Really appreciated this one! My thoughts on the 3 things… 1) Auto Gain - EQ autogain is nuts. Only useful in very select circumstances. Sometimes useful to do a relative gain match before and after mixing or mastering but it will never be accurate due to balance changes anyway. 2) It’s only needed in circumstances when the additional added content is unwanted. No point using it and wasting CPU just for “quality”. 3) Only useful as a learning tool or to troubleshoot an issue you are hearing. Really good video all around!
Plugin doctor is also useful when you know you are weak to hype. If you pull up the Magical EQ Plugin and realize it's just a digital EQ that you can completely match with your stock plugin...
When you start hearing aliasing as an unpleasent inharmonic presence then I think oversampling can really work. Only ever heard it in very niche synthesizers; I tried turning it on and off in guitar amp sims, pedal sims, but those I couldn't really hear. I'm no mixing engineer, just a musician for a long time, but if I can't hear it, regular listeners won't even have a remote chance.
I think auto-gain started with SSL dynamics. When you compress on a 4000G+, it auto-gains for you and the company was very proud of that addition (I read that in a manual)
@@spenserwilliams5592 I didn’t actually know that was a special feature on that compressor. I will agree that auto gain on compressors can be really helpful in some situations. I personally much prefer to set my own amount of make up gain. Make up gain is probably the easiest setting on a compressor and if it can’t be set right, I can’t imagine the user setting the ratio, threshold, attack and release correctly!
@@inthemix True, I usually do that and then use the bypass button for a|b’ing the processing. But, I could see auto-gain working for some people. Maybe some who have better dynamics in the end, maybe some with worse mixes in the end. Doesn’t really matter how they got there as long as they did the work.
That level of meticulousness directed toward songwriting and performance will create a better mix than something that 99.999% of people are never going to notice.
I like auto gain… helps me focus on the sound I want and not just „oh it’s awesome because it’s loud now“. But I see your point here. Auto gain needs a lot more research or at least better implementation… often it’s just added without making it work for the plug-in but against it.
i used pro-L2 for many years religiously on the master to finalize the sound. but once i found the button that autocompensates for volume differences i realized it is an incredibly small effect. that was an eye-opener. it makes you more sensitive for what you're actually doing. same with saturation. the purpose is not to make things loud. the purpose is to add harmonics by cutting peaks. and you hear that best when the volume is compensated. with eqs i also usually keep it enabled, because when boosting a guitar's midrange you don't want the midrange to be louder, but just more prominent in relation to everything else. the autogain exposing that the change wasn't so bombastic after all is just what you need to find even better decisions
Honestly I have to disagree a little bit about the gain matching. I think its obvious for someone who is very experienced like you, but as a beginner this is so important. I remember when I started out, there were so many presets in my DAW that are just boosting the signal. For example a preset is called something like 'Electric Guitar EQ' and its just rubbish, but its boosting basically every frequency and I remember as a beginner I was like alright that sounds much better as before. It took quite some time to learn that louder is not necessary better, and I think thats one of the most important lessons for beginner. Auto Gain buttons are surely not needed for pros but I think they can help beginners to give them a second perspective on how the plugin actually changes the sound.
And even for experts, it’s very convenient to have auto gain. It’s such a pain in the ass to repeatedly A/B a signal, turn down the plugin output gain, A/B, etc.
Yeah, he makes it seem like eq and saturation are only used to add frequency content. Maybe for him, but sometimes for me, the whole point is to shift the frequency balance, or create perceived loudness, and you gotta level match to do that
i'd say even pros majorly benefit from autogain features. no matter how pro you are, you'll always fall for 'louder is better'. you can only remind yourself to check and manually turn down the wet gain, but at that point: why not just let the plugin do it, if it offers that feature, right?
Plugin doctor can be incredibly helpful for training your ears. I could definitely help someone hear the difference between even and odd harmonics in a saturation plugin, for example, which saves time in the future as you’ll know what to expect for the sound. Having that visual feedback can be incredibly helpful IN CONJUNCTION with the sound. Your whole perspective on plugin doctor ignores things like that. It also ignores the fact that you may not hear aliasing or similar issues within a single plugin, but over the course of an entire mix with countless plugins introducing minor aliasing, that can add up to a very audible difference.
Jordan straight to the point as usual, if it wasn’t for this man I’d be still strugling with my mixes…you’re the man Jordan, HCMS is the best! Thank you!
Differences being harder to hear when using gain matching is kind of the point. EQ...it kind of has a point. But with saturation specifically, you are going to make it louder when you start adding saturation. Which will, generally, make it sound better. If you add the saturation with (good) level matching and you can't hear it getting better....there's no real reason to add the saturation. Just turn it up a bit.
