I was just wondering how many of you use the stock SFP devices (synths and effects). I personally use only PEQ4, the E-reflector and the Delays (and the mixers ofcourse!).
What about you? Do you use any of the stock devices? And if yes, which ones?
usual stuff, dynamic and micromixer. Synths - lightwave, prisma, uknow and modular 2. i also use the sts2000 player to load the "rain piano" samples (use my pulsar card for keyboard practice) that gets piped through the stock masterverb.
I mostly use the stock stuff these days (effects I mean). I went on a buying spree a year or so ago and bought all kinds of garbage. Tried them all and I love them all but I kept coming back to the garden variety stock effects. I think the reason is that I was getting perfectly acceptable results with the stock stuff. Easy to load in. Easy to use. Blah blah blah. When you have a client breathing down your neck, you tend to work quickly. I found pulling up the stock stuff produced the client-smile just as easily as futzing around with a wierdo 3rd-party device.
If all you need is a simple screwdriver, don't reach for the gold-plated one with the blinking lights and built-in jacuzzi. Just grab the one that gets the job done quickly and efficiently.
On 2004-02-16 17:46, krizrox wrote:
If all you need is a simple screwdriver, don't reach for the gold-plated one with the blinking lights and built-in jacuzzi.
LOL
I agree that they are easy to use. Now that I think better, I use them too when tracking (but I record dry, ie without the effects). I wouldnt use them on a mix though. I think they are mediocre sounding.
P.S. I have both Mod2 and Mod3 but dont use them either. But this is due to the fact that I havent ever "played around" with them, nor I need lots of synths in my music (I am more a GigaStudio guy writing acoustic music).
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: rodos1979 on 2004-02-16 20:25 ]</font>
i use the stock stuff all the time.if i use it well,it sounds great!
*edit*
you know?it's all about flavor(flava).i just don't get some of the talk about the quality of a phaser or a flanger.if it sounds cool in the track,it's cool.some vintage devices that fetch hundreds of dollars are basically old pieces of crap that someone with IMAGINATION did something with. the basic tools in sfp are MORE than fine for LOTS of uses and added to the stock plugs in a sequncer and some nice vsts and some special cw plugs like vinco make a FORMIDABLE production lab woth lots of VARIETY.
jeeez,people are making records on these $5000 yamaha and roland units and are stuck with the junk built in there. i'll tell you this though,i've heard a coupla things that sounded FANTASTIC(really,really,really great)with a roland vs2480. of course,the guy who did the engineering also does product demo for roland so he knew his machine!. if he could get those results with that thing,it makes me deleriously happy when i realize that EVERYTHING in my computer,is better sounding than that $4700(list..they're in musician's freind for about $3800,which would still buy a LOT of computer,pulsar,sequencer etc...)thing.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: garyb on 2004-02-16 23:11 ]</font>
I use what I think sounds good and I don't use what I don't think sounds good.
I like the Timeworks EQ and reverb better than the stock CreamWare EQ and reverb, so I use those. I like Ultrafunk's phaser better than CreamWare's, so I use that. But I do use CreamWare's choruses (I love HexaChorus!) and tube effects. I actually tend to go light on effects most of the time; I work on creating synth sounds that don't require a lot of extra processing. So I usually stick to delays, EQ, reverb, etc...
Synths? Er, what's the "stock" synth line? Scope's synths, or Pulsar's synths? I don't use the Pulsar stuff much anymore; I usually use MiniMax, Solaris, Mod III, and STS.
On 2004-02-16 17:46, krizrox wrote:
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
It reminded me an old joke:
A drunk man returns home after 2 days and his wife asks:
- where have you been you bastard!!!
- I... was seeking... for strawberries... in a field...
- what strawberries?! It's winter!!!
- that's my story and I'm sticking with it...
I was starting to work out a drum track, and wanted a to add a little reverb for a bit of 'realism'.
So, I reached for my nice new shiny masterverb pro, chose a 'drum-' patch, turned up the send to get a feel for what the 'verb was doing...ARGH!! Absolute garbage - artifacts, mess, noise (note: not distorting). Maybe this could have been corrected with some parameter tweaking, but I couldn't be bothered with all that and loaded up Masterverb Classic. Turned up the send....ahhhhh....nice - sounded like a reverb.
Since getting Vinco, I tend to use that rather than the stock compressor (I also quite like the stock one which comes with Cubase), but apart from that, I'll use pretty much any stock device - they're all useful, IMO.
I think a lot depends on how you work - what you are using the program for in the first place.
Like I said, I have clients breathing down my neck most of the time. As much as I'd like to pull up the fancier reverb or compressor or whatever, I found those things to be a little more involved (involved=time consuming). I have no problem wasting a clients' time while I futz around trying to dial in a decent sounding reverb tail but if the client has no talent and the music basically sucks, I'm more interested in getting him out of my studio as fast as possible
I'm kidding to a degree. I treat all my clients with the same respect. But I'm serious about getting him out. My ears can't take bad punk metal anymore. Using the best reverb possible on a bad punk metal song is a waste of precious CPU resources. A lot also depends on whether the recording is a simple demo or a more polished commercial release. Most of my clients fall into the demo category. They are trying to obtain champagne on a beer budget. So this explains my position on stock vs. fancy.
I will make one last other comment. Many of my clients don't care for the pristine sound quality. There seems to be a movement away from that. Many clients hate reverb. They want dry dry dry. Drives me nuts but that's what they want so I give it to them. They want background noise and will go to great lengths to add it in if there's not enough there in the first place. Go figure. I had a well-known local blues guitarist in recently who had recorded some demos at home on one of those little cassette porta-studios. He was raving about the sound quality. All the time I'm thinking "Is he nuts? Listen to all that tape hiss!". But he wanted grainy sound. I guess everything comes and goes in cycles.
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: krizrox on 2004-02-17 07:32 ]</font>
Once I've read an interview with DJ Shadow. He explained his music is prepared at first home (mostly on his MPC3000), then he takes it to a pro studio and finds it sound crappy (ie like shit) and asks the engineer: do you have a deshiter here?
For a long time I wanted to find a "Make Good" plugin. Just stick it on your mix, and everything automatically sounds great! Then I finally found it -- it's called PsyQ!!
It depends on how you work and what matters most in a song to you.
Sometimes I 'temporarily' use synths like inferno, lightwave, until I have the midi where I want it to be. Then I load up the heavyweights (minimax, proone, proodyssey) and make audio versions of each track. I use a korg trinity for sampled sounds, I tried using and generally avoid the STS samplers because the interface is so horrid (not to mention inability to save things, etc).
Sometimes I will actually use the Prisma or 007 synths, the fact they dont stick out in a mix can be a desirable thing, depending on what you use them for. I liked the idea of the modular synth, but in practice, I find it doesnt really make any usable sounds (but has interesting possibilities). The stock reverbs to me sound tinny and metallic, but occasionally I use the chorus and flangers, and the sideband modulation fx. The parametric eq is usable, as are the delays. If I didnt have a UAD card, by now i would have bought Vinco and the improved-quality reverb. I use the ADAT ins/outs to interface to a 16 channel digital mixer, so I dont use SFP's mixers generally.
If I didnt have the heavyweight synths I would still say creamware's synths are better than cubase's VSTis. But after trying the Minimax, I considered all the previous VSTis to sound like crap by comparison. It sounds like the real thing (or close enough to my ears) and you don't have to do anything to it to make it sound good.
Sir 