Should plugins make or break your mix?

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

 

The plugin hoarder's anonymous thread got me thinking about a similarly related topic. How beholden should we be to specific (or any) plugins in a mix?

 

Recently there was a bit of a "dust-up" with a popular plugin company when they accidentally gave away a bunch of free plugins and then, a month later, took them back. Many people lamented that they had mixes hinging on the use of said plugins, and now they were screwed.

 

While I understand the frustration and workflow speed bump, it got me thinking, are we too reliant on particular plugins in our mixes? 

Say you are working on a mix over a long period of time, or perhaps you want/need to remix a song a few years after its creation. Now you no longer subscribe to a plugin subscription, or you forgot to re-up your WUP, or maybe you sold the hardware required to run specific DSP plugins? Perhaps the older plugins are no longer compatible with your current OS? Or, worse case, the company has folded?

 

How screwed is your mix now? What do you do?

 

You could have/should have rendered the processes and at least had a starting point...but let's say you forgot. 

What now?

 

Before I weigh in with my thoughts, I am curious to hear yours.

[KuruPrionz]

I try to keep my plugins simple. I've yet to use the "plugin rack" provided for Waveform Pro.

At most, I may have 2 plugins on individual tracks and I try to record  so that I have a usable sound to start with. I may or may not drop a limiter into the mix buss, depending on what I recorded and what I want the final result to sound like. 

 

I've been using more ITB guitar amps but I do still mic my Peavey Vypyr VIP 1. I put a better speaker in it and I can get pretty much any tone I want from it, plus it has more good sounding effects built in than I will ever use. That means I do have a trusty OTB solution for electric guitar tones. 

 

Bass goes direct through my Q\Strip EQ to pull down some of the low mids. Typically I make a duplicate track of that, use the Apple High Pass to remove the low end from the copy and run that through a guitar amp with a bit of grit on it. Done right, the bass still sounds pretty clean but it can be heard clearly on a cell phone speaker too. 

 

ALL of my keyboard sounds are ITB but I'm not obsessed with any of them. Most of the time I will drop 4 different synths or settings into Fishman Triple Play and/or just duplicate a MIDI track and run more than one keyboard at a time. 

 

For plugins, other than the keyboard modules I use some EQ, Limiter, Delay and Reverb plugins. I have a few different ones of each type and yes they sound different but I can get good sounds out of all of them. Guitar and Bass almost always go through my Tech 21 Q\Strip DI which is a great sounding EQ and very versatile. I use Rainsong guitars to track acoustic guitars, they bring the sweet chime that I love. Typically I'll run the K&K Pro Mini pickups through the Q\Strip and mic the guitar with one mic, recording on 2 separate tracks. Sometimes I'll put a bit of Eventide Micro-Pitch or Baby Audio Pitch Drift on one of those 2 tracks, it makes a great sound. In a pinch Apple's AUNew Pitch can to the same job, so I have 3 options there. 

 

A redundant system is a reliable system!!!! 

 

I think it's important to be familiar with a variety of audio tools, both ITB and OTB so you can essentially be bullet proof. 

I can track with a few different mics, go right into a clean, colorless mic pre in an interface or use one of my ISA (ONE and Two) mic preamps and/or plug something into the send/return (probably the Q\Strip but maybe a TC Flashback X4 if I want that vibe) going in. 

 

To be honest, while I am sort of "goofing off", it's been a great way for me to learn and to not get trapped by any of the potential downfalls you mention above. 

 

 

[Dave Bryce]

With only one or two minor exceptions, I’m of the opinion that if pretty much any plug-in from my arsenal ceased to be available, it’d take me only a few minutes to find another one that would at the very least get the job done passably….and more likely would get the job done fairly well.  Maybe even better… 🤔😏

 

dB

[Anderton]

I don't think plug-ins make much difference in terms of a recording's emotional impact. They make a difference in the sound, which has nowhere near as much effect on the emotional impact as the performance, arrangement, and mix.

 

The only plug-in I use that would require some work to replace would be the CLA Vocals plug-in. It often gets me where I want to go quickly on background vocals and harmonies, but basically it's just a multieffects. I'd simply need to replicate the contribution of each effect.

 

However, there are some plug-ins that have no equivalent. If I had to replicate sounds I've gotten with the Line 6 Helix Native, it would be very, very time-consuming and difficult. First, most of my presets are multiband amps, which other plug-ins can't do without stacking channels or buses and having several individual instances. Second, some of the amp simulations simply don't exist in other amp sims. The same goes for IK Multimedia AmpliTube and the PRS Supermodels, they have their own distinctive sounds that would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate with other plug-ins.

 

Sure, I could still get an "amp sound." But I'm very picky about guitar tone, and the interaction of that tone with the other instruments is a crucial part of my mixes.

 

Also, I'd really miss IK Multimedia's Stealth maximizer. There are plenty of plug-ins that do the same thing, but some reason (and I'm usually not that finicky) "it just works." The Transatlantic plate reverb from Rare Signals is great on my vocals, and Abbey Road Chambers on drums. While I could replace them with other reverbs, those two are ideally suited to the kind of music I do.