The analog emulation plugins such as compression do add harmonic content and therefore can alias... Oversampling in eq can stop cramping.... Oversampling is useful imo but is only a small consideration in my mixes... ⚡💪👍
Yeah that’s true but I want to add that getting rid of cramping by oversampling is a very brute-force way of doing it. A better way is to come up with math that doesn’t cramp in the first place, like proq3 exc.
"Children's horror stories" like aliasing and cramping are for the most part not really audible problems in real musical material, but simply "a condom inflated to the size of an airship" and spread around every corner by some impressionable individuals out of fear "whatever happens." But in fact, another bullshit, in most cases not affecting either the "hit" or the quality of the product.
@@AlexHStudio Completely disagree. Aliasing causes harmonics to bounce back down into the audible spectrum as inharmonic content aka not related to the source. It’s most easily audible on a sine sweep, but in an actual mix content it adds harsh unpleasant overtones that sound very ‘digital’ to my ear. If you have a saturation plugin with an oversampling toggle, add a fairly heavy amount of saturation and then toggle it on and off. I can pretty clearly hear the digital harshness without oversampling, and the pleasant saturation you get with it on. The higher your session sample rate the more saturation you will need for it to be audible though, since higher sample rates are kind of like less effective brute force oversampling since it pushes the ‘harmonic bounce back point’ higher. I think it’s mostly unnecessary outside of heavy saturation though.
I use plug-in doctor to see what a plug-in is doing, not as a tool to make decisions or evaluate a plug-in. I’m an astrophysicist (and have been in the music business for many years), and I want to know what my tools do in detail. And I probably would connect a pedal to an oscilloscope if I was a guitar player. But I do agree that such tools as plug-in doctor, like any tool, can be used for the wrong thing, and can mislead someone who does not know what they are doing.
Oversampling is not an issue if you use Reaper (yeah I know, another Reaper user knocking on your door like a Jehovah witness) where oversampling is built in (Decapitator x4 OS? I'll take it) and generally distortion plug ins, clippers, limiters, even compressors where intermodulation distortion *can* be audible in the constant push/pull arrangement. I know its a buzz word, but there is actually a reason there is a buzz around it, imo. Gain compensation is rather educational so one can make a more informed decision. When you know very well what plug in it is you're reaching for and why, gain compensation is not very important, or at all. The problem is the amount of time you spend if your plug in (or your DAW...hint hint) does not have a built in delta solo function, to quickly match the gain and listen to what the process actually does.
I think some of these are blanket statements. Plugin doctor can be very misleading if misused but there are situations where it is very important. Here I think your point is about creative mixing, but there is technical mixing where the mix needs to hit certain standards. Where it can be very useful to change spectrum balances without adding significant loudness, for example when I was doing ear training for broadcasting, the goal was to shift the balance without adding too much loudness, because the loudness needed to be dealt with so carefully to meet standards. Oversampling is debatable but especially in marketing of plugins, no analogy emulation should have fold back harmonics so I understand why people would want oversampling. I also would like to suggest that if you want to understand plugin doctor and someone who generally uses it fairly and correctly, I suggest Dan Worrall Edit: another important point for oversampling, is that when doing filtering in DSP oversampling can be very important, most notably in mixing as an anti cramping measure. For those people interested in DSP, I would highly suggest watching air windows development streams. Chris has a unique personality but does amazing work and watching a few of his streams or reading about his plugins can help illuminate how DSP works.
Jordan all three points are spot on as usual. At the end of it all those crazy mix decisions you're left with a song. How does that song make the audience feel.
Use your ears - yes. But I have a couple of issues with this video. Aliasing noise isn't the same as the more natural harmonics produced by clipping analog gear. You won't always hear it but it can build up over multiple tracks. For the sake of a button that reduces it, why not add that into some plugins? As for gain matching, how many times do saturation plugins sound better when demoed because they add overall gain, not just through the harmonic content but because of the input gain used to drive them? In fact, this is a case when you *can't* always trust your ears because they like to tell you: Louder is better. I was using an excellent free saturator yesterday and was grateful for the option of inverse-linked input and output controls as it gave me more time to listed to the actual changes in sound without constantly battling simple level changes.
