Why colour on the way in

Axe_meister · September 2023

QQ: A lot of Youtube "Producers" with small studios, seem to do a lot of colouration of ingoing signals, via Pre-amps, EQs, Compression.
I would have thought you'd want as clean a signal going in (e.g. interface pre amps) then apply colour either via plug-ins or, hardware.
Yes in the old days of tape I can see why you may want to add colour on the way in and saturate the tape, but with DAWs I'd at least want to split the signal and record clean + coloured on seperate tracks.

thecolourbox · September 2023

I suppose it depends if you know what you're doing in the first place, if you are sure you're not going to change it then it saves you some time I guess later on

Winny_Pooh · September 2023

Because plugin "colour" (distortion) is never quite as convincing as that from hardware.

Some also argue that transformer based preamps load the mic differently (input impedance) and you get more articulation from dynamics for instance.

Also, having a hardware compressor doing light work on the way in means you can be less likely to clip the converters with peaks and also have a decently high input level.

I use a great river single channel neve style pre into an LA-3A clone. But before you start spending cash get a great mic first.

In order of importance:
1&2
sound source>suitable mic & mic position
Then
3&4
>quality mic>hardware preamp/processor.

Of course if you cant mix for shit it'll will all be mush. But if you cover 1&2 well it's easier.

Axe_meister · September 2023

Interesting, there seems to be different opinions regarding input levels, these days. Go in at a high but not clipping level or go low and just increase volume in the DAW.

Cirrus · September 2023

Axe_meister said:

QQ: A lot of Youtube "Producers" with small studios, seem to do a lot of colouration of ingoing signals, via Pre-amps, EQs, Compression.
I would have thought you'd want as clean a signal going in (e.g. interface pre amps) then apply colour either via plug-ins or, hardware.
Yes in the old days of tape I can see why you may want to add colour on the way in and saturate the tape, but with DAWs I'd at least want to split the signal and record clean + coloured on seperate tracks.

Well. In my experience of recording & mixing...

If you know what you like and experience tells you you're definitely going to eventually do X or Y to a track, just do it on the way in and move on. Then as the production comes together it already sounds pretty good. You get more context and mixing is easier because not only have you already done some of the work, but the processing has locked in a certain direction so you stay focussed.

if you don't do anything and put off making every decision, you get to mix time and you have not only billions of options, but billions of possible end results. It's a lot easier to lose your head going round in circles, going "Oh, do I want API or Neve breakup on the drums? What about a little Abbey Road EMI on the guitars? Oh, maybe Actually the API plugin breaks up better there... And then before you know it, you're auditioning plugins instead of making art.

Stuckfast · September 2023

There's another reason, which is sometimes overlooked. Assuming you are building up a production track by track, rather than recording live, each subsequent decision about mic placement, amp choice etc is going to be made in the context of what's gone before. So the more you commit to a specific sound at each stage, the easier it is to determine whether a given overdub is going to fit in. If you never commit at all and reserve judgement on everything til the mix, you then have too many unknowns.

mrkb · September 2023

A lot of “YouTube producers” are actually selling product…sponsored by sweet water……

Musicwolf · September 2023

Axe_meister said:

Interesting, there seems to be different opinions regarding input levels, these days. Go in at a high but not clipping level or go low and just increase volume in the DAW.

This is a legacy from the days of tape where you wanted a strong signal in order to improve the S/N ratio. Tape was also very forgiving when it came to pushing things too far and sometimes you would deliberately push things in order to achieve tape saturation.

With 24 bit digital recording there simply isn't the need / benefit to record 'hot'. If you do clip, however, then you've buggered the take.

PolarityMan · September 2023

its a workflow thing. means you dont need to deal with analysis paralysis later on. Im kinda weird in that I dont typically commit in that way but even if I'm using a VST i will almost never change the settings on the VST after tracking (since the performance is coupled with the amp sound) so ive kinda committed even though ive not actually physically committed.

AntonHunter · September 2023

thecolourbox said:

I suppose it depends if you know what you're doing in the first place, if you are sure you're not going to change it then it saves you some time I guess later on

This is what stopped me getting into outboard. I love tracking, but tend to turn over things to someone else to mix. I don't want to be getting into making decisions for a much more experienced mix engineer. Every few months I forget this, browse chanel-strips then eventually come to the same realisation and the GAS subsides.

Danny1969 · September 2023

There's not a lot of point in pushing the gain of a 24 bit interface. Around -12 dBFS is about as high as you want to hover. With old school recording the first thing you wanted to do is get the signal well above the noise floor of the analog desk then hit the tape pretty hard and quite bright because every process added noise and lost treble. Plus removing unwanted top end also removed some hiss, so was like a free dolby process.

One of the reasons people tend to use compression and saturation on the way in is because on the whole digital sounds pretty uninspiring. I started out in the tape days on 8 and 16 track and just recording the drums to tape with nothing else added made them sound cool. Digital is great and clean and all that but basically sounds sterile in comparison.

I don't have any professional pre amps or compressors anymore so I tend to record vocals cleanly. With everything else though the sounds are printed. I don't use any amp simms, the amps are mic'ed and recorded. The only trick I do use is to record the part through the amps pre amp section with a speaker simm for monitoring, then when the parts good send it back out into the amps power amp section - into the mic and back into the DAW.
This process means you only have to have the amp cranked for the duration of the song.

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