 

 

[bill5]

On 1/11/2023 at 12:00 PM, Dave Bryce said:

With only one or two minor exceptions, I’m of the opinion that if pretty much any plug-in from my arsenal ceased to be available, it’d take me only a few minutes to find another one that would at the very least get the job done passably….and more likely would get the job done fairly well.  Maybe even better… 🤔😏

 

dB

Exactly...I'm almost totally "in the box" and not at all worried. The odds of a plugin suddenly not working are remote and I have not nor will I ever do any subscription nonsense. I pay one time. 

[NewImprov]

I've been a UAD user since the days of the UAD 1 cards. There's a few of their plugins that, if I lost access to them, it would be a setback, though I am comfortable enough in my mixing skills to think that I could ultimately make it work.

 

I don't own anywhere near all their plugins, but I use a few of them on nearly every channel of every mix. Their 1176 and LA2A compressor plugs were so far beyond everything else in quality for so long that I have barely checked anything else for compression in years. I also use their SSL bus compressor and Neve 33609 compressors, though I used to have a different SSL-emulating compressor called The Glue that I liked better than the UAD version of the time. I switched computers and lost the install for The Glue around the time UAD upgraded the SSL, so I switched, but have never compared The Glue to the current UAD.

 

My primary go-to reverbs are the UAD EMT 140 plate and the Lexicon 480.

 

My other main package of plugins is the Sound Toys bundle, I lean on Echoboy for most of my delay/echo needs.

 

A client who records her own material in Logic and has me mix recently challenged me to do one of her tunes entirely within Logic, using Logic's built-in processing. I did, and I think it sounded fine, but felt like it took more time to get an almost-as-good mix as the one I did using UAD.

[Bill Heins]

The last thing I do before mixing is render all Midi tracks to audio so all tracks are audio only without plugins, then save it for future use If my plugins change I can revisit and remix easily!

 

Bill

[bill5]

PS it would seem there is a growing trend to equate the term "plugins" to mean effects only. Plugins is a much broader umbrella; VIs are plugins as well...so depending on how you definite it, could make a diff in the answer. 

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

Now that I'm thinking a bit, I've recently submitted 2 tracks to Metapop contests that were entirely soft synth plugins of one sort or another. 

Those instruments were part of the requirement, I just used what was provided to see what I could come up with.

 

So yes, absolutely in some circumstances plugins may not only be an essential part of the mix, they ARE the mix. 

[Paul Vnuk Jr.]

Thanks for all of the replies, everyone. Great stuff!

 

I am kind of multiple minds regarding plugins. Here I am speaking strictly of the effects and processing variety. Just like tracks are tracks and stems are stems (a discussion for another day), in my mind, plugins are plugins, and virtual instruments are virtual instruments–––always render the latter to audio as a safeguard, by the way. As a sound designer of 30 years, I have tons of soft synths that are gone, no longer updateable, and cannot run on current computers––perhaps why I lean more on hardware synths 75% of the time.

 

Thought #1

 

Plugins should be a tool but not a make-or-break mix element. In other words, should I want a classic FET-style compressor, I should be a good enough engineer to use the UA1176LN one day, the Wave CLA the next, the Softube FET, The Slate, or even the stock offering in my DAW.

 

Sure, you can argue that you like one over the other. Still, it's ultimately no different than the days of going into an analog studio and mixing through a Neve console with a vintage Blue Face 1176 on the lead vocal one day and then pulling up the mix at an API studio a few weeks later with an 1176LN. The sound will definitely be different, but it should never be so different that it becomes prohibitive to the final mix.

 

Thought #2

 

At the end of every mix session, render those tracks! If you like the sound of a specific plugin or effects chain, you have going render it to a separate track, keep the dry, and you should be covered in any scenario. Most DAWs make rendering in place very easy.

 

Thought #3

 

Warning-old man, get off my lawn statement ahead! Maybe don't use so many plugins? Most of the greatest mixes of all time (in my opinion) had maybe 3-4 compressors tops on the whole mix––they did not have an 1176 or La 2 a on every channel. Plus, channel EQ was limited. Yes, FabFilter is indeed Fab, but do you really need to EQ the hell out of every channel with adaptive EQ? If so, perhaps there are issues elsewhere.

 

Thought #4

 

If you find a killer reverb, delay or effects process that you feel is integral to the vibe of a mix or the presentation of the song...always always always render a safety copy.

 

Ok, those are my thoughts for today.

 

[bill5]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:53 AM, Paul Vnuk Jr. said:

Warning-old man, get off my lawn statement ahead! Maybe don't use so many plugins? Most of the greatest mixes of all time (in my opinion) had maybe 3-4 compressors tops on the whole mix

 

 

Amen on less is more (Good Lord....3-4 compressors? I can't imagine wanting more than one, if that).