Hi,
I want that my mixes sound more analog. I want to get a Minimal Wave sound (old Absolute Body Control, etc). Any good plugin to give the mix some analog grit?
Thanks
Industrial Music forum » Music tech forum
Vintage mix plugin
(15 posts)-
silikonanswer
offlineMemberPosted 2 years ago # -
The JB Ferox and Timemachine plugs are pretty good. The guy is a scientist/researcher in singal processing with Phillips so he knows his stuff. :)
http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/audio_vst.htm
Ferox gives you a tape sound and adds a bit of vintage dirt and noise to the mix, Timemachine is good for adding some grit to samples though I'd go for some samples of drum machines from around the time periods in question, then maybe some nice glossy compression and smooth sounding eq.
Posted 2 years ago # -
silikonanswer
offlineMemberMany thanks for the answer Moulate!, Ferox is EXACTLY what I was looking for :-). Advice from a Pro like you is what I needed :-).
Also check http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/vinyl/ . It is adifferent beast but it could help.
Posted 2 years ago # -
there is of course vintageizer, you can buy it in a bundle with gristleizer (http://www.throbbing-gristle.com/tg/gristleizer.html)
Posted 2 years ago # -
sorry but if you want just "analogue dirt" then take two cheap cables make a knot in them and pull several times,twisting these a bit, then unknot and plug them from the outs of you soundcard into 2 different ins...and there you have your analogue dirt....
analogue Technique has nothing to do with grid or dirt or so....if you buy decent analogue mixing gear and cabling you won't hear any artefacts or crackles......
Posted 2 years ago # -
great advice yade, i might try it...
and i guess jumping with combat boots on said cables would make what createdigitalmusic calls "tangible interface"Posted 2 years ago # -
lol @Dogmeat...last time I did such a thing (breaking cables) i rolled over them with my office chair...since then I have a pair of spontaneous industrial-noize TSRs....*g*
what does bother me a bit is that such a lot of people do think of analogue outboard gear can only be used as lo-fi or to lower the quality of a digital mix by adding some "dirt" to it...well this may be true if you stay within the lo-budget price segment...but analogue gear manufacturers spend huge amounts of research to produce silent and almost noise-free gears and cables...I just claim that if you use proper gear with appropriate cabling you won't hear any quality changes when it comes down to noise-signal ratio....
Posted 2 years ago # -
YADE - Yeah, but only you can afford to buy the nice stuff. :)
There was the old thing...when people had analogue, they wanted to get rid of the noise, hiss, get rid of the tape bleed, tape saturation etc. They wanted a clean exact version of the sound. Now they have that clean sound with digital they realised that subjectively the recordings made on analogue were warmer, more musical, somehow better.
I did a remix for Die Krupps last year of a very early track and all I got was the multitrack files from the old 8 track. 8 tracks! It was a crappy old drum machine, a synth loop and the vocals. It sounded fantastic. I don't know what it was, the tape, the recording desk, the pre-amps, the space they recorded in, the reverb, whatever. It just sounded great. There was a warmth and musicality to it that is hard to achieve these days. All the sounds just sat perfectly together, the mix was warm, solid, open. People talk about 'glue' and everything coming together to form a whole. It just did. It was wonderful to listen to. And I know these synths and the drum machine on their own don't sound anything special, but whatever means they used to record it just added that magic. It wasn't noisy or a dirty recording, but it had a certain quality to it that made a simple arrangement and simple sounds mesh to form a great sounding mix.
Posted 2 years ago # -
silikonanswer
offlineMemberModulate, that was exactly my point. I love the sound of many minimal synth bands. Only a couple of keyboards, a drummachine, a mixer and some reverb and it sounds great. I don't know exactly what it is but it certainly has something special.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I did not want to say that one should not buy the not highest-end stuff...it just bothers me from time to time that a lot of times someone wants a "analogue" plugin, all they want is something to add crackles and hiss to it...like on old vinyls (which do not crackle at all, if you treat them right btw..;-) )...
some points which one should consider if one wants to make "sound like in the old times"...
- a lot of these recordings were made in professional studios...with decent equipment and a pro engineer doing the mixdown and stuff....
- the synths and parts then cost a lot of money...so people also spent some more on cables and stuff....
