lowland wrote on Tue, 20 March 2007 10:39 |
Likewise with Blue: if you have an idea where you're going to begin with you hopefully shouldn't find the interface holding you up too much - it seems quite 'learnable' for faster operation.
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Part of the problem with a lot of plugins (and to a lesser extent some digital hardware) is that the range of possible adjustments is often much larger than the typical analog piece - and often the typical usable range is quite small in comparison to the available range.
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Having said all that, sometimes the non-sound issue burden is just too much: it was for me with the z-Qualizer which I gave several days before I threw in the towel, despite the very good sound. I suppose it's all about what you're prepared to put up with as you grow and achieve in what you do.
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It also comes down to expectation as well - ie. does turning that knob give you what you expect? I know I can dial in a usable high freq boost on the Massive Passive with one turn of the freq switch, and one turn of the gain knob. To dial in the same eq shape on the Red (for example) takes multiple bands, and a few minutes of fine tuning.
An interesting exercise - load a song and dial in a decent sound on your favourite analog eq, then match that curve with a decent plugin. But really match it - use pink noise and a long term average FFT analyzer, and overlay the analog eq curve and the plugin curve. Adjust the plugin to match the analog curve. You may be shocked at how much work and how many bands it takes to match it exactly. Once you have it matched, apply that plugin curve to the same song. You may be shocked again at how close the plugin sounds to the analog eq. In fact, with the Red and Massive Passive matched (for example), I find the Red often sounds better than the MP with identical curves. However, what takes 30 sec to dial up on the MP takes minutes or more to dial up on the Red - long enough that the listen/react perspective is gone. So the MP wins because it gives me what I expect quickly.
Best,
- J.