out of pure fun. shall we test this theory out? how about we start a thread testing "digital or audio". and whether people and differentiate between the two.

well, out for fun, you can have extraordinary results with those "blind fold tests". Once I was having problem with a band, they recorded a drum track that sounded dull, and flat, and cold, etc, blame it to the fact that it was recorded with a digital Roland desk (and it's preamps) and we were trying ANYTHING in terms of compression and tape emulator to make it sound "live" and "warm" and "old school" etc etc. We tried every plug in, every outboard compressor. nobody was happy and they wanted me to try a tube compressor, I didnt had any at the time. I bet that they wont hear the difference betwen my plugins, my solid state compressor  and a tube compressor.
I went to another studio and came back next day with 4 stereo mixes of those drums:
1-digital mix through waves L2
2-analogue through avalon 747 (tube)
3-analogue  through focusrite compounder
4-analogue : out of the board to a tascam cassette deck (CrO2 old casette tape ) cranked up a little, back to sonar.

everybody prefered the casette version! and they were sure that was the tube compressor they asked for. all-digital mix was 2nd in the list. So no, people (musicians included)  can't usually hear the difference betwen analog and digital compressors, etc. Let's face it, in the end all our 24bit/96 little tracks goes throght  speakers (jurasic technology, paper cones moving!) and different speaker's quality (and rooms, etc) colours the sound much more (to most listener's ears) than any preamp and fx you put to a single track...

but lets stick to X1 here, shall we?



"If it souds good, its good"

Good comment Dede

I only heard Pro Channel used at my friends (he upgraded to X1, I have not yet because of the problems I saw him having).

But it sounded good.

And you bring up another good point ....... we sometimes over obsess about great sound quality ......... and we should, since we are trying to produce the best product possible .................

But how much of that care is lost when the music we produce ends up getting coded into 128-MP3 and played thru an I-Pod on those god-awful crappy ear-buds everybody uses these days.

I wonder how few people today ever listen to CDs on a nice stereo anymore ?

On the other hand, this may help explain why we can use some of the recording tricks we do these days and get away with it -----------  the general public does not have a sensitive enough ear.

I agree completely Mike, but still, while some tech  things like "the-difference-between-LA2-and-1176" gets lost in translation (from 24bit/96 to 128/mp3, from Genelec Monitors to Delta Airlines era buds), some other things pass through and never get lost: in tune singing, groovy playing, sensitive musicianship, good melodies, etc
In the end I look for hi quality handy tools that dont **** up the audio and allow me to get good results without spending hours reading pdf manuals or patching/tweaking/Right-Clicking. And that's what I liked about PROCHANEL, It delivers : simple, handy available and sounds really good.
Cheers

dd

guitarmikeh


<pist I smoked a little tonight shhhh>
 
 
 
 
 

You did? Why so stingy? Pass it over here, damn it!

mikespitzer


Just a brief comment -

I agree with the commenter above that the difference between Hardware and Software Plug-ins is narrowing in most applications.

The one thing Software and Digital Emulation still had not come close enough yet to be convincing is TUBE emulations.

Simple example -- guitar players out there will tell you this also ----  though they are useable and can create interesting sounds, none of the guitar amp emulators out there feel, respond or sound like an authentic tube amp on 10 being miked in a room.

Amplitube, POD, Vandal, etc...etc..etc..

There is still something not right about them.

It is kind of like comparing a 35mm print to a Polaroid.

The digital emulations seem to capture the basic image, but lack the complexity and depth of tones, etc..

Kind of like the way most Analog Tape plug-ins are good at emulating the bass head bumps, EQ roll offs below 40 and above 16K, the broad mild tape saturation "warming" between 300-400 HZ, etc..

But they usually lack the Wow and Flutter factor which makes tape sound more "alive". 
The W&F causes random subtle shifting in the music that help blend tracks better and gives it more depth.
Digital is almost too perfect, direct, and sterile in that regard.

But honestly, all of this is technical nitpicking.

Heck, the average non-musician listener can't tell a drum machine from a live drummer and we who do recording argue over which is better ------BFD-Vs-Supreme.

