Using plug-ins on your input busses to make tracking and subsequent mixing easier?

Ice Man

Ice Man

Member
Sep 18, 2006
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West Palm Beach, FL
Okay, so maybe stumbling onto this is late blooming, but I just noticed the edit symbol on my input busses and got an idea. Do any of you gents use plug-ins on your input busses to simulate outboard gear? I feel like I'm black sheep and I'm about to get a big resounding "duh," but seeing that and changing my stereo busses to mixing-in mono busses made me see things completely different. Ideas that came to mind were:

SSL Comp for snare, kick, bass, etc
SSL Channel/C1 for gating
EQs/Filters for HP/LP to make mix down simpler


What experiences do you guys have?

Daniel
 
I never do that. Using real outboard gear before hitting the a/d converters makes sense to me alot. Especially compression for making better use of the converters resolution. But using plugins in the input bus does only take away options and has no tonal advantage at all. And I don't think it makes mixing much easier. It's really no big difference if you throw the plugin's in the channel or the input bus....I am curious what other will post, but I am a big fan of getting a signal on disc that's as clean as possible and leave me as much options for mixing as possible.
 
If you are certain that you will stick with that sound later, then there is nothing wrong with that approach. Saves up resources. People get a little "option-happy" these days instead of commiting to a good sound from the start. I admit to being one of those people sometimes, too ...
 
smy1 said:
If you are certain that you will stick with that sound later, then there is nothing wrong with that approach. Saves up resources. People get a little "option-happy" these days instead of commiting to a good sound from the start. I admit to being one of those people sometimes, too ...
Click to expand...

dead on

i use a hardware 1176 on the way in on bass and vocals
 
I use hardware on the way in as well. I personally dont see much point using plug ins on the way in as you can just add them later and freeze the track if needs be
 
i sometimes use low cuts while tracking certain guitar layers etc, but not for anything else. i know im gonna low cut the hell out of it later, so might as well get rid of it at the start.
 
sometimes i'll throw some plugs on channels while tracking just to make the band happy...eq on the kick, comp on the snare, whatever makes the sound out of the monitors sound a little more "finished" - it can all be changed later, so who gives a shit?
 
Just so the first poster knows, a plugin compressor inserted in a DAW chain is not going to compress before the signal hits the A/D convertors. Which is the point of compressing in anyway...so you will HAVE to buy a hardware compressor if you want to do this right.

Putting the SSL compressor in your chain will essentially be a waste of time, because compressing during recording is almost always done to tame peaks, and this is simply impossible with software right now.
 
GuitarMaestro said:
I never do that. Using real outboard gear before hitting the a/d converters makes sense to me alot. Especially compression for making better use of the converters resolution. But using plugins in the input bus does only take away options and has no tonal advantage at all. And I don't think it makes mixing much easier. It's really no big difference if you throw the plugin's in the channel or the input bus....I am curious what other will post, but I am a big fan of getting a signal on disc that's as clean as possible and leave me as much options for mixing as possible.
Click to expand...

Same for me.

I never use input-plugins. If i need a "ballpark" sounding roughmix while monitoring i put these plugins on the tracks, but still record the unprocessed audio.

yea - with decent outboard this makes mucho sence - because you are able to actually make use of a individual sound without having to da/ad later in the mix again...

With 24 bit converters resolution isn't actually an issue, but of course you can have a hotter vox-performance (level wise) without the fear of digital clipping the converters.

Some singers perform better if they actually hear theirself a little compressed, as well as it is more easy to track when you allready have 4 rhythmguitars..


If i would have the opportunity to record through a decent analog shit i probably would apply some processing... carefully...

Sometimes it is not a benefit if you have 1001 possibilitys in the mix. Those old school dudes recorded the stuff like they wanted it to sound on the record - i read about some 24 track tapes of a 80is act which were sounded exactly like that record when playbacked via the console with all faders @ zero...


brandy
 
smy1 said:
If you are certain that you will stick with that sound later, then there is nothing wrong with that approach. Saves up resources. People get a little "option-happy" these days instead of commiting to a good sound from the start. I admit to being one of those people sometimes, too ...
Click to expand...
I agree with that 100%. I almost always after getting the sound I want compress and gate the kick snare and toms to tape. I don't know if you nuendo 3 guys knew this but you can use outboard gear as a vst plug ins
 
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