Here’s the reality behind the gain matching debate, and it’s not quite as black-and-white as it seems to be discussed here. The point of gain matching specifically in a TUTORIAL video is to demonstrate the difference the processing makes for a beginner, without the increase in volume tricking them. Louder typically always sounds better due to the way the human ear perceives frequencies at different volumes. Considering your viewer base consists mostly of people trying to learn the basics, it’s fair to assume that most people’s ears aren’t yet properly trained! Would I gain match every single time in a real-world scenario? No. But it’s also important to distinguish WHEN and WHY an increase/decrease in volume due to processing is significant. I’ll use your example of “EQing more bite into the guitars.” The reason you wouldn’t use auto gain is because every other area of the guitar’s tonal energy is balanced, EXCEPT for the midrange. You’re raising the volume of the bite ONLY. Auto gain is useful if you’re looking purely for a tonal change (I use it a lot when producing, but not as much when mixing). In a mix though, you’re trying to get certain things to meet other elements across the spectrum… so a volume increase is usually necessary in context. Again, the gain matching is for TUTORIAL’S SAKE, especially if things are also being demonstrated in solo to make it easier for beginners to hear the change. In CONTEXT, you wouldn’t always gain match… but you can explain that while also helping beginner engineers train their ears a bit better. “I gain matched the processing for this example so that you’re not tricked by volume, but in context, I’m not volume matching because [REASON].” Best of both worlds my friend! Love the content, keep it up :)
With EQ gain matching depends, when notching is a big no, changing the balance in a signal yes. At the end the fader is the king for volume and energy. I like gain matching with saturation because I like to hear the difference just in the harmonics added, saturation can make it fuller and chop the peaks off. If I want more volume, just turn the fader up.
Going to have to disagree with you on oversampling. Especially if you’re recording in 44.1, high frequency content with harmonic content, especially in synths, there is a 100% difference in sound. Will it make or break your mix, of course not, but for those instances that need it, it’s important. I don’t think companies like FabFilter and Slate would put oversampling in their plugins if it wasn’t needed. They don’t market it as a selling point or gimmick like your presenting either. To be fair, there’s also a limit to how much you can oversample before it’s just not necessary. You don’t need 16x oversampling, but having 2x and 4x is great to have. @ 7:41, the defensive take on this is not a good look my dude.
I agree with the sentiment and with the conclusion in this video, but oversampling definitely affects eq and compressors. The question is which eq benefits from it. For example, many EQs exhibit cramping in the highs and an external oversampling like DDMF's Metaplugin can fix that. And any analog style EQ and compressors will also introduce saturation which is something to watch out for. That said, in my experience most of the time it doesn't matter all that much, it depends on the plugin, you might not even need to fix EQ cramping because this is only manifest in the real highs. In my opinion, aliasing becomes more apparent when processing a full mix so I render the full mix and open a new session with plugins running with high oversampling so your CPU can breathe a little more.
I think gain matching matters when you're doing compression. Especially with compression, you don't want to hype yourself up because it just sounds loud and consistent, especially with vocals. You now hear the consistency of the vocals and also some characteristics from the compressor itself, but also bring it down so you don't blow your eardrums out. The other two, I don't deal with already. The only time I ever mess with oversampling is if it's hogging too much CPU when it's at its default settings. If there's no oversampling and it's still using a lot of CPU, then I would just freeze the track or use a different plugin. Plugin Doctor, I have never bought or used. I've seen people use them as a comparison to other plugins, like people comparing SSL plugins to each other. Even though it's cool to see, I want to hear what goes on because we're doing audio.
Absolutely psychologically we hear louder as better, and that's not accurate, and because of that by ear is basically impossible. The Dr plugin? Looks like a spectrum analyzer but The frequency spectrum was all statically looking for some reason in that shot. Spectrum analyzers are extremely productive tools to help you target where precisely the mud is without having to spend much energy on that process. Yes you need to make sure to listen to make sure your eq cut isn't too steep or if maybe it actually sounds better with a bit more frequency overlap, but both makeup gain and a spectrum analyzer are tools that are efficiency boosters, and everything you can use to expedite your process gives you more time for other clients or just for you and your loved ones, which means you're just giving yourself a a raise by using them. Otherwise you're playing yourself. and you dont have to mess with a bunch of volumes with the makeup gain you should have submix gain controls, and you could just select all of them except the one with the track you want more prominent and select the rest of the individual track gains within that submix and pull them down a smidge rather than making everything louder and fatiguing which causes you to not be able to work as long. And the headroom you will have leftover from the saturation you added instead of just bringing up the gain on that track will save you time and frustration when you're trying to get the track within range of the standard concerning lufs rather than having to completely redo the whole mix to meet Spotify's specs.
