tunekicker


Nice tune Craig!

For those panning the idea of analyzing with sine waves I have to go back to basic theory of sound. Theoretically ANY sound could be recreated with the right combination of Sine waves. Whether or not the complex relationships for a particular piece of music can be captured/recreated this way with current technology, the mathematical/theoretical fact remains.
Thus, if there are fundamental changes to the sine wave signal itself, you can darn well bet there will be an impact on more complex material, however subtle it might be. 

Exactly. Another good example is passing a square wave through a transformer to hear the effects of "ringing." Very few people get their rocks off recording square waves, but it's a good way to find out how the transformer will respond to transients. The reason for choosing a square wave is because it is ONLY about rising and falling transients. A sine wave would never indicate the kind of ringing performance to expect from a transformer.
 
I agree 100% with your assessement of the characters of the three different types, so either we're both having a common hallucination, or there is a predictable subjective reaction to what they do.

I'll have to try the square wave trick. Thanks for bringing that up! 

It seems it would also be a great way to understand the slew rate (transient response) of various preamps, and at higher frequencies I'll bet even the accuracy of conversion could be scrutinized.

Glad we're hearing the same things regarding the character of the different modules. That's always reassuring. 

My favorites so far (depending on the source tones, musical style, and desired output tone, of course) :

N- Piano, Acoustic Guitar, Cymbals, Percussion, Snare, as well as EGs, Keys, and Vocals that need a little air
A- Kick, Bass Guitar, Toms, as well as EGs, Keys, and Vocals that need more warmth/fatness
S- Busses and anything where I want more subtlety than N or A. 

So usually I will try N or A depending on my preference for bright/warm, back off to the S if I want something more subtle, then A/B with it bypassed and decide whether or not to keep it.

I'd be curious to know what your preferences have become based on your experience. Always up for learning something. 


Peace,


Tunes

tunekicker


My favorites so far (depending on the source tones, musical style, and desired output tone, of course) :

N- Piano, Acoustic Guitar, Cymbals, Percussion, Snare, as well as EGs, Keys, and Vocals that need a little air
A- Kick, Bass Guitar, Toms, as well as EGs, Keys, and Vocals that need more warmth/fatness
S- Busses and anything where I want more subtlety than N or A. 

So usually I will try N or A depending on my preference for bright/warm, back off to the S if I want something more subtle, then A/B with it bypassed and decide whether or not to keep it.

I'd be curious to know what your preferences have become based on your experience. Always up for learning something. 


Peace,


Tunes

I haven't yet quantified the CEs in as much detail as you have. Mostly I've been using all of one kind on a song to try and determine a particular CE's essential "character." I'm starting off on the song level, as I already have plenty of ways to alter individual tracks if needed. Mostly I've been working with the N and S modules and once I have those figured out, I'll get more into the A to see what that offers.
 
 
 

Tonight I've tried a few A/B tests to see if I can hear a difference with the Console Emulation on or off.
 
I've been mixing with it on, but just wanted to hear if I could hear a difference - for better or for worse.  I wasn't sure I would.
 
Working on a song, Country-ish  - Lead vocal, Two backing vocal,Two guitars, bass, piano, drums.
As I'd mixed through the Emus on all tracks, and master bus and I had altered the drive and trim as I went along.
 
I reset drive and trim to default.  I then Quick Grouped all the tracks. (Can't also Quick Group the busses - that will be fixed in the next update, apparently..)
 
Not having anyone else here, I randomly ctr-clicked on the CE on/off button repeatedly, so I didn't know if it was on or off.
 
I then played around a loop of the project, and clicked the mouse on and off.  I didn't expect to here a difference, and certainly didn't think I'd be able to tell which was on or off.
 
 
After ten or so tries, I found that I could tell each time which was on, and which was off.  Every time.
 
Now, I would not like to say what the difference was.  Maybe when it was on it was just louder or some such, the point was I COULD TELL.
 
Can people really not hear a difference?
 
I'm not asking for qualitative opinions, just whether or not you can hear a change?
 
I'll have another go next time I have someone else in here to turn it on and off, in case I subconsciously counted  the mouse clicks..
 

Anderton

Danny Danzi

The above is the problem I have with science and why it will never make sense to me. Not picking on you Craig...I think the world of you as a teacher and an engineer...but I have to question why on earth you'd judge any of this by using a sine wave? We don't make music with sine waves...so why would it hold any credibility at all? If we create a guitar track or a bass guitar track and we can barely hear the effects of these CE's, isn't that enough proof that they really aren't anything to brag about other than maybe they got the saturated drive part down? What are your thoughts hearing my comments in that regard?
 
-Danny

The point was not using sine waves to judge the efficacy of the plug-ins, but as I said, as a way to "get a handle" on what they do. I'd already judged the plug-ins and found them useful for enhancing tracks, but I wanted to know why. The more you understand what something does and how it works, the better you can apply it.
 
For example, the character of the 100Hz sine wave sounded VERY much like what you would hear running a sine wave through a transformer, whereas at the top end, it was more obvious that the non-linearities were manifesting themselves as high-frequency components. Neither of those are inherently "good" or "bad," they just "are." So someone who had not tried the CEs due to negative commments might read what I said and decide to try it on bass with a fair amount of Drive to bring up that "transformer sound," but also know to pull back the highs a bit if they don't want the non-linear sparkle.
 
