Boz Imperial Delay and Big Beautiful Door and Vocals Especially

Recording, Mixing and Producing Plugins
#1

Although I have heard/read about Boz plugins for years, I think I have had a hard time aurializing (I had to make up this word to mean visualizing audio) precisely what these things actually can do to benefit my sound, and therefore I hesitate deciding what to get first, if anything.

Take Big Beautiful Door. I watched a video that showed how one can adjust the ess sounds by separately changing the EQ for high vs low DB ranges and then mixing them back together. It was a dramatic improvement, and I think in a way I do that manually by duplicating vocal tracks and applying different effects on them until I get something I hear as better. My style is rather experimental and prone to overkill, but that I can do it in Reaper fairly easily nowadays is still a huge advancement for me.

That being said, I have taken my set of mainly free plugins and made do, and it has been noted that an expert mixer will zero in on better combos and settings and tricks than I will with the same tools. Nonetheless, I am lured by the sounds I hear from new products such as these two that might change what I do forever, even given my continued amateur skill set.

Since I joined IRD, I’ve recorded 5 new songs with vocals, a bit of a spike in the last month for me. I suppose I’ve been incidentally musically inspired. I like to use delay and reverb and EQ and stuff, and I keep wondering how much I’m missing out on not getting one or both of these tools. A $149 plugin is stretching my budget at any given time, so I usually try to wait for sales or spread purchases out. Plus I feel I have to learn them, play with them a while, before I can fairly judge their worth, especially with me tweaking the dials.

My next step should be to do a trial first, just check it out. But are there great presets included that I can use almost tweaklessly? Or are these more useful for more advanced users?

Honestly, as a hobbyist songwriter/songmaker I must live within my set of skills- I will never play that great guitar lead or piano concerto, or sing much better than Bob Dylan or Lou Reed, or compose like Roger Waters, but I still want to go as far as I can in this amazing time with new powerful tools like these to be the best I can, even though I may never be discovered by the masses. Sadly, I suppose, I have heard so many others’ music so beyond my own that still has not broken into the mainstream, but that’s another topic for another day…

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#2

While many of Boz’s plugins are used by highly experienced engineers, it doesn’t make them any less valuable to anyone in a different experience bracket.

He offers full demos, and a money back guarantee. I would definitely try it. His demo license doesn’t expire either (if I recall correctly). So if they don’t work for you now, just deactivate them and come back to them in a year when you’re ready to try again.

Also, if $150 is a budget stretch, look at your plugin library as a whole and prioritize.

#3

Another big bonus to using the Boz lineup is that he’s right here with us on a regular basis and is always very helpful with answering any questions or concerns. That’s hard to top.

Imperial Delay is my go-to delay plug…has a ton of presets as well as full tweakability. Like many other plugs, I typically cycle thru the presets until I find something close to what I’ve got in mind, then adjust to taste.

#4

I’m not going to try to sell you on the plugins, because I hate doing that. The truth is, pretty much any plugin out there (aside from a couple) can reproduced with fancy track routing if you know what you are doing. Putting these processes into plugin format packages it in a way that you don’t have to set up complex routing to do things that should be simple.

For some people, it’s a no brainer to buy the plugins because it saves them time, and by saving time it saves them money. For those people, it doesn’t make sense to not get the plugins.

For others, it doesn’t make sense to spend that kind of money on a plugin because recording is a hobby and spending time learning the complex routing and whatnot is a good experience. For people like that, it might make more sense to wait for a plugin to go on sale so you can get it at a lower price.

Like it’s @Jonathan already said, I do offer a money back guarantee. If you buy the plugin and then regret it for whatever reason, just shoot me an email and I’ll refund it. It doesn’t make any sense to me to charge people for software if they aren’t going to use it. I was a little worried about doing the refund thing at first because I didn’t want people abusing it, but it’s extremely rare that I get refund requests, so I don’t see it going away any time soon.

#5

That’s kind of how I was thinking, Boz. It’s not like I’m pressed to buy anything since all my ‘product’ is for personal consumption and given away at best! However, even hobbies require new toys and tools to keep it interesting and improve the outcome.

I see all kinds of examples how experts indulge in all kinds of extra tracks and effects to achieve their amazing sound. Way back I remember discussions about layering midi sounds, before there were as many (if any) complex Vsts, in order to achieve bigger dynamic sounds. I think that insight still applies, except now we have access to much fancier building blocks. I could, as you point out, mostly recreate a plugin or an instrument the old fashioned way, but even after 20 years I still have never even imagined much of what was possible to try.

I think we are all extremely grateful for the current quality of plugins out there at reasonable prices, and even more so that they are offered on sale as well fairly regularly. No longer do I long to buy that Korg synth. No longer do I even long for Cubase or even Pro Tools. And yes, there are still some pricey items that entice me, but I am like a kid in a candy store without even going there.

I’ve heard this story here in other threads, how non-engineering types struggle to achieve that polish. We compare our songs with almost anything played on the radio and hear a noticeable difference. It is part performance and talent, but it is largely production and arrangement. And that is the primary reason I like IRD- it offers the possibility I personally might make some inroads into that aspect of music making learning from other people’s experiences.

And that makes me a more desirable collaborator, too!

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#6

Steban, for what its worth, Dave Pensado one told Jack Joseph Puig in an interview how even top engineers in the industry like himself still struggle with insecurity and obsolecense and the nature of perfection. Even the top guys never often question weather they’ve truly achieved that ‘polish’ that you talk about. Its sort of like fame…elusive…and you strive for it, but never really ever feel like you ‘have’ it. I’ve distinctly recall hearing Mel Gibson and Melissa Etheridge say the same. Striving for something you never actually feel like you officially have can drive people insane trying to achieve it, only to feel like it slips through their fingers.

Long story short, its not just pro engineers and pro musicians that ‘struggle to achieve that polish’. Its everyone…businessmen, athletes, preachers, chess players…you name it.

Food for thought :smiley:

#7

God help us.

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#8

Dave Pensado one told Jack Joseph Puig in an interview how even top engineers in the industry like himself still struggle with insecurity and obsolecense and the nature of perfection.

Jonathon is trying!