From my own experiments, I found it sounds really nice with one instance of the track EMU at the start of a track chain and one instance at the end of the track chain, no drive, N-type with tolerance ON.

Then the bus EMU (same settings) at the end of the Master bus chain, but before limiter. I don't bother with bus EMU on any other busses, only master.

TRACKS

1: Track EMU (no drive, tolerance on)
2: FX Chain for gain, stereo width etc
3: EQ
4: Compression
5: Track EMU (no drive, tolerance on)

MASTER BUS

1: EQ
2: Compression
3: Bus EMU
4: Limiter

John


Its one thing to question the wisdom of placing an FX in a particular spot but its quite another to question two of the most helpful and competent members of the CW team. 

Further from my viewing they knew exactly what they were doing.

+1 exactly right 100 percent. Seth and Brandon are on top of their game. They know what their doing!! 

so does anyone know if analog crosstalk is emulated?

Maybe a dumb question, but what can I say. If I have a Limiter in the FX bin and everything else in the prochannel. Is the limiter last in the chain? Thanks

is the pc (or fx bin) pre or post?

Great job on the tune Craig.  Thanks for sharing!

clintmartin


Maybe a dumb question, but what can I say. If I have a Limiter in the FX bin and everything else in the prochannel. Is the limiter last in the chain? Thanks

You can choose where you want the limiter. Under the button that hides and reveals the prochannel you will see a place to load presets. Under that you will see a power button that turns the prochannel on and off. In that same row you will see a post button.

When the post button is off the FX bin is before the pro channel. When the post button is on the FX bin is after the prochannel. You can also insert an FX bin anywhere in the prochannel you like.

You can also insert an FX bin anywhere in the prochannel you like.

 
I find this to be a great addition to X2 - it makes the track/bus signal flow so much easier to visualize.

Hey everyone...sorry to "post and run," but I posted just before going to AES, was stranded in LA coming back from San Francisco, and this is the first time I've been online since my last post here.

I'll get to all the questions over the next couple days, but a few quick comments.

This was NOT meant to be any kind of "test" as to whether people could identify whether the CE was in or not. The reason for saying whether the CE was in or out is because I found it interesting that transitioning from one to the other didn't produce much of an audible change with some material, but did with others.

For example, when going from the 1st out to in, you can't really hear a change on the main drums, but you can on the high-frequency percussion. Then when going from in back to out, when there's a lot of stuff playing at once, it's pretty easy to tell the sound gets duller, and more detailed when it goes back to in again.

I think the most obvious difference is from the third time it's on to the fourth time it's out, and the last transition from out to in (although there's also a slight volume bump there which you should ignore, as I didn't quite trim the clips right in Vegas).

I just listened to the sound from the original video vs. the sound from the YouTube video. The difference is actually negligible; I'm hearing from YouTube what I'm hearing from the Vegas file, although I'm listening through a quality interface using headphones.

There's no doubt that CE is subtle, but that's what I like about it. It's not an obvious "effect" (well, unless you turn the controls way up, but then it become a caricature of what it should be).

As to the settings I used, it was the N-type with Trim and Drive both set to around 2 o'clock. To me that was pushing it just a bit, but it worked well with the song. Component tolerance was on, but I don't hear that as a big component of the sound.

To those who don't hear a difference, remember that I've been training my ears for a long time, protected my hearing, and do a LOT of mastering. Mastering forces you to recognize even the tiniest gradations in sound. But, ear training also applies to the CE. Being able to bypass all of them at once with Quick Grouping makes it FAR more obvious how it affects the sound. After doing that enough you start to recognize the characteristics of the different emulations, how the controls affect them, etc. As you start to recognize the more obvious changes, it makes it far easier to pick out the more subtle changes.

Past a certain point, CE ends up being something you don't know is there...until you take it out, and feel as if something is missing.

Thanks again Craig for taking the time to share your observations. There is some mystery for me around the "tolerance" button. Until I understand it a little better, I'm leaving it off.