- don't let you trick by only having 8 tracks or so...a common way to record these days was that you recorded n-2 Tracks on a n-track machine, then took the n-2 tracks again through a mixer and record them onto the remaining 2 Tracks....freeing you again n-2 tracks...means that you effectively could listen to 24 or more tracks, being mixed down to 8 physical ones....(in the germand synchron version of LOTR for instance they made this with around 680 Tracks which they summed up with 2 24track tape machines)
so my advice for anyone wanting to make "analogue" sound....buy yourself analogue stuff..
@silikonanswer...what makes a lot of these bands special is that they use authentic hardware....TR-606,TR-808,TR-909,SH-101 etc....it has a reason why these items do also nowadays cost a lot of money (besides the vintage surplus)....
but I also realize that such a setup costs pretty some money....even if you use substitutes like Machinedrum,Schlagzwerg or Jomox Drummachine instead of the Rolands etc...under 1500-2000 for a regular setup I doubt you will come...also another point which i see (and i really don't want to offend somebody...just my opinion) is that nowadays the musical and technical skills of a lot of "artists" reduce to "extensive preset and loop browsing and downloading"...so you hear imho a lot of shitty mixed and poorly programmed/arranged tracks.....so the old ones, where a good amount of musical skills and technical programming abilites was put in, stand out....
Posted 2 years ago # -
"it just bothers me from time to time that a lot of times someone wants a "analogue" plugin, all they want is something to add crackles and hiss to it"
Yes...but by virtue of being digital they already have a clean signal path (usually). With analogue you are usually trying to get rid of noise...with digital you quite often want to add it so yes, people are going to want things to add hiss, harmonics, saturation etc. And that's not a bad thing. There is no way most people can afford decent analogue but they want something of the warmth and organic sound of old recordings.
Yes, they were mostly recorded with engineers who knew what they were doing. I bet if you asked musicians from 20-30 years ago to mix and engineer their own recordings they wouldn't sound amazing either, but that's what happens with a lot of musicians today. There simply isn't the budget to pay for studios or even high quality equipment. And to be fair you can make great recordings on a computer in the box these days. The weak part of the chain is the engineering and monitoring for most people. It's a real skill as much as being a musician. In this scene most people wear the musician, producer and engineers hats all at once.
As for the 8 track. No, it wasn't bounced down. It was clean, simple and well recorded. Good recording, good equipment and a good engineer.
I honestly think the key to getting that old sound is to actually record to tape. Failing that, use whatever you can.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I fully agree about the saturation and the harmonics...but I often experience that these people only want the hiss...because they don't know anything of things like saturation and stuff....
what I wanted to put out, is that nowadays a lot of people with a rapidshare account, some hifi boxes and a laptop consider themself as a musician...and that these people often put huge amounts of time and efford in their outfits and websites, myspace profiles and so on, but don't have the slightest clue of what they do with a synth...using tons of downloaded plugs, stacking untouched presets over each other and finally run everything through a T-Racks (also with the static preset that sounds the coolest)...and after half a year (and if they are lucky a record deal because of their fancy looks) they then offer production or even mastering services...
nowadays you CAN produce a solid sounding album cheaper...sure..but still you pay the engineer's abilites.. if you go to a pro Studio and let the sound be mixed down or mastered there...but this costs money....and often this was invested in albums from "back in these days"...nowadays unfortunately a lot of labels or acts rather invest this money into promotion than in good equipment or good mixdowns or mastering...Posted 2 years ago # -
this one does exactely what you want
Posted 2 years ago # -
Not all of us can afford $2000 on one piece of kit like that regardless of how awesome it may be! It's the poverty trap. Most of the labels in this scene done have the money for decent recording budgets because they aren't selling the figures they need to afford that.
Most bands record their own music in project/home studios, mix it themselves on 'ok' quality kit rather than good kit, work in poor acoustic spaces and try and produce as professional a recording as possible on relatively cheap kit. OR You lose money on every album you release. There are very few bands selling enough copies these days to justify any real sort of recording budget. Can you imagine 15-20 years ago a band not recording (or mixing at least) in a real studio? An album being mixed in a bedroom being released as professional?
But sadly that is the reality of the industry today. Record sales are through the floor, there are no recording budgets and so people make do with what they have.
Posted 2 years ago # -
silikonanswer
offlineMemberThakd to everyone for the contributions but I think that like most discussions this has gone over the top sometimes ;-). Modulate those plug ins are great, I think they give a very nice sound. Yade, your suggestions are also very good but rather pricey :-D
Posted 2 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.