plugins vs hardware question

[a-sphere]

i always hear that when recording, it is very important to get the best sound going in.
as far as sound processors are concerned i see the issue.
if you mess up going in with hardware, thats it, the problem cant be fixed.
but with plugins, the audio wouldnt be "destroyed" right?
so, is this just an advantage of plugins, or am i missing something?

-a

[electrobank]

Are you asking if it is possible to "fix" audio after its been recorded with plugins?
There is NO substitute for a hot, clean signal coming into to the hardware. Sure you can use gain, noise reduction and other plugins on your audio but it is always best to prepare your signal before. Not after. [img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Xman]

Originally posted by a-sphere:
i always hear that when recording, it is very important to get the best sound going in.
as far as sound processors are concerned i see the issue.
if you mess up going in with hardware, thats it, the problem cant be fixed.
but with plugins, the audio wouldnt be "destroyed" right?
so, is this just an advantage of plugins, or am i missing something?

-a

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">..not really a clear question but if you mean that you can use plugins nondestructively you're right ...but you can use'em in other ways too...

[SKI]

Don't over look the importance of quality you achieve going in. Plug ins are great but can't always fix a bad recording of something.
It also has a lot to do with personal preference and how you work.
I use both, front end can be very helpful for tweaking and plug ins can be good for polishing.
If possible go for both.

[homerg]

When you use harware in the signal path as you record the final wav file is effected, while if you use a plug-in on the track as you record it's not really effecting the wav file, only the monitoring of it. In other words, after you record it you can play it back and bypass the plug-ins and you would hear a dry uneffected sound.
If you want the effect to be on there permanent the you have to bounce to another track with the plug-ins on.
Personally I like not using any plug-in during tracking that way I can play with the raw track later without being stuck with a compressed, or processed track.

[Stone Knife]

Another aspect of this is that you can -and probably should- send a 'dry' version of the audio to one or two tracks (If it's stereo) when recording, while sending a' wet' (processed) version of that material from your outboard gear to other tracks.
Then in mixing, you can blend the two, having some dry signal and some processed, or any combination.

It's a similar technique to using both a direct box and a mic on an amp, then using their different tones to create a texture.

It's also possible to use outboard effects on the 001 by creating a hardware effects loop and recording the incoming processed results to another channel or channels, using an already recorded dry signal. (You will get some latency using this method, but you can scoot your effects loop track forward a little to synch it with everything else.)

I like the idea of keeping one completely dry version of a track no matter what way you're doing it, because it's impossible to get rid of printed reverbs or other effects. It's hard to just 'un-eq' stuff, for that matter!

All in all though, working with outboard gear will usually give you superior results that may even sound different than the 'plug-in' of the same box the plug-in is trying to copy. If you can afford it, I'd vote for the outboard one almost every time.

Outboard compression and limiting is especially useful to keep your incoming signal from overloading the digital recording gear. Once a signal is clipped digitally, all the compressor plugs you have will not un-clip it! You just need to be aware that it's possible to ruin your dynamic range with those tools applied to the input stage, remembering later you can squish the dickens out of it if that's where you want to go with it.

[a-sphere]

here is what i am sayin.....

if i make the sound nice with plugins while recording, using the realtime monitoring.....
is that as good as using hardware to make the input sound nice?

or is the raw audio (the wav. file) actually, as it would sound without the plugin enhancment.....

thus, making the use of plugins during recording, actualy deceiving?

that would lead me to say, that the hardware idea....is actually better, because it gives the input music better sound.

and the plugins idea is worse.....because it is actually masking the lack of sound quality, of the input!

what the hell?!?!?!

-a

[mattm]

there is absolutely nothing wrong with recording your audio flat. i do probably 80% of my stuff this way. i never print reverbs or any other effect that i create - they wait till the mix. i only print eq and compression, as is common practice.

when you 'monitor' through a plug-in, the plug-in is not actually being 'printed' so removing the plug-in will reveal the flat sound. there is no particular disadvantage to using either plug-ins or outboard to process your signal except that if you use only plug-ins, you have the option to go back if you screw it up. if you use hardware processing before the recorder, obviously you can't undo what you have done.

on the other hand, if you like what you are doing with a plug-in eq, for example, and you want to keep that sound, you can either permanently apply the plug-in to the track using audio suite then remove the real time plug-in from the track (keep in mind that the original flat file is still there so if you want to change it, you can) or you can leave the plug-in untouched in the mixer and just insert more stuff after it during mixdown if you need to do further processing but option one is recommended.

what i'm saying, i guess, is that you can achieve a similar result by use of plug-ins as you can by using outboard gear. as i mentioned, the main advantage to processing with plug-ins, either in real time or with audio suite, is that you can go back a step if you need to and it'll save you thousands of dollars as you don't have to buy loads of eq's and such!

~matt

[QuikDraw]

I like to think of it this way...

If I record dry then I can always re-record with whatever effects I want. If I print effects when I record then I'm stuck with what I did.

Recording dry allows me to go back to "what the musicians originally sounded like" any time I want to. I never have to say, "I wish I had done that differently". I'm never stuck with anything.

Nope! I won't be caught printing effects without having a dry copy as well. My ears (and brain) aren't good enough to make those decisions and be forced to live with them!

Mike

[tld]

Another huge advantage of recording dry: If you need to fix something by punching in it's real easy. In a dry track you don't have to worry about the punch cutting into reverb tails and such. Combine that with setting the punch in and out points at zero crossings and you can fix almost anything.

Tom