VCC questions

[pikachu69]

I am the proud owner of VCC today.
I have searched the forum and read alot about it but have a few questions in the hope that alot of you have used this for some time now and may have some new hints and tips to get the most out of it.

My main question I have is how many instances can/should you use on each track? Lets say I have my drums like this:
Kick
snare
toms
cymbals
room

then groups for:
close mics
cymbals
room
overall drum buss

then:
FX
then:
2buss

Should I only put VCC on the audio channels and 2buss themselves only or on all of the groups as well?

next question: (related to the first question)
In a typical real world recording a song/track could pass through multiple desks of different kinds (tracking, mixing, mastering) in different studios. Can VCC be used to emulate this by printing VCC to the dry tracks after tracking, re-importing the tracks into your daw with another instance of VCC to mix through?

How many instances of VCC is too much on one channel/source?

What are your fav desks for certain instruments?

Thats all for now but any answewrs will be greatly appreciated!! :Smokin:

Cheers.

 

[Nimvi]

I throw the channel on every single channel in my mix, and the mixbus on the masterchannel. You can also use the mixbus on busses if you like. Just see which one sounds better to you!
I have yet to find a situation where something sounds better without VCC than with it, that's all I can say.

Same goes for the chaining of multiple VCC instances on a channel. Try it and see if you like the sound of it. I haven't ever done it, since I use VCC as a set-and-forget tool at the start of a mix. I throw it on every channel, choose the emulation I like most for every group, and roll with it.

Altough I am not a preset guy at all, I have to say, I pretty much always end up with the same consoles on the same instruments. It usually looks like this:
-4k on drums and bass (I like the thump it gives when driven around +1/+3, and it smooths the highs of cymbals),
-BritN on guitars, for some extra meat, and again, some smoothing of the harsh highs. Pay attention to the mud hwen using the BritN though... it adds up quickly.
-Trident on vocals and synths that need a little sizzle. It seems to add a bit of high end that sounds good to me on those sources often.
-RC tube on anything that I want to sound vintage. I don't use this one very often, but I can't deny that it does very subtle distortion pretty well.
-On the masterbus it's no contest for me: BritN is the only one I like. It is like a depth-button. Switch it on, things go 3D, switch it off, everything is flat. I don't have this with any of the other consoles, but feel free to try for yourself.

As you can see, the only console I never use nowadays is the API (US A). It's not that it's bad; I just never prefer it over any other. It seems to do something agressive to the high mids that could be useful though. I used to prefer this one on guitar, until I started noticing it always made my guitars sound harsh on other speakers. Switched to the neve, and haven't looked back.

Another tip: try the different oversampling modes in the settings of the plugin. They do sound quite different imo. The higher you set it, the more CPU it eats obviously, but you can always just use it on the desired setting with the offline rendering option. Personally I prefer 4x oversampling. It seems to add the perfect amount of depth and smoothness for my tastes, which I miss when using 0x oversampling.

Another another tip (will this guy ever stop talking?): Try how consoles sound at different amounts of drive. Especially on drums, driving the console a bit over the 0dbVU mark can add a great amount of thump and depth that is hard to get in the box without it. If I remember correctly, mr. Slate mentioned this as one of his main reasons to develop this plugin.

 

[Manicompression]

Exactly what he said except I prefer the trident on most things, Neve is a close second for me. I use a mixbuss instance on my groups and master. I wouldnt run it before your reamps, I honestly dont think it would make a difference and if it did it probably wouldnt be positive, but who knows i guess, try it and tell us how it goes haha. Congrats on the purchase, these things are so subtle but Ive had it for a while now and still use it all the time. I like that its very hard to hurt your mix with it .

 

[Machinated]

Trident is my favourite, does something lovely to the width. Neve is top, but need to mix with it early because the low end can get huge. The other models sometimes work, sometimes not with me. Api on guitars and Ssl on drums occasionally works occasionally not for me.

 

[BushmasterM4]

And if you have problems driving the VCC to nice levels use the calibration option to push it some.

 

[pikachu69]

great so far guys thanks! any more suggestions?

Cheers

 

[crillemannen]

Trident really guys?? The BritN is the best by faaaaaaaaar. Gives you some depth, punch and gives you a wider mix. Especially on x4 upsampling.

I always use the BritN on the masterbus, BritN on guitars (not the channel vers). Then it is kind of hard for me to decide. You know vibe vs separation. If it is a metal mix i usually don't use VCC on separate tracks if it's a rock mix then i can abuse it. VCC has a tendencie to smear things up which isn't always wanted. But the BritN on the master is a winner for sure.

 

[Nimvi]

VCC has a tendencie to smear things up which isn't always wanted.

Yea, I agree with this. It happens to go well with most projects I work on, including my own (imagine a vibe like Moonsorrow, where the smear actually adds to the thick atmosphere of the music), but if I was going for some clinical sounds, I guess I would think twice about throwing vcc all over everything.

 

[Trevoire520]

I like to throw VCC on certain tracks as problem solvers once I've got my mix going.

Neve thickens things up, so normally gets thrown on the guitar bus. Nice if you want to fatten up your snare too. I think it's a bit too much for bass guitars though, can get a little muddy.
API adds sizzle and brightness, so can help your kick/snare cut through, or if your guitars sound a little tubby this can make them sound a bit leaner.
Trident has a nice mid push and an awesome pop on snare drum, sound wise it seems to sit somewhere between the Neve and API.
SSL and Tube I've not used much, though I did use SSL on snare today and found it had a nice punch to it.

Obviously this isn't how alot of guys are using it, gonna try some stuff with using it on all tracks aswell.