Introduction
Let’s imagine the following fictional character – Old John The Masterbus. He has a home recording studio in some unknown basement and can record drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, vocals, brass, etc. One fine day, the rising thrash-metal band Demonic Wrath comes to visit Joe, who wants to record their new album – including drums, bass, guitars, vocals. Let’s imagine that Joe has the necessary recording equipment and has a Focusrite multichannel audio-interface, cables, decent cheap microphones and a studio computer with a DAW where he will store the recorded material. Let’s say that John decided to start recording the drums. The Masterbus scratches his forehead, pours a coffee in the control room and gets to work arranging stands, microphones, measuring with a tape measure the distance from the overhead microphones to the solo drum, laying a carpet in the studio and after 2 hours of swearing, sweating and test whether there are signals in the audio interface, John is ready to record. Let’s say that John has the following chain of processes:
performance → recording → mixing → mastering → release
However, he is also faced with the choice of how to proceed with the records.
Strategy 1 – Dry Signals
Let’s imagine that John decided to take the signal from the microphones and run them directly into the multi-channel interface. From the interface, he has correctly adjusted the gain and sees that there is a signal in the DAW. He presses the record button and records the whole song. The drummer arrives to hear the result and is not impressed – everything sounds dry, there is no cohesion, color, volume and density. What does John do? He pulls out his favorite Waves plugins and starts arranging on each channel – auto-align, EQ, compression, harmonic excitement, puts a reverb bus and sends part of the signals to it. John is a good engineer and has foreseen presets, so the process is semi-automatic and with re-tuning. Eventually, things sound the way he wants after a series of steps. However, his computer’s CPU is seriously hogged after all these plugins, and he’s played around with darkening the sound. There is a result and the material is ready for mastering and release.
Advantages
complete freedom of action – with dry signals we can do whatever we see fit, easily change their places, way of working, etc.
unlimited possibilities in terms of effects – routing, selection, number and connection scheme don’t matter as long as the DAW allows it and the CPU doesn’t die
independence from external hardware modules – EQ, compressors, verbs, etc.
reversibility of the applied processing – if John messes up something, there is always an on/off switch on the plug-in, or if the drummer Peter The Paradiddle comes and says he wants the drum solo to sound like a hollow galvanized bucket, John will swear and change the chain- and on the snare bus.
consistency over time – if he takes these factors into account, a project released 5 or 10 years ago will still sound the same
relatively quiet and clean signal – the Focusrite has good enough preamplifiers to sterilely and cleanly record the signals fed to them without unnecessary artifacts
budget solution – it is very likely that a software emulation of a given hardware module is cheaper and thus some budget can be saved by investing only in interface/cables/microphones and licenses
Disadvantages
need for a stable configuration – if Peter The Paradiddle wants to hear a processed signal from his drums while recording, then John must ensure low latency while the plugins are running. Without a good configuration, the chances of glitches/delays in Paradidla’s headphones increase, and it is possible that John will take some swearing if something like this happens while Peeter records a double-kick drum in 200 BPM
CPU time – after so much VST effects on channels, parallel bus signal chain and complicated routing, the poor CPU can crash and glitch/artifacts or even the whole project won’t start; however, smart DAWs have render mechanisms to isolate these things and bounce the most cleanly processed material possible
dependence on licenses and compatibility of VST plugins with the OS – even if John is a good citizen and buys all the software legally, certain plugin may not work on a certain OS/DAW or have problems with the license … every manufacturer of VST plugins provide some kind of support mechanism, but usually the systems are different and there is no unified solution – be it license manager, be iLock, be something else, etc.
technological mixing time – even if John has presets ready, he still has to prepare the session, adjust levels and get the plugins into their optimal working mode
possibility of software errors/problems – if he releases the project after 5 years and for some reason the HDD has crashed or some file/plugin has been deleted by mistake, the session will not sound the same. Usually any smart DAW has a mechanism to deal with these issues by showing what is missing, but it still leaves the action in the hands of the engineer to go and find a solution
Strategy 2 – Hybrid Option
A year or so has passed, John has saved up a few pennies and is no longer excited to diligently store blanks from VST chains and tremble with nerves, whether tomorrow he will start the DAW session with everything loaded. He has developed a working methodology and applies similar EQ and balance settings to each recording session. That’s why he decided to set aside $1500 and buy a Soundcraft Signature 22 multi-track, a 22-channel mixer with a 22-channel USB interface, in which he will connect not only all the signals from the drums, but even the whole band, he will record multi-channel again, he will did some basic EQ adjustment to all elements of the recording in the mixer itself, the mixer preamps will colour the signal in some way and the DAW session will have a more finished look before he even goes to apply operations in the DAW. Also, Peter The Paradiddle will get a better signal in his headphones even before the plug-ins are available, and the chances of the Masterbus swearing are reduced. Let’s think about what will happen in this scenario.
