Slate VSX headphones

[iomegaman]

So...not sure what I believe anymore because everything is "virtual" except album sales...

I have some pretty good plugin emulations of gear I have and I can see in some situations the ease and "lack of fuss" to use a plugin over hardware, especially in mix context where tracking has already been done...nothing controversial here...

However, there's that center of field where two physical speakers create an image based on a real room and moving air around...I'm not sure that can be recreated in a purely "aural" experience...

Now we've probably had our discussions on "virtual mics" and I have a slate small diaphragm just so I could try out the software (you do not need his mic once you get the software) and about 90% of my experience with it is the software throwing some kind of EQ masking over the file that "matches" some high end mic...I'm sure they are all doing the same thing (Townsends seems to be the best here and the software is free and if you have a decently matched stereo mic recording its pretty sweet)...

Of course Gearnutz are all fawning and praising and dissing any diss of the discussion (same on facebook, Kenny Gioia got locked when he was less than praiseworthy)...and there seem to be some decent engineers who are saying its amazing.

I suppose if you are mixing on a subpar system or perhaps in a mobile mix environment this could be useful, but I can't see it replacing a sonically treated room with good speakers...of course I was called a "troll" for this idea but surely I am not being disingenuous here am I?...because I am skeptical and have not used it...

full disclosure, I am NEVER happy with my own mixes but thats a personal issue and probably not relevant.

 

[groselicain]

Maybe it's living in the quarantine era and thinking I had lost all sense of time, but when I saw the promotional email I honestly wondered if today was April 1.

I'm not a fan of snark, so I try to not take part—but I have to share one of the few times I wasn't able to suppress. Steven put out one of his hype videos years ago and I found it so strange that he seems to edit them in a way where he never blinks. I commented that not blinking was something often associated with serial killers and I suppose other viewers found it a funny assertion—hundreds of 'likes' in an hour or so. Steven took the video down a day later.

I'll admit, he's quite the salesman and has an ability that I'll never possess.

 

[iomegaman]

Maybe it's living in the quarantine era and thinking I had lost all sense of time, but when I saw the promotional email I honestly wondered if today was April 1.

I'm not a fan of snark, so I try to not take part—but I have to share one of the few times I wasn't able to suppress. Steven put out one of his hype videos years ago and I found it so strange that he seems to edit them in a way where he never blinks. I commented that not blinking was something often associated with serial killers and I suppose other viewers found it a funny assertion—hundreds of 'likes' in an hour or so. Steven took the video down a day later.

I'll admit, he's quite the salesman and has an ability that I'll never possess.

HaHA, I seem to remember some comments on some thread about him never blinking, YOU'RE the guy that started that...

Yes he is a salesman...I've made comments before when people questioned someone dissing hims "music credits" by saying...What Albums has Steven mixed that I might have heard?...ended the discussion as I recall.

 

[pucho812]

I have often referred to him as the P.T. Barnum of professional audio.
Other things to note, do not get into political discussions with him. I watched a friend and him go at it over the interwebs and he was just as confusing in his thought process as he is when he talks about pro audio.  ;D

As for the VSX,  I would imagine it's like his virtual mic. A bit of  tech we seen before but with a twist, he has a control, much like in scientific testing there is a control. In his case it's his headphones or mics. Because the starting point is the same every time, it will be easier for him to manipulate things. That combined with people who have never been fortunate to have the experience of being in  one of the legit spaces or using those mics and being told it's like the real thing, is why it sells.  I don't doubt it will do well. I don't doubt most of the people who buy it have never been in that mix room.  I just don't get the why. Why would I want my headphones to behave like anything else other then the headphones I purchased.  It's right up there with barefoot monitors which I forget the model, but it has DSP and a switch so you can make your  expensive speakers behave and sound like an NS-10 and an  auratone aside from  the barefoot speaker. I just don't get the need.
Waves did this headphone thing before when they were doing all the abby road plugins. I didn't get it then either.
If there is a point to use  headphones that have DSP to mimic a room, what is it? I have no idea.

 

[iomegaman]

Yeah exactly, it's not "virtual" it's actually inserting a filter between the source and your ears (in both cases, the mics and the headphones)...

I got gauges mic cabinet for $30 just to see what it does its no any different than Slates stuff except the GUI and perhaps the filters they use...does it sound better? Better than what I ask?

I've found a comfortable way to mix using my Grados which are open back and then turning up my monitors until the blend hits me in the center...its a pretty wide sound stage with plenty of detail and its distracting if I'm not at the right place in a mix.

What I have HONESTLY found to be a bigger effect on the mix was the DAC...the Symphony uses the ESS Sabre 32 and it has the best sound stage of anything I've ever heard, even the $100 S.M.S.L. idea thumbdrive DAC is better than the Presonus, the Focusrite, the UAD Apollo, the Lynx and the Behringer (which uses a BurrBrown opamp)...

I suppose its a nifty plugin "room" tool...and the only ones I have found I like come from Altiverb, but I never would think to put it on everything.

I guess as Fletcher used to say "your mileage may vary"...and I am pretty much not interested in Audio Engineers talking politics I was at ProSound Web when Mixerman and his henchmen torched George Massenburgs forum with flame wars until George shut it down...Jules at Geaersluts was more tolerant and Julie at PSW was polite until people started posting memes about murdering cats and then she got pissed...religion and politics are the worst side of human societies and I've been too involved in both to have clean hands.

 

[pucho812]

Yeah exactly, it's not "virtual" it's actually inserting a filter between the source and your ears (in both cases, the mics and the headphones)...

I got gauges mic cabinet for $30 just to see what it does its no any different than Slates stuff except the GUI and perhaps the filters they use...does it sound better? Better than what I ask?

I've found a comfortable way to mix using my Grados which are open back and then turning up my monitors until the blend hits me in the center...its a pretty wide sound stage with plenty of detail and its distracting if I'm not at the right place in a mix.

What I have HONESTLY found to be a bigger effect on the mix was the DAC...the Symphony uses the ESS Sabre 32 and it has the best sound stage of anything I've ever heard, even the $100 S.M.S.L. idea thumbdrive DAC is better than the Presonus, the Focusrite, the UAD Apollo, the Lynx and the Behringer (which uses a BurrBrown opamp)...

I suppose its a nifty plugin "room" tool...and the only ones I have found I like come from Altiverb, but I never would think to put it on everything.

I guess as Fletcher used to say "your mileage may vary"...and I am pretty much not interested in Audio Engineers talking politics I was at ProSound Web when Mixerman and his henchmen torched George Massenburgs forum with flame wars until George shut it down...Jules at Geaersluts was more tolerant and Julie at PSW was polite until people started posting memes about murdering cats and then she got pissed...religion and politics are the worst side of human societies and I've been too involved in both to have clean hands.

agreed.