Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Education

So many saturation and “mangling” plugins…

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I have a lot of saturation plugins and I need to properly evaluate them:

  • Baby Audio Parallel Aggressor
  • Black Box Analog Design HG-2
  • Black Box Analog Design HG-2MS
  • Elysia Karacter
  • Elysia Phil’s Cascade
  • Fuse Audio Labs Flywheel
  • NEOLD BIG AL
  • Softube Saturation Knob
  • Solid State Logic SSL Native X-Saturator
  • SPL Vitalizer MK2-T
  • United Plugins Autoformer
  • Vertigo VSM-3
  • Waves Abbey Road Saturator
  • Waves BB Tubes
  • Waves J37 Tape
  • Waves Lil Tube

I have also a lot of plugins to completely transform the audio into something completely different:

  • Cableguys DriveShaper (ShaperBox 2)
  • Cherry Audio Voltage Modular Ignite 2 FX
  • DS Audio Tantra 2
  • iZotope Stutter Edit 2
  • iZotope Trash 2
  • iZotope Vinyl
  • Klevgrand DAW Cassette
  • Softube Dirty Tape
  • Unfiltered Audio BYOME
  • Unfiltered Audio Dent 2
  • Unfiltered Audio Fault (Pitch and Time)
  • Unfiltered Audio Indent 2
  • Unfiltered Audio Needlepoint
  • Unfiltered Audio SpecOps (Spectral Effects)
  • Waves Berzerk Distortion
  • Waves MetaFilter
  • Waves MultiMod Rack
  • Waves OneKnob Filter
  • Waves Retro Fi
  • Waves Scheps Parallel Particles
  • XLN Audio RC-20 Retro Color

I wonder how I am going to choose which ones to use on a regular basis…

RIP Fred Brooks

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Fred Brooks has just passed away at 91 years old.

He was a computer scientist, computer architect and software engineer. He managed the development of IBM’s System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 operating system during the 60s and 70s, writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month. He received the ACM Turing Award in 1999.

I read The Mythical Man-Month (with its additional chapter, No Silver Bullet) years ago and I still have the book. Fred Brooks argued that adding more programmers when developing software was not a good idea as adding more people introduce communication bottlenecks (and hence decrease effectiveness).

In other words, it’s not quantity which counts, but the quality of the small team of developers. This is something which he actually observed during the development of OS/360.

Looks like the bosses of the largest consulting firms have not read The Mythical Man-Month. They should.

The audio plugins I need to learn in depth

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I agree with Warren Huart: we have too many audio plugins.

I did an interesting exercise today. I chose 10 software instruments, which I have purchased over the years, sorted in alphabetical order, that I need to learn in depth. Here they are:

  • Brainworx bx_oberhausen
  • KV331 Audio SynthMaster 2
  • Roland Cloud D-50
  • Roland Cloud JUNO-60
  • Roland Cloud ZENOLOGY Pro
  • TAL Software TAL-Sampler
  • UVI Falcon
  • Waves CODEX Wavetable Synth
  • XLN Audio Addictive Drums 2
  • XLN Audio Addictive Keys

I also chose 20 effect plugins (I couldn’t choose 10!) and I also need to learn how to use them properly too:

  • Brainworx Black Box Analog Design HG-2MS
  • Brainworx Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor Class A
  • Eventide Blackhole
  • Soundtheory Gullfoss
  • Soundtoys EchoBoy
  • SSL Native Bus Compressor 2
  • SSL Native Channel Strip 2
  • SSL Native X-Saturator
  • Tokyo Dawn Records TDR Limiter 6 GE
  • Tokyo Dawn Records TDR SlickEQ Mastering
  • Waves Abbey Road Chambers
  • Waves Abbey Road Plates
  • Waves CLA-2A Compressor / Limiter
  • Waves CLA-76 Compressor / Limiter
  • Waves H-Reverb Hybrid Reverb
  • Waves J37 Tape
  • Waves Nx Ocean Way Nashville
  • Waves PuigChild 670 Compressor
  • Waves PuigTec EQs EQP-1A
  • Waves Scheps 73

Of course, I’m using Cockos Reaper as my DAW.

Fortunately, all of these 30 plugins are superb and I do have some experience with many of them so the learning curve will not be that steep. I’ve used many of them to create my existing music.

On the other hand, I really need to learn how to better listen, especially when using plugins which emulate mythical hardware. This is the only way to grasp where their magic lies and, consequently, know when or when not to use them.