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I'm Painting Again
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thick waves

Post by I'm Painting Again » Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:05 pm

Besides the usual compression and limiting does anyone use unconventional ways to raise apparent volume and lower the crest of their tracks while recording digital ?

I have found a half broke 60's Japanese solid state RTR and for whatever reason cooking a signal trough it acts as a pretty great brick wall limiter / compressor for some things.

A certain pair of tube preamps I use also have some natural compression added.

Interested in thick waves



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Gregg Juke
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Post by Gregg Juke » Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:43 pm

Interesting. What kind of RTR, and how broken? Is it just a transport thing?

Could you describe what it does to the signal (or even post before/after files)?

GJ
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Post by I'm Painting Again » Sat Apr 01, 2017 5:12 pm

OKI 555

transport is weird and one channel hotter

I'll try to post what it does next week..

sounds like brick wall limiting with not very ugly (to me) distortion you can push into but it will clip at a point..not super amazing but it was kinda cool..doing a parallel with this might be fantastic..yet to try

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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:39 am

Distortion in parallel can help. Otherwise maybe your after a transient designer type of box? I've had good luck using the Waves version to de-click an aggressive picked bass track where the pick click was 20x louder than the actual note.

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Post by I'm Painting Again » Mon Apr 03, 2017 9:44 am

ya the envelope altering processors are amazing

in a studio i had tried the SPL hardware (very nice)

have had fairly similar results with the stock DAW plugs though so hard to justify

My intention here is more to discuss stuff you can stick in an analog signal chain to reduce the crest of the audio and or increase apparent volume 9spectral or amplitude) that is unconventional or innovative

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Post by I'm Painting Again » Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:52 am

Gregg Juke wrote:
Could you describe what it does to the signal (or even post before/after files)?

GJ
here some mp3s..

single SM57 about 4 feet above a drum kit

into an API preamp direct to converter for the "non 555 / regular " example

API to 555 aux in with its input full clockwise out to API line amp to control level to converter in the "processed" example

555 in :

http://agatha-christie-fanclub.tumblr.c ... npotatfull

555 out :

http://agatha-christie-fanclub.tumblr.c ... 5notinpath

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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Mon Apr 03, 2017 10:56 am

The DBX 66 comps (166, 266 and that tube one ....566 maybe?) are sometimes helpful because of the peak limit feature. Although it's usually not fast enough to catch the stuff I want to catch. An 1176 sometimes does the job too.
I have an Altec 1612 preamp/amp limter that does amazing things sometimes. The combination of an overloaded pre into a brick wall limiter can be pretty great. No transient gets out alive.
Overloading the pre is sometimes the best option although the side effects are sometime worse than the cure.

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Post by I'm Painting Again » Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:24 am

and here's the less extreme version of the "555 process" at a reasonable setting one might actually use

http://agatha-christie-fanclub.tumblr.c ... nabledrive

the mic pre pot acts as the drive and the 555 sits there and hard limits (and adds some noise)

now it seems like the hot channel does this and the less hot channel will not do the limiting

so you might not get this effect if you try another unit..might just be broken in the right way..really don't know

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Post by I'm Painting Again » Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:36 am

A.David.MacKinnon wrote:The DBX 66 comps (166, 266 and that tube one ....566 maybe?) are sometimes helpful because of the peak limit feature. Although it's usually not fast enough to catch the stuff I want to catch. An 1176 sometimes does the job too.
I have an Altec 1612 preamp/amp limter that does amazing things sometimes. The combination of an overloaded pre into a brick wall limiter can be pretty great. No transient gets out alive.
Overloading the pre is sometimes the best option although the side effects are sometime worse than the cure.
the 1612 looks cool as heck !!!

only altec I have is the 1566a mic/line amp and it has such a nice sound (though old and noise prone)

it's got a presence and hair when driven ..makes things sound very "elegant" then up in gain to "attitude with class" :hearts:

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Post by Gregg Juke » Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:04 pm

Yeah man! Very cool; thanks for posting. It gives the track a bit of that "peak-y" quality that would fit nice on a Motown or maybe Stax type groove. Even some 70s rock (like Free) has much more "peak" (basically, acceptable distortion) than a lot of people would expect. But it does beef them up nice.

GJ
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Post by I'm Painting Again » Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:10 pm

Gregg Juke wrote:Yeah man! Very cool; thanks for posting. It gives the track a bit of that "peak-y" quality that would fit nice on a Motown or maybe Stax type groove. Even some 70s rock (like Free) has much more "peak" (basically, acceptable distortion) than a lot of people would expect. But it does beef them up nice.

GJ
It also helps that it's one dynamic mic and the kit is something like might be used on those records..

recently doing a Ringo sound for someone I had listened to Beatles and JL solo music drums sounds for more time than was sane. It surprised me to realize those sounds - in the kick / snare / hats portion especially - are very much like Motown & Stax records as well.

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Post by Nick Sevilla » Fri Apr 07, 2017 6:52 am

I like to use the following:

Transient Designer.

Any Equalizer which is NOT "phase aligned" or "phase correct". As in NEVE, they fatten up the sound.

Apart from compressors and limiters.
Howling at the neighbors. Hoping they have more mic cables.

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Sat Apr 08, 2017 10:45 am

this will do exactly what you want:

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/prod ... _hg-2.html

i have the hardware and it rules. i just tried out the plugin for a few minutes last night and it also seems to rule. highly recommended.

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Post by I'm Painting Again » Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:58 pm

thanks Scott

the hardware sounds really good..the plug in also good but not posh sounding in the same way..i should get a computer that's not from 2005

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