@Makeshift... OT but did you end up buying that Scarlett ( I forget if you told me). If so, how you liking it? Have you tried the plugins that came with it? I keep forgetting to install them.

I did Beep. I got the 8i6 and I love it. The Pre's are really nice. For most of my acoustic stuff and vocals I am now recording with 2 mics at the same time. I run one through the pre on the Scarlett and one through a tube pre; then blend or choose.

I have not used the Scarlett plug ins at all. I have been to happy with the PC plugs to even think about the Scarlett plugs. Plus the PC has just been so easy and quick to use. I can dial most of the PC plugs very fast and they just sound good.

Yeah, the pres are really great aren't they? Totally blew away the pres on my much more expensive Echo unit. I'd really like to pick up one of the Octopres (or whatever they're called) at some point.
 
And I am certainly happy with the PC and stock plugs with Sonar. I'm just cheap (well broke actually) so I figured maybe those Focusrite plugs might be some neat free tools for my set up. Gotta get around to downloading the Melda Suite at some point too. What I REALLY want though is some of the Izotope stuff but that ain't gonna happen for a while.
 
Cheers.

Jeff Evans
Interested parties in this thread should also go over to Software and read the two Harrison Mixbus threads over there. You owe it to yourself to check them out.
 
I had very similar views to many here until I started using Mixbus. The concept is simple. They have built a special DAW for mixing in and it really does sound good. My opinions on a lot of this emulation stuff has changed a lot since using it.
 
Danny you seriously need to get his right now too because it is still on special at $149 and even at that it is very good value. You should do a project right up to the mix stage in your fave DAW but at the last minute export stems and tracks accordingly. Drag into Mixbus and try a mix there. I am finding that it does also sound very good. You may alter how you do things once you try this as well.
 
It is like taking you mix to a great mixdown facility and mixing your stuff on a Harrison console. And it seems to really sound like it too. I have used a real one for a while and this definitely has a Harrison vibe all over it.
 
It is probably better to continue any Mixbus discussion over on those threads. There is some interesting detail in that thread.
 
But it does go to show there is something (good) in this emulation stuff and Pro Channel is obviously no exception. I am sure it contributes in a very positive way if like all these things you handle it with care. There are built in options but also some interesting external/third party options too.

Thanks for sharing Jeff. My engineer at the other studio bought it a few weeks ago. He's one of those techy dudes that is into all the latest and greatest techniques and software. His thoughts were "the software is so hideous, I can't look at it let alone mix in it. I also found it counter-intuitive and not really my cup of tea. But for the price, it's not bad and I can see where people would enjoy it."
 
I've not tried it for myself but here's the thing with me that may explain me to you. LOL! When I track something, once I hear the sound source, I get a sound blue print in my head. I literally track what I hear in my head just about 95% of the time or come so close, it's acceptable. In that light, you can see how I wouldn't gravitate towards things like this or coloration type effects.
 
If I'm getting the sounds I want with compression, eq and a few Sonar, Waves and UAD plugs, I'm totally fine with that. The only thing I like analog circuitry on is guitars. Everything else to me sounds fantastic in the digital realm and I'd not change or alter a thing to make it dull and analog. I love digital crispness and the excitement it gives me in the upper frequencies.
 
There are times when I of course need to doctor things up and use plugs that may give me a driven or analog sound. As an example (and forgive me if I shared this already) but I mic'd up a tone for my VH tribute band. Eddie used a lot of tape saturation on that first album. You can just hear it. No matter what I tried, I could not get that sound. I was ready to fire up my 24 track just to try and smash my tone through it. Instead, the Studer from UAD bailed me right out. It's not perfect and is not exact, but it's as close as it needs to be for my ears and the tone is super close. Have a listen so you hear what I mean.
 
Real Eddie: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4909348/EddieUnchained.mp3
 
Me: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4909348/DannyUnchainedCop2mic.mp3
 
So my point is, just about always, I nail the sounds I need without any of these CE's and other gizmos. But when it calls for it, I have no problems reaching for a tool that may get me where I need to be or at least closer to where I need to be. Why mix into a console if what I've printed sounds the way my ears/mind feel it should? I think people mess around with this stuff so much because they aren't happy with what they print. If they were, why waste the time? I'm not one that has ever believed in "fix it in the mix" or "polish the turd until it sounds right." All that stuff lasts days, weeks...months. I mix a song in 6-8 hours, check it the next day, if it sounds good I leave it alone...if it needs work, I tweak it and I'm onto the next one. Discussions like this make me feel I'm just too happy and content to be a decent engineer like everyone else. Because of that I'm probably missing the boat....but I'm very happy. :)
 
-Danny

The way I look at plug-ins and Emulation is this: They are what they are and nothing else. Case in point, if you emulate an "N" console from a studio in Brooklyn, channel 3 on a Tuesday of July when the weather is hot, during the day when power is noisiest, or at night, when the building is practically empty, you get not what the console provides, but rather what the tools capture. Is this a failure of any kind? Not at all, unless your intention is to duplicate 100% what the console will do in any situation. I don't believe anybody has been able to do that.
 