I also compared how a sine wave was affected by the various CEs by looking at the waveforms in WaveLab. The first thing I noticed right away was that these affect the positive-going wave only - asymmetrical distortion. That's quite different from traditional saturation, and because I know how asymmetrical distortion sounds compared to symmetrical distortion due to all the design work I've done with distortion devices, this makes it easier to know which processor to choose when I want a specific sound.
 
So the bottom line is I could play with the CEs for hours, listen carefully to how they affect program material and individual instruments, and eventually, figure out what they do so I could have some guidelines on how to apply them. Or, I could run a few tests and get the "what they do" part over with as fast as possible so I could experiment with applying them. Now, knowing what they do doesn't dictate how I'll use them, but they provide suggestions that save time. As just one example, on a song where I applied the N-type CEs to all the tracks, the percussion didn't sound quite right. I instantly knew to try the S-type CE to give a more rounded sound, and tried it bypassed and enabled. I ended up keeping the S-type, but if my only choice had been between N-type enabled or bypassed, I would have bypassed it.
 

Thanks for the detailed response Craig. I guess I can chalk it up as you having better ears than me brother. I hear differences but like I say, they come in the form of drive and a little top end. Tunes mentioned he can hear "fatter/warmer". I don't hear any of that. Of course that's not to say it isn't true....it just isn't true on MY end.
 
Now the Waves NLS plugs, I can hear MORE of a difference but again, that difference isn't something I felt was truly enhancing my tracks in a way that an eq couldn't achieve something similar. The drive part, few things other than some of my UAD stuff can simulate. But this fatness and warmth....I surely don't hear from any of these CE's.
 
How about that tolerance button....can you truly hear a difference with that being on vs. off? I guess my biggest problem may be I just don't know what I'm listening for...but I truly don't hear enough of a difference to give these things a nod of approval. I'm just one of those guys that likes to hear a major difference when I work with something. Kinda like the Massive Passive...you have to jump on that thing at times to really put it into "woah" mode as everything else will seem a bit too light. Like, that is definitely not a sculpting eq in my opinion.
 
I tend to like things that I can touch lightly and hear a difference on instead of jumping on them to hear a difference. Then of course there are plugs in my arsenal that DO just need to be used in moderation where they are barely heard, yet you can tell a difference when you shut them down. I just don't have that experience with these CE's and I guess my ears can't pick up the subtleties. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts. And, my sincere apologies for not commenting on your tune. I got lost in talking about these CE's and forgot to mention how much I enjoyed it. Nice job man. :)
 
-Danny

Anderton

tunekicker


My favorites so far (depending on the source tones, musical style, and desired output tone, of course) :

N- Piano, Acoustic Guitar, Cymbals, Percussion, Snare, as well as EGs, Keys, and Vocals that need a little air
A- Kick, Bass Guitar, Toms, as well as EGs, Keys, and Vocals that need more warmth/fatness
S- Busses and anything where I want more subtlety than N or A. 

So usually I will try N or A depending on my preference for bright/warm, back off to the S if I want something more subtle, then A/B with it bypassed and decide whether or not to keep it.

I'd be curious to know what your preferences have become based on your experience. Always up for learning something. 


Peace,


Tunes

I haven't yet quantified the CEs in as much detail as you have. Mostly I've been using all of one kind on a song to try and determine a particular CE's essential "character." I'm starting off on the song level, as I already have plenty of ways to alter individual tracks if needed. Mostly I've been working with the N and S modules and once I have those figured out, I'll get more into the A to see what that offers. 
  
  
Thanks you a lot for all these informations.
 
One question : what about the place of the CE in the PC ? First (like in Sonar X2 manual), ou last (like in Sonar webinar) ?
 
TS
(excuse my poor french english !...)

One question : what about the place of the CE in the PC ? First (like in Sonar X2 manual), ou last (like in Sonar webinar) ?

(with the right font, i hope)

I like very much Console Emu,A-type especially.On the Bass channel\buss is great.To simulate a console preamps and behavior you must put first in the chain.To have an hardware summing behavior CE is the last on the chain.Best

Danny Danzi

Thanks for the detailed response Craig. I guess I can chalk it up as you having better ears than me brother. 
 

Maybe, maybe not. It's very tricky to learn how to use the CEs, that's one reason why I resorted to trying to find out exactly what they did. My initial experiments with CE were not promising, but I eventually figured them out. I think they're at their best when you listen to a song and don't think anything has been added, but then when you bypass the CE, the song is lacking something.
The CEs definitely have their place. But are they essential, in the same way that EQ is? No, and you don't need the CE to do excellent mixes. But, when applied properly, you can get that extra little "je ne sais quoi" that makes a worthwhile difference.
 
Glad you liked the song, BTW! It's getting a really good response, which is always gratifying. The next song I'll be posting in a few weeks is called "Little Pieces," and it's pretty industrial. It uses lots of loops from my "Turbulent Filth Monsters" drum loop library (I've been told Depeche Mode are big fans of it, which is also gratifying!).
 
Isn't music fun?!?
 
Oh, and about that Tolerance button...I just leave it off. I don't "get" why I'd want slight variations between channels.

double post - sorry