Preamp vs software

[Tractorr]

Quality stuff sounds good.

Using bad pedals will not get as good results as good software and vice versa.

Maybe 7 or 8 years ago I would have said that software sucks for bass (I mean amp simulators) but they have come a long way, but so have hardware pedals.

The best thing for a relatively simple setup would be get a good pedal preamp and then add effects as needed in the software.

 

[nick98338]

I use bass, to Eden WTDI (preamp/DI), to digital audio interface. I don't use any other effects. My recordings sound just fine. YMMV

 

[seamonkey]

See, here's the thing- sometimes phasing occurrences between filter sets is the desired sound. And those plug ins are trying to emulate distortion factors inherent in analog circuits.
I have a full analog, and fully digital performance rigs.
Been working and buying on both sides of the fence for many years.
The way analog circuits react is far different from digital when it comes to dynamics. It's not personal bias, it's just the way it is. The mediums are different, although one is trying disparately to be the other.
If you can't hear it well, you are lucky and don't need to concern yourself with the issue.

Right. In that case run a regular "filter" in your DAW. It is an analog filter. It is the same algorithm. It does add the phase artifacts.

Avid and others have done double blind tests, and they also do Null Testing.

The signal from real analog gear, versus the "digital" basic model null out. They are the same. Including how they react to dynamics.

If you're hearing it, then maybe something else is influencing you hearing. In one study they did a double blind with CD versus LP from the same master. High Fidelity Audiophiles were the subject. These subjects consistently picked the LP as "sounding better". Then the testers recorded the LPs to CD. The Audiophiles could not tell a difference between the LP and CDs recorded from LPs.

The audiophiles liked the snap, crackle, pop, rumble, and hiss artifacts from the LPs and attributed this as sounding better.

There are hundreds of plugins that convert to Lo-Fi. Try some of them.

To the OP, since software packages have trial periods, it will cost you nothing to try them.

 

[DuraMorte]

What is misinformation?
Please elaborate.

As you wish.

There are harmonics that are beyond our hearing range, but they effect the overall outcome and feel of the final sound.

False. There is no good research (that I have seen) proving that frequencies outside the normal human hearing range have any effect whatsoever on a person's enjoyment of a piece of music. Primarily because if you can't hear it, it isn't there.

Turn those harmonics into distortion, and it has an effect on the listener.

False again, see above.

I have professional experience doing large scale concert sound for many years, and there is without a doubt a massive difference when clocking digital at different rates. That's why external clocking is an option on these desks!

I don't care how much experience you have at anything. The only difference between a cheap converter and a super expensive one is all the stuff that happens prior to the actual conversion process; namely, the Nyquist filter. Everything else is features and hype.

External clocking is used to clock multiple units together; you cannot improve the sound quality of a cheap converter with an external clock.

And I'll believe that you hear a difference between a raw 44.1kHz file and a raw 192kHz file when you can prove there is one through a rigorous ABX trial. I'll be waiting.

The point of the discussion being mainly about the differences between analog and digital processing, however, and if you want to do a comparison with all things being equal, well, you have to make them equal first. Regardless of diminishing returns, the difference is still a difference.

Digital processing today is everything audio engineers 50 years ago wanted. Noiseless, perfect, pristine. What goes in is what comes out, and any changes are noiseless and accurate.

If you grabbed an audio engineer from 1960 and brought him to the current, and showed him what an average DAW system of today is capable of, he would crap his pants.

The truth is, we've got it so good that we're spoiled. And the audio equipment industry, in trying to inspire average people to take out a third mortgage to buy more gear, have placed super-high-end analog and digital gear on a pedestal, saying "buy this $5k converter, and your music will sound amazing, we guarantee it".

It is easy to make amazing sounding music completely for free now. No one *needs* a $5k Apogee converter, the same way no one *needs* a Lamborghini Murcielago. As long as someone will buy them, they will be made and sold.

But my humble Nissan is still perfectly capable of getting me to work as quickly as I'll ever need to get there.

 

[darius8]

FWIW, I drive a NIissan too.

 

[mrbell321]

I agree completely. But the major difference is that digital conversion truncates band width in a way analog does not,
and the way in which it does is not, imho, very musical.
Tape has huge limitations, but the process also produces it's roll off without introducing artifacts that digital conversion does.
And yes, you can model stuff, throw thousands of man hours and dollars into it, or just use a hardware pedal. But that's the down side to development. I can't wait for my plug-ins to react and sound as good as my hardware.

Fair enough.

 

[mrbell321]

I'm going to file this thread under "First world problems"

 

[packhowitzer]

The truth is, we've got it so good that we're spoiled. And the audio equipment industry, in trying to inspire average people to take out a third mortgage to buy more gear, have placed super-high-end analog and digital gear on a pedestal, saying "buy this $5k converter, and your music will sound amazing, we guarantee it".

It is easy to make amazing sounding music completely for free now. No one *needs* a $5k Apogee converter, the same way no one *needs* a Lamborghini Murcielago. As long as someone will buy them, they will be made and sold.

+1 I have about 1200 dollars invested in a computer and recording software and monitors. the only limitation to it is my lack of knowledge of how to use it. I think that I'll be able to get all I could ever want out of it.

I'm going to file this thread under "First world problems"

ha ha. another +1!!

 

[seamonkey]

Pedal manufacturers are smarting up also. They can build a general purpose digital pedal then sell it with different software to do different things.

Line 6 is obvious http://line6.com/effects#tonecore
but they are by far not the only ones.

I don't want to build up some dichotomy between analog and digital. It's always been both. Ears convert sound to series of pulses for our brains to interpret.

 

[Mazer]

Hello again, what can you say about recording with only the tech 21 BDDI DI?

 

[FaithNoMan]

Hello again, what can you say about recording with only the tech 21 BDDI DI?

I'd say there are much better options out there now, digital and analog.

seamonkey is a digital fan, and I can't blame him. The truth is, digital stuff has definitely come light years ahead in sound. But so has analog "modeling" so keep that in mind as well.

I get pretty good results recording with all analog preamps and overdrive and then treating it with very light compression post-recording, via plugins. Sometimes, I add in a bit of room ambience as well, but the majority of my tone comes from a B3K and a Tech21 Oxford.

If you are looking to not spend too much, I highly recommend the Oxford or the VT Bass, which is miles ahead in getting the SVT tone compared to the BDDI. Besides no latency monitoring, the tone sounds easily as good as the wonderful digital stuff out there.

Sometimes, a marriage of the two technologies is the perfect solution

 

[j.kernodle]

Not to get too much into the hardware vs software question but I did a three way comparison yesterday with my lull jazz into my Demeter vtbp-201.

A. Used the DI out pre EQ into fastrack pro (volume and eq controls have no effect on output or tone)
B. DI out post EQ into fastrack pro
C. Straight into instrument input of fastrack pro

I tried like hell to hear a difference between A and C but couldn't hear much of any difference
B. was clearly different (post EQ) it was much brighter.

The biggest surprise to me was that the fastrack preamp wasn't bad sounding at all on its own even with my passive bass. With the EQ on the Demeter set "flat", the fastrack preamp had more body in the 200hz range (the useful low mids). But it didn't have the articulation that the Demeter pre gave me once I turned the EQ on.

Test was totally unscientific since I didn't have a way to split the signal. I played similar lines each time and gain matched them as close as I could (tried to keep the peaks at -10db)

I'm gonna retry it when I can split the signal. And run the Demeter into side 1 and go straight into side two of the fastrack.