Ehh I'm feeling kinda torn on this, especially the eq gain matching stuff. Gain matching is there so people can separate the effects of an eq/comp/etc. adjustment and the adjustment in volume. I think it's harder to judge what you're actually doing with an eq move without loudness matching. It's EASIER TO HEAR, yes, but harder to objectively judge. Because as you said, if we want to "make it bigger", "take up more space in the mix", "add more energy", we can simply do these with adding volume. We can also do these with eq moves, adding saturation etc. Maybe we want both aspects, and therefore gain matching is useless, sure. Gain matching is useful because to people without much experience in mixing, boosting pretty much any frequency on an eq will sound "better", just because it's louder. Is it better because it's louder, or because you boosted a frequency that makes it sit better in a mix? Gain matching might help you decide. Or you want to compare two different eq instances on the same track? Using gain matching on both will make it easier. With experience, these moves will combine in the mixers head and become second nature, like "these guitars lack a bit of sharpness and also a bit too quiet, so boosting some 2k should do the trick" and of course in this case, gain matching is unnecessary. But I agree that if people focus too much on gain matching everything, that can be a waste of time. It's a tool, to be used when needed. Also, the reasoning that "back in the day no one used gain matching, and we still made great albums" is meh. Sure, when we had only landline phones, we could still talk to people we really wanted, but that doesn't mean mobile phones are useless. So yeah, I'd say calling it "pointless" is a liiittle too much, it's just a tool that you might need or might not need. And yeah, if someone cries about "x plugin doesn't have auto gain-matching", that's also pretty dumb.
speaking of analyzers, they're just that, analyzers. And most great mixes probably don't look like a total flatline, but rather have some sort of upper midrange excitement during the upfront parts such as the chorus.
I'm going to keep this short. Autogain is/isn't useful depending on your workflow. Personally I *do* try and gain match every plugin but that's just so I'm not fooling myself about louder=better. I do sometimes use plugin doctor when I'm demoing new plugins to validate what I'm hearing. I'm not always as objective as I think I am and do have natural biases which colour my judgement. I decided some time ago to abandon all plugins which introduce harmonics but don't have oversampling. It's not the most important thing when mixing but it does make a difference. So why compromise when you don't have to. Jordan, love your channel.
I agree with your point about Plugin Doctor, but I do think it has some merits. For example I was able to take all the CLA plugins (CLA Drums, CLA Bass, etc) and recreate their natural EQ curves on an SSL channel by matching the graphs visually. Then when I'm mixing I can add the SSL channel with the preset EQ moves and alter them to fit the particular track. So it's not a completely useless tool.
Yeah I don’t think he’s saying it’s useless, simply that if something sounds good to you, then it dosnt matter what Plugin Doctor says. As a tool to help you find out “why” it sounds good- very useful. As a tool for using in a mixing/mastering workflow- it’s like using a microscope to cook dinner.
Andrew Scheps also thinks autogain is unnecessary. Of course your ears will fool you into thinking that louder sounds better, but if you're mixing in context, maybe louder IS better. You don't ever get your faders in the perfect position before you start adding compression and EQ, and if it sounds good it is good. Yes, the snake oil argument is real, but the cure for that is to buy tools for specific jobs, not because they're the shiny new thing (good luck with that by the way LOL).
Nothing said here is justifiable. If you are putting out a product for mixing/mastering, you need to be cognizant of the fact that there are customers out there who would want to use it in their chain and there is nothing wrong in them seeking to get the best out of their purchase. Just because it has worked out for you, and given that you are an experienced engineer, it does not mean that your argument would hold true for everyone, especially for beginner/intermediate engineers. Additionally, your comment on analog warmth/saturation and people complaining about aliasing "noise" is completely incorrect. Analog gear has a particular harmonic response and if there is a plugin that claims to bring analog warmth, then it better deliver what it is promising, and to do that you better have oversampling otherwise you are just making false promises. Maybe it's not important for you, but for many, it is. Overall, there are always situations where somethings are important (auto-gain for dynamics and saturation plugins) and somethings aren't (auto-gain on a de-esser or oversampling on a compressor). BUT that does not mean you put out a video lambasting audio engineering concepts just because YOUR plugin company chooses not to include these features. This sounds nothing more than an elaborate excuse to justify plain jane average plugins, and that is just an insult to companies out there who focus on meticulously engineering their products so that their customers get best bang for the buck. You can just go about saying your plugins are for casual mixing/mastering and that would be totally fine. Please don't peddle mediocrity mate, strive to deliver plugins that match standards of today. Lastly: plugin doctor. It is an analysis tool and nothing else. It is just a scientific means (if tested properly) to show how well your plugin behaves. What's wrong in anyone trying to get some data of how a plugin performs before dropping cash on it? I mean you are not selling it for free are you? There are sooo many plugins out there, i'd like to think as consumers we have the right to know (at least for those who care) if a product is worth their money. You ain't buying a car or a TV or a hi-fi system without doing some basic research or evaluating how it performs! That's where reviewers who test a plugin with plugin doctor add value in the decision making process, so please don't undermine them. They are informing potential customers of what the product does. No one uses plugin doctor in their chain for mixing or anything. I'd like to wrap this rant just by saying this - put out whatever product you want, just don't put out a video trying to label everything as pointless. If your product really punches above the weight, you'd be getting rave reviews and sales, not making a debunking videos mate. Hope to see better things from you and your company, strive for better! Peace!
