Outboard Gear or Software Plugins?
I remember just a few years ago, I had conversations with people across the globe about going 100% in the box or not. And my response to them was, “no way am I doing that for any of the artists I work with.”
Back even just in 2007, not all plugins were as good as it can be, and I certainly recorded tracks using my outboard that sounded far better (and I mean by a long shot) when compared to all ITB (in the box) mixes of songs. Have the software improved?
You bet it has!
So how much has it improved? Depending on the plugin. I have some of the same plugins I purchased almost a decade ago, that has gone through iterations of improvements. And it certainly has achieved acceptable standards in my book. I see on Gearslutz or other sites that people disagree, almost argue, about how hardware is so much better than the software plugins. I guess if I were to record a track (say vocals or acoustic guitar) and I use all analog hardware coming into the AD (analog-to-digital) converter, as opposed to using something like a direct input into an AD converter and using software compression and EQ, the all hardware version sounds a tad better. And in many cases, that tad is less than 10%. Most of the software these days can achieve about 90%+ of what an equivalent hardware can do, at sometimes less than 10% of the hardware price.
Of course, you can’t say that the software plugin at $299 really only costs $299, because you still need a computer, and maybe even a DSP hardware (like Universal Audio UAD-2) to achieve the close to 90%+ of what the hardware counterpart gives you. So it costs a bit more than the actual $299, but I digress.
Back to that amazing recording in an all analog chain recording through an AD converter into your computer…Yes, the all hardware one sounds better. But ponder on this. What if I have 24 tracks of material that needs to be mixed down into, what we all enjoy as consumers, a 2 track stereo version of the song, in some digital format (maybe even a CD or Vinyl record.) Does it make any difference? I can’t believe I am saying this, but the answer today is, “Not Really.” In the mix, I can make the entire song sound fantastic, even if all of the tracking was done via software plugin compressors, EQs, de-essers, etc.
So does that mean, hardware is dead? Not by any means. And when I say outboard gear, I have only touched on Compressors, EQs, Limiters, Gates, De-Essers, etc. I haven’t even talked about comparing software plugins of Delays or other effects, nor have I even talked about Synthesizers. I will punt those to another article. Hardware still has its place, and that is why people still buy API, Avalon, Manley, Rupert Neve, Solid State Logic, as well as many of the boutique gear out there. 500 Series formats are becoming ever popular as you can build your own Channel Strip or use the right tool to capture a specific instrument or vocalist.
One place I still like to use outboard gear on occasion is the stereo bus mix. I have been starting to use software to do pre-master or master mixes. But I still love that analog vibe out of some of the incredible hardware EQ and Compressors we still use in our studio.
That being said, I truly have been converted over to more software than ever before in the last couple of years, and our facilities have just about every plugin out there (though we move things in to the “disabled” folder after we find something redundant and better than what we used before.) I especially like the fact that with or without DSPs (UAD or ProTools HDX), the computers these days can do some complex calculations in real time to simulate exact circuitry of some of the hardware out there.
What I am still waiting for in software? Something that accounts for component level variance. What that means in more simpler terms is this. The components used in hardware gear, regardless of the type of gear, has electronic components with some tolerance level. Say a resistor that restricts the flow of electrical current that is manufactured by some company will state that the resistor valued at 100 Ohms, has a manufacturer tolerance of say 1%. That now is a resistor valued from 99 to 101 Ohms. Some of the older gear has electronic components with a tolerance of 5% or even 10%. That can be significantly different than a 1% variance. Even with just 1% difference in the specification of electronic components, every gear produced by a single manufacture can sound a bit different. The goal for these manufacturers is to get units sounding as close as possible within an acceptable mean. And as some components age, they can sound significantly different. We have an LA2A that we will never part with because it sounds better than most LA2As we have used, and it is definitely because some of the variances are off just enough to hit a sweet spot.
Software cannot emulate that today. So if I have a software on one computer and on another, given the similarities in the hardware configuration, the software will sound very much the same (sans the hardware variance from the AD/DA converters from Studio A and Studio B.) There is a software publisher that has created variance in a channel strip that sounds fantastic. Brainworx (bx_console E, G and N) which emulate 72 channels of analog mixers from the past does just that. You can have 72 channels that are subtly different per plugin. As more companies put this type of variance in the code, we may not be able to distinguish the difference between hardware and software plugins.
It’s great to be involved in the music industry with this much choice at a lower cost though. Better things to come!
