I like the way @bozmillar is actually innovating… like…making stuff that other stuff doesn’t do. The problem is that everyone else seems to want to make another 1176 clone, or model some other pieces of something analog. At least that +10 Bendeth model was a compressor that hadn’t been modeled before. If I see another fairchild clone that doesn’t immediately appear to do something the UAD one doesn’t, I’m 99% (almost certainly) not even going to look at it.
I dunno…kinda hit apathy on the monitors and the mixer and the DAW and the interfaces and the center section and MIDI controllers as well. I don’t know if its me. Or if its the irony of not really feeling like there’s anything else to upgrade. Its kind of surreal. Not spending time drooling over stuff you wish you had. Oh well. Back to mixing then?
I know that feeling, i’m at that stage too so i bought NI Machine Studio, but plugin wise i have more then i need and would happily sell my Slate stuff
[quote=“SoundCandy, post:22, topic:1488”]
I know that feeling, i’m at that stage too so i bought NI Machine Studio, [/quote] that’s one thing I may actually get down the road.
?? Can you actually do that? Like…is the remainder of a yearly subscription transferable? Hmm…I’m trying to figure out how that would work.
Seriously, as much as I wish Slate did differently with the plugs, when I need that CS lift or the Earth and Air modules, I like REALLY need them. Many times I find his his VMR stuff worthless, but now and then its dead on perfect to fix something.
I dunno i have purchased Slate plugins not subscription. id gladly flick the MBC pack, not cause its no good more because i have some doubles and no need for them. I use trigger and the console stuff a bit though. And i have UAD so it was a silly purchase decision on my part really. IF i didn’t have any plugins then then Slate subscription would make sense perhaps as long as i didnt have to look at his mkt… now that is funny… in a vomit kind of way…
The reason everybody wants to do this is because there’s a huge market for 1176 clone plugins. If you can be the main brand that people go to when they need an 1176 plugin, you are basically printing money. It’s a commodity plugin and it’s more of a brand race than anything else.
I’m no good at playing the branding game, but I have the advantage of not having a team of people to pay, so I have the luxury of being able to make plugins that aren’t bread and butter. My plugins do not sell to beginners. Transgressor is, without a doubt, my favorite plugin I’ve made, but even experienced people have a hard time figuring out how it works. Did you know that there is a large portion of experienced engineers don’t even know what transient means? It’s really hard to make new plugins that do new things when even professionals don’t know some of the very basics of how things work.
So most developers just go back to hashing out repeats because they’re easier to sell, especially to beginners. For me, it’s a good exercise to do every once in a while to see if there are any quirks in the analog domain that I wouldn’t think to do from scratch, but aside from that, I don’t really like doing it. It’s a lot like playing in a cover band. Easy money, but sort of soul crushing.
When you have trouble getting excited about the music, that’s when I’ll begin to worry.
Simon Sinek talks about the Golden Circle (concentric circles). At the center is “Why”, the most important thing. Next there is “How”. Then there is “What”. I think all your gearhead stuff falls under “What” (what you use for making music and mixing). That’s the outer ring.
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I haven’t quite hit apathy for plugs, but something has to really grab my attention these days to make me consider adding it. Like many have said, I have a lot of tools in the box now and have a pretty clear idea of how to go about using them for my goals. I don’t feel “stuck” or blocked in any way, such that having another plug might make a big difference. I’m sure this is a common experience…
I have all the cool stuff, I think. LOL The only thing I picked up and I think is just totally cool because the AI works great is Jamstix 3.
Have you ever gone to a guitar store and there’s some kid sitting on a stool making a $149 guitar sound absolutely awesome?
So my primary focus right now is on basics – learning to do really well with what I’ve got.
It is my theory that pretty cheap stuff will probably give me every bit as much signal path quality as the Beatles had available to them – and what made them sound great was as much their own performance and engineers who knew their stuff as anything else.
Let me phrase it differently. I am not a great singer. A 200 mic will do perfectly fine and it won’t sound any better with a 6000 mic. A better investment for me is singing better. Once I am a 95th percentile singer (don’t wait for that), then the 6000 mic makes sense.
I probably easily have upwards of $3k worth of music software on my computer. There is no way spending another $X will actually improve my end product.
So instead I have been practicing and reading and fiddling and learning.
Someone else on here had mentioned really enjoying Jamstix 3. I think it was @cptfiasco? I’d still like to check it out some time. There are some features that seem really cool about it. I’d love to hear what either one of you like/dislike about it as you use it more!
I just got it a few days ago and have been experimenting with Jamstix 3 on one recording – as I learn it better I’ll definitely post something about it.
Yep, it was the Cap’n… and where the heck has he been, anyway? Hasn’t posted since 24 April, and he hasn’t responded to an email I sent a few weeks ago either. I sure hope he’s OK…
He and I had traded email about Jamstix as a matter of fact, that’s how I had his address. I love the idea but the demo version is crippled to the point where I couldn’t be sure it would do what I wanted (specifically how I could key off of my large existing sample and pattern library) so was reluctant to spring for it. Plus, v4 has been in the works for a long time, so I decided to wait until that comes out. According to their website, v4 will be a major overhaul top to bottom, so that’s worth waiting for…
Also, I just picked up a new tool, Train Your Ears. It’s not a plugin, but rather a standalone module by which one can, you guessed it, train one’s ears to recognize frequencies and interactions in a very useful way. I’ve spent just one evening with it, for a few hours, and man has it helped already. I know @Cristina has been using it too. Huge thumbs up for this one. It’s on sale at Audiodeluxe for US$49 at the moment, so if you’re like me and are looking to improve your listening and mixing skills, it’s a great investment.
I lied…whoops!.. I got The UAD Neve 88rs channel strip recently and have been using it in Unison mode on the Apollo interface. I like it a lot and sounds great tracking this way. The other one was a Waves Kramer HLS which seems pretty good for some low end resonance. And finally i decided to try a Andew Sheps template for mixing (tweaked a bit for my setup) and my workflow. So far i like the direction this is heading and its bringing up a much simpler approach to getting going fast with a good mix balance.
Actually a couple of plugins i have been using of late (although not new) the Cubase DAtube a nice little free bundled plugin hidden in Cubase. Adds some nice punch and saturation to a kick drum…etc And the Melda MConvolutionMB reverb , just added this to Amb mics in BFD3 Drums to liven up the drum room and sounds really nice. Great Reverb.
That HLS comes up over and over again in discussions. I use it to soften up overheads, and occasionally to add bit to a stereo pair of piano mics. Its always interesting to see what people do with it
Can you post it? I’d love to see what’s going on there.
I’m a fan of all the Tokyo Dawn plugins, particularly the dynamic eq TDR Nova (amazing its free). I use it in every mix. Only recently I discovered an older Tokyo Dawn gem called Proximity and I find it to be very useful in getting a 3d placement of my instruments. You can tweak several psycho-acoustic options that influence depth:
•Distance signal delay by speed of sound
•Distance gain loss
•Absorption of high-frequencies in air
•Stereo width manipulation
•Proximity effect of virtual microphone
•Distance based early reflections
I’m sure most of you already know it, but I seldom hear people say they use it all the time. For me it was a real find! Anybody else use it?
i have purchased Slate plugins not subscription. id gladly flick the MBC pack, not cause its no good more because i have some doubles and no need for them. I use trigger and the console stuff a bit though. And i have UAD so it was a silly purchase decision on my part really. IF i didn’t have any plugins then then Slate subscription would make sense perhaps as long as i didnt have to look at his mkt… now that is funny… in a vomit kind of way… 
