Physical compressors, and more!

[TheToddGreen]

So this may be a dumb question, but it's bothered me for too long with no answers I have found on the web.

With a digital recording setup, I see many people using physical components as well, such as compressors, etc. havent been able to see what other stuff people put in their racks, but there is usually quite a few things.

With the modern releases of great compression vsts, and other vsts simulating whatever they have in their racks, what are the pro's to having physical components as opposed to strictly digital vsts?

Again, sorry if this is a dumb question.

 

[Empathy]

They sound better. That's all there is to it.

 

[-Noodles-]

Moving away from the perceptual factors (see above post);

1) they've already spent a large amount of money on buying and learning how to use them. so that's what they'll do.

2) clients want to feel safe in the gear-cave of a studio. a computer with a screen doesn't have that glitzy recording studio feel, does it?

3) there are things you cannot do easily inside a digital workstation. outboard gear allows for real analogue distortion and artifacts.

4) some engineers just want to plug-in and go. setting up a plug-in and finding a sound might not be what they want to do. patching in a compressor with yesterday's settings may be perfect for the sound they want right now.

 

[greyskull]

They Sound better.

 

[crillemannen]

They Sound better.

Yes they do

 

[Ermz]

Weren't you preferring The Glue to your outboard, Christian?

 

[Nimvi]

I look at it mostly as a flavour thing. A compressor like a 1176 has been used on many many things we know, and with great results. If someone likes that sound, nothing comes closer to it than that specific compressor itself. You can get plugins that try to sound like it (and some get very close imo), but it's still an artificial copy of that sound.
Compare it to wanting to eat strawberries and buying candy with artificial strawberry flavour. It's just not the same.

Another good reason is that physical gear gives you a hands-on approach, which many people like. It is much easier to close your eyes and turn the knobs while listening until it sounds right, than to stare at a screen with sliders and numbers, and try to do the same thing. You will almost automatically base a lot of your judgement on what your eyes see. If you are boosting some EQ and it sounds good at +3.97db, your brain itches to set it to +4.00, just because it looks better. It's stupid, but a very real problem to many.

And what I hear often too is that people invest in hardware rather than software, because hardware will always keep a certain resale value (if it's above a certain standard at least), while all software will be worth absolutely nothing in a relatively short time. So it's a sense of extra security for dark times ahead.

With that said, software is very very handy to use in massive projects and often a lot more affordable too (VCC vs buying 5 consoles is a good example). And some software does things that its hardware counterpart cannot do. This is the future of plugins imo. And I've been noticing a rise in these over the past few years, which excites me a lot.

 

[TheToddGreen]

Ohok. I do like FEELING what I'm doing, which is what made me interested in the idea of outboard gear. Let's say for example I got a compressor and eq or something and hooked it all up, etc. with VST, you select the track, add the VST, tweak. And do this for every individual track. What would be the procedure with outboard? Obviously you want it going to more than the just master. And I would hope you wouldn't need one for each track. Just trying to get an idea how it works before I decide to invest in it because like stated, it is more expensive

 

[crillemannen]

Weren't you preferring The Glue to your outboard, Christian?

Well when it comes to soft compression i feel the ITB plugins are equally good to the hardware. But when you hit it a bit harder then hardware is superior.
I really like my SSL on snare though, gives it a really nice snap.

And i haven't got the SSL to work that good on the master bus, but realized that im not a big fan of masterbus compression. I only compress like .5-1.5db and then there is like no difference between the plugin and the hardware.

And hardware on vox sounds so awesome and don't know if i can get that nice even result without hardware nowdays.

 

[BLUElightCory]

What would be the procedure with outboard? Obviously you want it going to more than the just master. And I would hope you wouldn't need one for each track.

You need one for each track. Sorry. This is why major studios have racks of outboard gear or consoles (such as SSL) that have compressors/gates on every channel.

You can always record individual tracks through the compressor or bounce down the audio through the compressor before applying it to another track, but obviously there are workflow disadvantages to doing it that way.

 

[C-Martin]

Ohok. I do like FEELING what I'm doing, which is what made me interested in the idea of outboard gear. Let's say for example I got a compressor and eq or something and hooked it all up, etc. with VST, you select the track, add the VST, tweak. And do this for every individual track. What would be the procedure with outboard? Obviously you want it going to more than the just master. And I would hope you wouldn't need one for each track. Just trying to get an idea how it works before I decide to invest in it because like stated, it is more expensive

Unfortunately, unlike the convenience of plugins, you do need one for each track you want to process. Either that or you can print but if you only have 1 piece of hardware, i find it sort of counter productive to use that same compressor on every track, going trough the process of printing every time you want to try it on another track. I usually do some tweaks here and there as the mix starts to form so i find it best to dedicate hardware to the tracks until your sure that you won't be doing any major tweaks. It is the reason i started my collection with the JDK R22, it works in stereo or dual mono which makes it usable on many situations. I use it on kick/snare or drum group and once i have the sound close to what i want, i print to free it up to use on other things.

I plan on getting an 1176 next and will probably use it on bass and vocals. I'll start off with it on bass and rough mix vocals with the CLA76, then once my bass tone is set, print and switch from the plugin to hardware unit on vocals. I don't think there's any other way of doing it really, you either settle for the hardware on just a single track, commit to your settings and print or you do like CLA and buy another hardware piece when you need another one for another track lol

 

[Leon--]

Real compressors are much better from the plugins,but they can be useful too
With EQ's it's a little bit different for me,plugins work great too on cutting freq's,but if you want to boost then a real EQ will sound much better.