In the case of the CA-2A from Cakewalk, from what I've heard played through it, I believe it to be very well done (albeit, I don't own it). It may be even better than the Waves plug. I typically use the CLA-2A from Waves, but is this any better or worse than the CA-2A? That's for all of us to decide. But I don't think of them in terms of perfect, close, or not close to the original units. I look at them as two plug-ins that sound great. Go get both of them and use which one you like most. That's what's so exciting about all this stuff.
 
I a total plug-in geek, and I can say I'm tremendously happy with any of this stuff. If I hadn't already invested in my 3rd-party plug-ins that I use, and other than the small UIs of the PC, I'd use the PC. Unfortunately, for me, I found the PC EQ a little too small. Nothing else against it, save from not being able to use it with another DAW, but that's why it's included with Sonar Producer.

Danny Danzi
...
Real Eddie: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4909348/EddieUnchained.mp3
 
Me: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4909348/DannyUnchainedCop2mic.mp3
....

I only listened to this on cheap pc speakers but very nice...

Danny I am with you all the way. I totally agree. I track sounds really well at the source as well. I am totally into the digital transparent thing too. The fact that it does not add anything I also really like as well. I am able to produce very nice mixes from my current DAW. It is not like me to rave about something like this but this software does sound really excellent.
 
I found the GUI really easy to get into and not only that it is fast. Faster than mixing on a standard DAW for some reason. Everything is there. Busses are already made. You just switch a track to them and away you go. The channel strips built in EQ and dynamics are very good. Bus EQ and dynamics are also very good. I have compared mixes done on both and I sort of prefer the Harrison sound a little better now.
 
You don't have to use the tape saturation at all or very little. The idea is that if you do, you use so little of it that you cannot hear it (individually anyway) But it does add up in a very subtle way and then things do sound a little better.
 
For me it is not a case of fixing something or improving something that is not quite right. It is not about that although I am sure it can do that anyway. It is about making an already great sounding track or buss sounding a little nicer after it passes through this thing.
 
Get your engineer guy to keep on with it. At first I thought the same thing but after working with it for a while the light bulb went on and I totally got it. It is actually the nicest DAW mixer I have seen and used. Also I have used a real Harrison too. I taught sound engineering on a real one for a couple of years before they eventually got rid of it (Idiots!) The real mixer is very nice and the EQ's are super smooth. You will never get a nasty sound out of a real Harrison. This software feels and sounds very close to the real thing.  The EQ's behave the same way. They have got this lush smooth sound and feel to them.
 
Also if you only want part of your mix to go through it you can still do that too. Just export the relevant tracks or busses and apply the Harrison sound to them only and bring them back into your DAW. That works a treat too. But lately I have found it is nicer to leave the whole thing go through the Harrison Mixbus instead.

brconflict
The way I look at plug-ins and Emulation is this: They are what they are and nothing else. Case in point, if you emulate an "N" console from a studio in Brooklyn, channel 3 on a Tuesday of July when the weather is hot, during the day when power is noisiest, or at night, when the building is practically empty, you get not what the console provides, but rather what the tools capture. Is this a failure of any kind? Not at all, unless your intention is to duplicate 100% what the console will do in any situation. I don't believe anybody has been able to do that.
 

The intention is to model under all conditions. Once the circuit schematic is obtained and verified then each component and it's connection to every other component is entered into the software. Once this is done it is very easy to generate data on every possible input scenario. It is really not that hard to model one of these boards in spice or any of the several programs available in the market. Where the art comes in is in the decision-making. Some devices are networks of many sub-circuits. Knowing from experience or from trial and error the type of interactions that components and sub-circuits have with each other allows for the engineer to build a better model. Any actual measurements generally are used to verify the accuracy of the model. Once the engineer is satisfied with the model he/she can basically generate out put data on all input scenarios including ones you might never see on the actual board. The model itself is often too large to wrap into a vst so a transfer function is developed. The art comes in again in deciding what restriction to place on the model while developing/creating the transfer function. Since these models are trying to represent the behavior of the original device typically this would be based on the original specification of the analog device. For example maybe the original maximum allowed deviation from a supply voltage of 120V is 10%, or the device is built for an input of an audible range of frequencies. Of course if the device is known to provide the best sound when run with a 12% under-voltage the engineer would keep this in mind when developing the transfer function. 

