LOL...this is getting funny.  I guess the emulation really is a personal preference.  Does not seem to help make the mix more preferable...that's for sure.

Well let's not forget that the console emulator has "settings" which are not necessarily going to be applied tastefully. It's not a simple on/off switch 

A few other things to keep in mind:
 
1. It may take more than a few hours to learn how to tweak
 
2. From my own experience using other console emulators, sometimes they have to be "driven" within a certain range before they start to sound more "colourful". I can't speak for Sonar's CEM but many of the Waves vintage effects shine when they are pushed a little harder.
 
Of course this has not a criticism of the "judgement" going on as I have no idea how Guitarpima used the plugins, just a quick aside.

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

Razor,
          Very funy comment, I actually laugh. Ha!ha!Ha!
 
Thanks for contributing some humor!

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

  "They were mixing with the emulation on, so every other choice they made was directed in part by that fact." Good point, tunekicker. Also, the levels should be carefully matched for a fair comparison, but should they be matched by peek level, or by RMS level???

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 agree. I think mixing into the console emulation is kind of key. Type of console versus material content is important too. I think once one starts doing any kind of mixing, you should have the Console Emulator turned on. Tweak it perhaps as you go...but it becomes part of the mixing process. So far when I've done this, at some point in the mix, turning off Console Emulator results in everything sounding kind of bleh...just lackluster by comparison. OK, but not "ahhhhhh". :-)

Anyway I think tunekicker makes some good points on this. But in my experience with it,  the Console Emulator mix seems to sound more what I would sort of expect or imagine a console like that to sound like than the mix with Console Emulator disengaged
Excuse the rambling nature of that post. I'm on hallucinatory little sleep.

I'm gonna guess the second one.

Brandon, aren't you gonna venture a guess?