Prosumer outboard gear versus in the box

[Samuel Rohan Burton]

As a question, I could say: how much do you have to spend on a channel strip or eq or compressor to make a significant impact on sound quality compared to standard bundled plugins?

I realize this is a very general question, so here is the context. I had in the past a Focusrite Twintrak pro, which I used as a front end for Logic Pro - going through a M-Audio Firewire 410. Apart from a digital clocking issue that I always had, I never felt that the Twintrak added anything that I wasn't getting in software, and latency was never a big issue for me. In fact, I realized that some of the knobs on the Twintrak were noisy, and it seemed sensitive to mains power interference.

I'm looking to set up a professional level pre-production/tracking studio in the near future, and I'm interested to hear from people as to why they would choose to use outboard gear and what kind of quality of gear does that need to be to make the expense worthwhile.

[EnlightenedHand]

It's very easy to for this topic to become an argument about the quality and authenticity of analog outboard versus in-the-box processing but I certainly hope it doesn't go there.

To address your question though; for me it's not really a matter of thinking in terms of how much I have to spend to get a certain level of processing quality. Nor is it an issue of in-the-box against out of the box, or one being better than the other. I have found through my experience that it's actually a matter of knowing what I want to hear, knowing how to listen and discern what I need to hear and knowing how to manipulate my processing tools: either analog outboard or plug-ins, to get the results I'm looking for. For me the bottom line is that if you have the ears and talent you can get world class, professional results using anything that isn't broken or poorly designed, be it so-called "prosumer" analog outboard or any of the thousands of plug-ins available. There is no direct correlation in dollar amount spent for quality of signal processing. There are plenty of examples of inexpensive gear (plug-ins and outboard) used well, for astonishing results. It's what you bring to the gear that makes the difference.

Instead of focusing on compression or channel strips and all of that I think it might be most helpful for you to direct your efforts towards capturing the sounds as cleanly and unspoiled as possible, in the most sonically neutral environments you can work in; not too dry, not too reverberant: balanced. It you practice tracking with good mic technique, good gain staging, etc, you will start having better tracks with no need for a channel strip of any kind. For me recording isn't so much about doing something to the sound as it is not screwing it all up by touching the sound too much with your equipment.

[nathanscribe]

As for "why to use outboard gear", personally I don't use plug-ins at all. I have in the past, briefly, but tend to shy away from them as I'd much rather have a real physical interface I can reach out to and twiddle.

So for me, the kind of interactivity the user experiences with the gear is part of its appeal. If something sounds good but I don't get on with the interface, I don't use it. If something else sounds good enough , and is easier to use, I'll choose that. Anything I find awkward to use has to sound pretty impressive to get me to overcome my dislike of an ugly interface.

[Stan]

how much do you have to spend on a channel strip or eq or compressor to make a significant impact on sound quality compared to standard bundled plugins?

I guess the answer might be, A LOT. Post processing with software is the smart money option.

[BigAl]

I agree with most of what you say.
It is definitely better to capture sounds as cleanly as possible first.
Good performers make this easier obviously. Bad ones can be a pain.
In saying that, music creation and production is also a creative process and if want a particular sound (eg, heavy compressed vox or something), I'll do it at source. yes, you cannot undo it, but experience usually wins the day.
On external units, I have used a Voicemaster and I used to have an older dbx unit, but now, I use a digital unit for compression.
The TC Electronic unit I have sounds very analogue, including the other FX (phaser, chorus, etc), so at the end of the day, nothing really matters as long as you get the sound you want.