Even most of us could probably not listen to a finished album and comment ------ Oh yes, I can hear he used the UAD 1176 plug-in on that song and not the actual hardware unit.

On the other hand, you can often listen to a commercial or song and recognize the POD or Amplitube sound for guitars.

So for my 2 cents worth , to summarize ---

I think the difference in signal processing software and hardware as narrowed in most cases (like those above said too)

But in some areas, there is still a weakness in the digital imitation of some instruments to play and create the musical tones that comprise your song.

Makes sense if you think about it .....

It is one thing to use a signal processor to tweak a recorded sound.

It is something altogether to artificially create and imitate that recorded sound.

We may not be able to hear the difference between a UAD Plug In -OR- actual 1176 slightly processing a guitar tone.

But we can hear if that guitar tone itself was not authentic.

It takes a whole lot more computer "smarts" to perform the latter magic.

The recorded sound IS THE SOUND.
The tweaking with EQ, compressor, may only be 5% of the sound.

With all due respect Mike-The guitar part is not quite true anymore-And I do not post this to challenge your statement-Just to mention the best musical hardware purchase I have  made in the last 20 years. 
    I used fender and musicman amps for 25+ years on the road. I no longer do that of course but I have had for the last 2 years an AxeFX Ultra. The gap between tube amp feel, etc has been narrowed immensly-in my case (for me) their is no gap.
 
I understand that most folks have not heard of this thing-but they will. Most guitar players have. It is pricey though. But if something happened to mine I wouild buy another tomorrow.
Sorry, didn't mean to hijack the thread-I apologize for that.

Pro Channel saved me lots of money, Because I was going to buy the Waves SSL.  Very glad I waited and am very happy with the Pro Channel sound.

It sounds good!

I was a little reluctant to *depend* on Pro Channel at first - mainly due to my familiarity with Sonitus.  But, after a while it grows on you due to convince, low CPU load and, most importantly, sound quality.   When I run a track through Pro Channel and then out a M-Audio interface, then to my Grado cans, the sound is very nice.  The graphical interface deserves a hit - it could be better.  But, the sound quality is quite good and I find myself using Pro Channel for the majority of my per-track sound shaping.   I have other tools for the master bus (i.e. Ozone), so I keep the Pro Channel off.  But that is my preference.   
 
As one poster stated.  The detail, or lack thereof, will matter little to Bob and Jane earbud users with mp3s.   Mostly it is the tune, beat, lyrics that matter.   So, Pro-Channel is more than enough to please the bud folks.  For the critical listener (are they a dying breed?), the Pro-Channel, I think, stands tall enough to do the job quite well.  I am kinda surprised actually - I did not expect it to match the Madison Ave. hype.

Katie_Katie
Mostly it is the tune, beat, lyrics that matter.   

That stuff still matters? I thought it was mostly fashion and fame nowadays...

Stratman70

Yes, I am familiar with that device.
And you are correct, it is about as good as it gets these days.
It is the closest.

In fact, I should clarify something.

When something like the AxeFX Ultra is run thru a power amp & speaker combination, it is virtually identical.

It is the DIRECT TO DAW aspect of recording these digital simulators that still seems lacking.

It leads me to believe the programmers may have come very close to modeling the AMPLIFIER part of the sound chain, but they have not yet been able to accurately reproduce the complexities of the SPEAKER / MIC/ ROOM combination.

Somehow all the digital amp simulators (when run direct with their speaker emulations) still tend to exhibit the following two weaknesses ...

1) There is a "Whompy" sound to the low end.
2) There is a "Fizz" in the upper mids to lower treble that even EQ can't seem to remove.

It is better than it used to be, but not quite right.

But if you use an AxeFX Ultra thru a speaker then mic the speaker, you are correct -- it seems to be 90% on the mark

mikespitzer



The recorded sound IS THE SOUND.
The tweaking with EQ, compressor, may only be 5% of the sound.

Absolutely agree! So F.. ing true. If you have bad orignal sound or vocals that sounds crap, no eq or comp in the world will help you...