along.

OMG look at that post....  I'm turning into Danni

Nothing wrong with you or Danny typing up long posts. I feel it's much better to do that than to say too little and leave things open for interpretation, especially with me. I tend to read things wrong unless they are in great detail like your post. Thank you!

Here's a link to Craig's video on U-toob. Link The quote above starts at 2:01.