Advantages
offloading system resources – once the signal is coloured and processed, it will need less post-processing in the DAW – fewer plugins, less lost processing time, resulting in easier monitoring, respectively less probability of glitches software problems
solving the frequency balance earlier in the chain – before John relied on a chain of plug-ins that would adjust each element of the chain for him, and now he has a premixed signal coming from the mixer, mentally he feels calmer, he works with better signals, more confidence and needs fewer adjustments
a better monitor signal to give out to recording musicians
introducing „character“ earlier in the chain – each mixer’s preamps have their own character, which often results in a combination of a certain stereo/frequency/harmonic picture that is difficult to achieve with software plug-ins and is actually an explanation for a from the myths that „analogue sound was better than digital“ … it’s just that in this type of device the signal processing takes place even before it lands on the hard disk, which, compared to the sterile Focusrite, saves a subsequent chain of plug-ins, to imitate this character
Disadvantages
possibility of errors where there is no full reversibility – John may forget some low-cut filter on one of the channels of the mixer and thus will introduce a signal that is inappropriately cut, say when recording a cash register. Then he swears at the mix and has to either restore those frequencies with harmonic excitement/sub-harmonic generation or replace the whole cabinet with triggers/software samples or else he’s come up with some EQ that sounds good in solo mode but in tandem with the other signals of the recording to not fit the overall sound at all
relative dependence on the nature of the recording device – the preamplifiers of the mixer in question may „colour“ the signal in a way that John does not like and make his guitars sound fried … and once coloured, the signal is difficult to make sterile, in some situations even perhaps impossible if there are distortions. In other situations, they may simply be poorly designed and noisy
servicing of the recording device – no matter what, mixers are hardware modules and they need the necessary maintenance – don’t mess around, some fader/potentiometer might start to crackle, someone should spray it with contact spray, stop some element, which needs to be replaced … all this is related to nerves, time and finances, which John has to foresee
cost of the recorder – after all, John has to set a lefty to buy this mixer if he wants to proceed in this way, and quite often this pleasure costs more than an audio interface in the same price range
Strategy 3 – Fully Processed
So, it’s been 30 years since John recorded mastitis artists from the industry, became a local luminary, took projects even across the Ocean, which bring him enough finances to have a good life and buy whatever things he likes, be it personally or professionally. John has bought over the years chamber hardware modules, preamps, API console, Distressor/LA2A/1176 compressors, Pultec/API/other boutique equalizers, external reverb modules, Eventide H3000, patch cables, armed himself to the teeth with all kinds of boutique microphones in abundance and against John The Masterbus there is no project that can rest on his little finger. He has tested all his microphones in all combinations with his available equipment, tried countless variations of positioning them on the drum set, and knows exactly what he wants to achieve. In the meantime, he changed the studio to a bigger one, which is acoustically treated and he can safely record with wide-spectrum condenser microphones the sound of the room, because it is natural and pleasant, and there is no bleed from the outside world, because of the good sound insulation, as in his old one studio. He works with trained musicians who come in, know what they want, have a diagram of their devices drawn up for him, don’t fake singing/playing, have a clear vision of their sound and the end result, so it’s his job to record the whole set.
Advantages
achieving perfection at the recording level – everything is pre-adjusted using all hardware modules, John has put several Distressors on the drums, EQs, gates, sub-kick and the whole set comes fully mixed and ready for export. Peter The Paradiddle is no longer angry, and while sipping a cup of English tea, listening to Masterbus’ creation, tells him about the life of Mike Portnoy and his sincere admiration for the opportunity to walk on this earth and listen to his works
completely offloading the CPU – all processing takes place in the external modules, either with re-amping or recording the already processed signal. The computer serves as a storage/carrier for an already fully mixed signal, only John has to take care of the automation of faders on the channels and possibly some super-base corrections without applying basic processing
squeezing out that missing 10% – to this day there is an opinion that digital analogues of hardware modules do not fully recreate the original, so John, as an omnipresent purist and perfectionist, uses absolutely external hardware modules to make the signal as it is he always imagined
100% shift of processing responsibility from software to hardware modules – he is used to them, their sound, their character, it is easier for him to adjust and manipulate them than to play and click on menus
extreme speed in production – the mixing and recording process are completely merged and a well-recorded session automatically becomes a well-mixed session, which eliminates one of the processes in the chain
Disadvantages
the possibility of errors where there is no reversibility – if in the above example with the hybrid variant, only the mixing console brings color to the recorded signal, here there is already a complete dependence of the hardware modules; one badly adjusted level somewhere along the chain and everything fails
complete dependence on the nature of the recording devices – Old John has to consider how the individual elements in the circuit sound, what does what with the signal, so that he can be satisfied with the final result, which is almost irreversible
servicing the recording devices – if in the hybrid variant John had to take care only of the servicing of the mixer, now he must be aware of the servicing of the dozens of devices in his studio, as well as their correct connection in terms of patch cables, adjusting levels and a bunch of other surprises, like noise, left/right side braking, etc.
price of the recording device – if in the hybrid version John spent $2200 on a mixer and another 200, say, on cables, now the price of all the pleasure of technology + studio + treatment is, say… $100K. Is he willing to pay it, and even if he did, could he use his available hardware arsenal 100%?
complexity of the staging – walls of equipment, numerous patch cables, which without the necessary documentation/servicing result in a complete nightmare for the engineer
Conclusion
Perhaps each of you recognizes yourself in one of the above pictures or some shade in between, however, the situations and characters are imaginary and try to summarize some philosophical and strategic positions in the production of material. The question is what has worked in your case and where you see yourself on the three axes. Personally, I feel how slowly but gloriously I have headed towards the second, let’s hope everyone gets to the third both mentally and financially!
