Shelled out for the Waves Bundle, went back to stock plugins.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by K Roche

For EQ I think it is pretty hard to beat the PT bundled EQ III especially for precise subtractive work.

Sonnox EQ mode2 :)

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by musicman691

I never said the Waves eqs are bad but just that they're not exactly surgical in their usefullness; more broad strokes than anything else

Q10 is rather good at surgical tasks

[Top Jimmy]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Delay won't bring a vocal forward.

Not trying to be argumentative, but used for Haas or early reflections, delay does in fact have the effect of pushing a vocal forward. Makes it easier to perceive and understand without making it louder.



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[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Top Jimmy

Not trying to be argumentative, but used for Haas or early reflections, delay does in fact have the effect of pushing a vocal forward. Makes it easier to perceive and understand without making it louder.



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True. But everything is relative to the volume you're listening to...

[Top Jimmy]

Originally Posted by JFreak

True. But everything is relative to the volume you're listening to...

Volume alone doesn't confer "forwardness" when accounting for dimensionality in a stereo mix.


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[GeneRoberts]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Delay won't bring a vocal forward. In another response to you here I mentioned trying Abbey Road Plates. Do you have H-Reverb? That may do what you want; make use of the input and output echoes as well as the built-in eq.

I played with the Abbey Road Plates plugin for hours. Tried every possible dial. Sounds OK, but it's not appropriate for this mix. I didn't feel good about the sound coming out of H-Verb either. In the end, what did it for me was a combination of the D-Verb and the TrueVerb (at least something out of Waves got used) and cutting out the Delay completely. The TrueVerb basically creates some kind of room setting and the D-Verb gives the full-on reverb I needed.

Taking the advice above, I slightly rolled off the lows in the reverb and dialed the pre-delay to 40. This got me the closest to my reference. Nice learning experience.

[GeneRoberts]

Originally Posted by sdelsolray

How much previous experience have you had with the "stock plugins" compared to the few days you have spent with various Waves plugins?

Not a whole lot. I'm new to PT (Used Samplitude before.) and only have used PT for 5-6 songs. But the stock plugins have served very well. I used meticulously dialed eq tricks to bring a badly recorded, boxy-sounding classical guitar track to near perfection. The Waves eq plugins wouldn't let me do something like that.

[K Roche]

Originally Posted by GeneRoberts

Wow! That Abbey Road trick is amazing! Thank you so much! Can't believe I might continue mixing not know that cool trick. Some reverb plugins allow you to roll off the highs and stuff, it's nothing like being able to fine tune the reverb like this.

As far as delay, I think some of it must have been used on her vocal to bring her close, to the front of the mix and give some warmth and body to the vocal.

Reverb alone, no matter what plugin is used, doesn't seem to get me there completely. I am going to experiment with the pre-delay settings you suggested and see what I can get.

P.S. Great singing on that track there! The recording itself is fine too. Not sure if recording it too hot was the reason why the guitar is so stridently forward. The mic could have been too close to the sound-hole, plus the strings are pretty bright. A softer pick might help. But it's all fine as it is, overall. The vocals (both tone and singing) are just great!

I wonder if you'd use any delay, if you were mixing to achieve a similar effect, though. Somehow I feel like it needs to be used, even if ever so gently.

No reverb alone will not get you there, but I would guess compression is going to bring the vocal forward as opposed to delay. Some prefer delay rather than reverb because they feel it gives a feeling of space but is less diffuse than reverb so possibly clearer. Personally I prefer predelay on verb and some compression

[lesbrunn]

Originally Posted by GeneRoberts

Thanks for your comments. I might have been a little overzealous... But if we take eq, for instance, the PT stock 7-band eq seems superior to the ones in Waves, with the exception that it won't let me see frequency wave activity while tweaking. (Same thing with the delay plugin. I just couldn't dial in anything that sounded good and went to the PT stock delay, which is a very good plugin, apparently, with lots of useful features.)

And yes, the presence boost on most eq's has been harsh. Which one is it that gives the silky smooth high end?

+1 for the Sonnox. Also Gliss EQ from Voxengo. There's also the Baxter EQ, which is freeware, but I don't think there's an AAX version. The DMG EQ's are also good.

[moshuajusic]

I think you'll find more satisfaction in using your new plugins from the get-go in your next mix. (Then try replacing them with stock plugins and see what happens.)