Jeff Evans
Danny I am with you all the way. I totally agree. I track sounds really well at the source as well. I am totally into the digital transparent thing too. The fact that it does not add anything I also really like as well. I am able to produce very nice mixes from my current DAW. It is not like me to rave about something like this but this software does sound really excellent.
 
I found the GUI really easy to get into and not only that it is fast. Faster than mixing on a standard DAW for some reason. Everything is there. Busses are already made. You just switch a track to them and away you go. The channel strips built in EQ and dynamics are very good. Bus EQ and dynamics are also very good. I have compared mixes done on both and I sort of prefer the Harrison sound a little better now.
 
You don't have to use the tape saturation at all or very little. The idea is that if you do, you use so little of it that you cannot hear it (individually anyway) But it does add up in a very subtle way and then things do sound a little better.
 
For me it is not a case of fixing something or improving something that is not quite right. It is not about that although I am sure it can do that anyway. It is about making an already great sounding track or buss sounding a little nicer after it passes through this thing.
 
Get your engineer guy to keep on with it. At first I thought the same thing but after working with it for a while the light bulb went on and I totally got it. It is actually the nicest DAW mixer I have seen and used. Also I have used a real Harrison too. I taught sound engineering on a real one for a couple of years before they eventually got rid of it (Idiots!) The real mixer is very nice and the EQ's are super smooth. You will never get a nasty sound out of a real Harrison. This software feels and sounds very close to the real thing.  The EQ's behave the same way. They have got this lush smooth sound and feel to them.
 
Also if you only want part of your mix to go through it you can still do that too. Just export the relevant tracks or busses and apply the Harrison sound to them only and bring them back into your DAW. That works a treat too. But lately I have found it is nicer to leave the whole thing go through the Harrison Mixbus instead.

No worries Jeff, I'm definitely going to try it based on your recommendation. It seems that I always end up feeling the same way as my engineer Joey. Most times I tell him "don't tell me if you like something or not...let me find out for myself because you can easily paint a false picture for me darn it!" But he was really pumped up about this and I guess was so let down, he had to tell me about it. I'll be there tomorrow and Thursday so I should be able to check it out then. I know you and I seem to agree on the majority of things....so your opinion is definitely held in high regard. Thanks. :)
 
rabeach: thanks! Certain plugs definitely make a difference in my opinion...I just always (thank God) seem to get what I want without using much. Other times, they truly make a difference for the better. I just haven't had that happen with CE's or any of the super hype drive plugs other than the UAD stuff.
 
-Danny

rabeach

brconflict
The way I look at plug-ins and Emulation is this: They are what they are and nothing else. Case in point, if you emulate an "N" console from a studio in Brooklyn, channel 3 on a Tuesday of July when the weather is hot, during the day when power is noisiest, or at night, when the building is practically empty, you get not what the console provides, but rather what the tools capture. Is this a failure of any kind? Not at all, unless your intention is to duplicate 100% what the console will do in any situation. I don't believe anybody has been able to do that.
 

The intention is to model under all conditions. Once the circuit schematic is obtained and verified then each component and it's connection to every other component is entered into the software. Once this is done it is very easy to generate data on every possible input scenario. It is really not that hard to model one of these boards in ****e or any of the several programs available in the market. Where the art comes in is in the decision-making. Some devices are networks of many sub-circuits. Knowing from experience or from trial and error the type of interactions that components and sub-circuits have with each other allows for the engineer to build a better model. Any actual measurements generally are used to verify the accuracy of the model. Once the engineer is satisfied with the model he/she can basically generate out put data on all input scenarios including ones you might never see on the actual board. The model itself is often too large to wrap into a vst so a transfer function is developed. The art comes in again in deciding what restriction to place on the model while developing/creating the transfer function. Since these models are trying to represent the behavior of the original device typically this would be based on the original specification of the analog device. For example maybe the original maximum allowed deviation from a supply voltage of 120V is 10%, or the device is built for an input of an audible range of frequencies. Of course if the device is known to provide the best sound when run with a 12% under-voltage the engineer would keep this in mind when developing the transfer function. 

Keeping in mind that one console is never 100% exactly like another console. One channel on a single console is not the exact same as another channel, due to the tolerances of the actual components within each channel. Add age, conditioning, long-term use, oxidation, supplier of each component, etc. My point is that we can get plug-ins ever so close to the original (and well, at times, even better than), but does it have to be spot on to be great? If two Neve consoles are awesome, but different, that's not a problem.
 
From my personal perspective, and from many others, still, the modeling process is getting really good! I'm loving that! But I don't believe they're all modeled the same way, and I don't believe they're all perfect. I just thing they're pretty darn awesome!!