Silly question?

Hello everyone,

I'm from the old-school world of analog mixing back in the 80's and early 90's. I had a major life change and got out of it for a while but recently got back into mixing (mostly to remix a bunch of old projects, and because I miss it). However, I've been experimenting with ITB (in the box) mixing because I sold all my equipment long ago. Right now I have a decent monitoring environment.

For some reason, I've been less than impressed with this ITB approach, mostly because I haven't been impressed with the plugins I've auditioned (I've auditioned TONS of plugins). Is this my imagination or am I just not used to the digital "sound?"

Anyways, I'm somewhat electrically inclined and am contemplating starting a peq-1a project. I've never used "high-end," expensive gear like the Pultec stuff (some may argue the high-end aspect), but I've gotten good results out of mid-level and even low-end gear in the past. My main reason for building the peq-1a will be for enjoyment and knowing I built it myself, but am wondering what others think of their own projects in comparison to the best plugins at their disposal.

In other words, do any of you reach for your self-made projects over your UAD-1's (for the people that own both)?? There has been much debate on the Internet that the UAD-1's emulations sound as good or better than the BEST outboard gear. I myself haven't heard the UAD-1 yet.

What do you guys think??

brewery topic I think. But anyway to answer your question... It's not about the tools ity's about the end results. I myself feel the same way about ITB mixing and the results are not as steller as say a console. But in this modern age more of my projects are having to resort to ITB mixing. Noe to try and compare plug in's to the real deal even if it DIY'ed I look at a quote I heard from paul wolf. "Using plug in's is like having sex with a blow up doll. It's not the real thing." this was inresponse to the API plug i's that had come out. IMO if you need just an EQ build it but if you neeed some other things to go with it like reverb, compression the buy the uad-1 it's pretty rocking.

The UAD is probably one of the most musical sounding computer hardware/software but in my opinion it is far away from the real hardware Pultec, LA2A and 1176.
If you need many instances of a plugin it is a very economical alternative but if you can use the real thing don't hesitate.

chrissugar

P.S. Did you know that in digital, compression can't be done properly, only if we accept some restrictions? Compression is a nonlinear process that produce energy above the audio in the hundreds of kilohertz region and that energy will alias into the audio band and become distortion. You can't do anything about it.

> I'm from the old-school world of analog mixing back in the 80's and early 90's

Young whippersnapper.

Many of the analog mixers of the 1980s really sucked. I mean, sucked so bad that even _I_ could tell the difference from a 1960s transistor preamp, or a 1950s recorder.

> am I just not used to the digital "sound?"

Maybe. It could be a new high in sound per dollar and a new low in sound. Or you may have just heard some bad examples demonstrated by kids who don't know how to use audio tools.

The magic is in the music, not the gear. Simple gear is often better.