Stiff upper lip 4/2-08: The test
I’m going to do a test that I’d like to call “spartan mixing”. That means moving a lot of plug-ins to the unused folder. That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Why do such an odd thing?
it began one day when I started to mix a session that had a lot of tracks. I started out, EQing and compressing this and that, until I got to the point where I thought “what the hell is this?”. Now, it could just have been ear fatigue, it happens sometimes, so I closed the sessions and figured I’d give it another go tomorrow. I didn’t. When I opened the session the day after, I instead removed all plug-ins from the session and inserted a Digidesign EQ III and Smack! on every channel. Screw soloing. Screw API-type and Neve-type EQs. Screw all faders down. Screw it all. With EQ III and Smack loaded on the channels I just started EQing and compressing what spontaneously felt right while the session played back. I just dialed it up quick and easy, then left the mix.
This is, to me, the ultimate type of “back to basics”. Do you recognize this scenario? “Oh, this drum bus could go for some Neve. The guitars could use some API. Let load my entire plug-in collection in this session”. I really needed to get away from that so I narrowed it down… A lot.
Now it’s time to take it one step further. I decided to pick one compressor and one EQ and move the rest to the unused folder. I’ll pick the same as in the above mentioned session - that is EQ III and Smack!. Why? Because they map nicely to the control surface, which is important to me if I’m to do spontaneous tweaks like I talked about above. EQ III is also fairly CPU efficient, while Smack! just happens to be my favorite compressor at the moment.
Of course there are a lot of other plug-ins that stays - modulation effects, synths and such for instance - but I actually did a spring cleaning (in the middle of the cold Scandinavian winter) and cleared out a lot of plug-ins that pretty much only occupied spots in the list without ever being used.
Anyone else want to take part in the “one EQ, one comp test”?
Hey Stiff !!
if it doesn’t sound good with just the stock digi plugs (esp the dyn3 and eq3)
then something must be wrong with the tracks.
a friend of mine told me ” you can’t polish a turd”
yeah the less is more !! it needs time to realize that
ever heard of the “KISS” principle ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
Take care,
d
By Dirk Reinking ~ February 5, 2008 kl 4:35 am
Great post!!!
By Kenneth Lund ~ February 5, 2008 kl 4:55 am
Thanks Kenneth!
Dirk, I believe you can polish a turd, but it won’t smell very good even if you do
By stiff ~ February 5, 2008 kl 6:17 am
I’ve been taking plug-ins off my system too.
You know the cliche that a restaurant with a limited menu often has much better food than one with lots of stuff on offer. And it’s easier to make a choice between four dishes than forty.
Most of the time I have too many choices, and I want to see shorter plug-in lists which only show me stuff I really like. I think software instruments are far worse than compressors and EQs for this. It’s hell to have a sample patch with a choice of 500 kick drums. How often do you start auditioning them, only to give up and re-use a kick from an old track you already know sounds great?
I love the Waves R-Compressor. If I don’t know which compressor I want, it means I want the R-Compressor. It’s that simple!
One case where things do get really complicated is when I’m using a sampled instrument, and it just feels too pristine and clean to be “right”. I get the best result when I add tiny coloration from lots of different plug-ins - a tiny bit of tube saturation from Mic Modeler, a tiny bit of coloration from McDSP Analog Channel, a bit of iZotope Vinyl on a really minimal setting, etc. That stuff always gets bounced…
By Guy Sigsworth ~ February 5, 2008 kl 7:21 am
Guy,
I completely agree. Sometimes I feel that people should just keep what they REALLY like and get rid of the rest. That way you’ll end up truly learning your gear. Sometimes it’s of course good to have some options.
By stiff ~ February 5, 2008 kl 7:26 am
I do this many times. This is the best thing to do. Today we must separate the hype from the real needs. I say this with respect, but every manufacturer wants you to beleive that you need their latest and greatest. But actually, most of the time you don’t.
Tamas Dragon
By Tamas Dragon ~ February 5, 2008 kl 8:16 am
I came at this from a different direction when I decided to stop participating in the Waves endless payment loop. I’ve been mixing without any Waves plugs for the past six months, and getting great results!
By ian ~ February 5, 2008 kl 1:35 pm
Rather than endlessly acquire new stuff, why not work the gear you have a bit harder? I think it’s worthwhile setting aside time to create presets and defaults for my favourite plug-ins and soft-synths, so that later on I’ve got some good tweakable patches to start from. I’ve created a bank of presets for Digidesign’s sci-fi, where the frequency of the ring modulation is set to all the musical notes between C1 and C8. Okay it took me maybe half an hour to program every note. But now, in a song, if I want to try ring modulating something I’m good to go. There’s a far better chance my first try of the ring mod will produce a musical result the artist will like. And it’s often in the initial reaction of the artist that the idea flies or dies.
Most soft-synths have massively over-programmed presets, and 80 per cent of these presets are completely wrong for me. When time permits, I go through the presets, delete all the ones I hate, and simplify the ones I keep (eg by turning off most of the effects). What I want is a lean set of really useful presets which represent good starting points for tweaking in the context of a song. A lean list also means I can make the choice of “is this the right synth for the job?” really quickly.
By Guy Sigsworth ~ February 5, 2008 kl 7:01 pm
yeah, stiff, another really cool story!
maybe it´s a big part of creativity, to re-think the whole workflow. there are so many stories of people, who are consequently going “back to the basics” and became famous!! a long time ago ( nearly 20 years..) a german friend of mine (pete namlook) sold all of his “modern” equipment and changed everything into the good old working horses (minimoog, arp, etc). he told me, that was the day, when his real music-making life did start. his recording career started from then on! there are so many examples for that, maybe you know more… greetings from germany. all the best, snider
By snider ~ June 3, 2008 kl 10:10 am
oh, please let me say one more thing i forgot to mention:
all these bling-bling plugins-remember, how much time it takes to learn a musical instrument. isn´t it the same with the gear and the plugs? you need a lot of time and passion, to know them all by heart. i still find it difficult, after nearly 15 years with plugins (VI and TDMs), to get the best out of the plugs. and isn´t it so, that the most of us don´t spend/have enough time with the plugs they now have?
most of the time me and my engineers are trying new plugs for max. 10 minutes and judge then about the sound-quality and usability. isn´t that bad- i mean a shame?
so for me this kind of cleaning you described is a essential part of being a REAL musician/producer. all the best, snider
By snider ~ June 3, 2008 kl 10:22 am
Thanks snider! I’m still going strong with this and if anything I’m about to take it further. Be sure to check out the posts called “Reset”, I posted the first one today, and while that doesn’t show much of this minimalism, you’ll definitely see the philosophy in the coming posts. Since I review new plug-ins all the time there’s of course a few that come and go. For instance I have three de-essers in my plug-in folder at the moment, before this week is over I will only have one *enter bombastic music here*
I definitely agree that it takes time to learn instruments, and even other plug-ins like EQs and such. That’s part of this approach as well. Stick with what you like and learn how to use the full potential, get rid of the rest or spend the time to learn it!
By stiff ~ June 3, 2008 kl 10:59 am
keep going, stiff “tadaaaah”, we kicked all deessers except the “naughty” digi one. for us this one works extremly well on vocals and voice overs too.no more waves, sony, etc. please let me know, which one did make it in your setting, ok?
all the best, snider
By snider ~ June 4, 2008 kl 6:46 am