Is this the white sea guy you're talking about here 8:37? If it is, that is a gross misrepresentation of what his point was. Your information about the Oxygen plugin (at least at that time) was that it adds a unique character to the sound. He then went on to replicate what Oxygen does with the Pro-Q3, minus the saturation. The problem with the saturation was that, since you don't offer oversampling, it can produce foldback harmonics that clashes with the tonality of the song in a non-desireable way. Someone who is not an experienced audio engineer might run in to trouble with that. God knows I have. I understand you being defensive when it come to your products when people are criticizing them, but it's incredibly unfair to try to twist someone's words like that. Disappointing.
Gain matching is really helpful with compression, particularly early on, but idk why you’d use it on EQ. Oversampling is only useful if you’re getting lots of aliasing which is almost never.
I mostly agree with this video but there's some mischaracterizations. First of all, I don't know what the randos in the comment section are saying but one reason to include oversampling is because lots of these plugins advertise themselves as having an analog sound or being an analog emulation. Well, analog doesn't alias so how can claim to be a faithful recreation of analog gear? Secondly, gain matching produces a weird side effect on EQ (I remember I first got the Purafied SLP and thought it sounded strange; it turns out the auto-gain was by default). It does have it's purposes though; to check to see if a maximizer (or any of these "one knob" plugins) are actually increasing the fullness or if it's mostly just increasing the gain. Lastly, I don't think oversampling on guitar amps is placebo; sometimes it makes the distortion sound more natural. All in all, people are just parroting what people like Wyste from White Sea Studio say. The difference is, he's just trying plugins out quickly and saying the features he would like to see; it doesn't necessarily mean that those features are important for improving to sound or improving the workflow
Are you really going to claim that compression doesnt produce harmonics? Compression is nonlinear and of COURSE produces harmonics. Oversampling makes a big difference over the scope of an entire mix. Aliasing is real and may or may not be what you want- but it probably wont be. The type of oversampling is very important though, and minimum phase filters can skew phase in the high end, it needs to be well implemented. Auto gain makes sense to me on Saturation, I dont need to deal with crazy volume spikes just because I want some color. Even just a bit of autogain can help with dialing in saturation. Autogain on EQ makes no sense, but can be helpful when cutting- specifically.
Agree to disagree, workflow wise auto gain is very helpful. Now you should understand what’s happening and how to do it manually if it’s not available, but still it just helps with workflow in my opinion so i appreciate when a plugin offers that feature.
I would agree plugin doctor doesn't really have its place during mixing or mastering, but I think there is a use for it to just know if a plugin is doing anything or what its actually boosting when it's not labeled at all, can be useful to just understand the inner working of the plugin so you just know what to adjust when you're looking for something rather than try every knob until you find the one that fits.
Why do you *need* to know though? Even if a control is unlabelled just play with it to hear the difference and decide if it sounds good or not. And if you can't hear a big enough difference to make that decision with your ears then the plugin is either useless or not necessary in that context.
@@RedbeardMaximus so I know what to go for instead of trying 3-4 knobs until I find the thing I'm looking for, like if I want more bass, I want to go for something that tweaks the bass
@@stonepaq so instead of just tweaking some knobs and listening, you open up a totally separate plugin then tweak the knobs anyway and watch a graph to tell you what you're hearing. Did you even watch the video my guy? 😂
Might just be an opinion of an amateur who only does rudimentary mixing on his mediocre song fragments, but my impression is that every move that significantly changes a sound characteristic (eq, saturation/distortion, heavy compression, ...) requires manual level adjustments anyway. I often find that the reason that I set the levels in the first place is a specific element of the sound (e.g. frequency ranges or transients). While the idea of auto-gain is nice, It seems hard to find a one-size-fits-all solution.
I actually somewhat disagree about oversampling… yes, not every plug-in needs to have oversampling. But the whole point of it is to keep *unwanted* distortions out of it. So to your point on people complaining that plug-ins aren’t clean - it’s not that we want the plug-ins to be totally clean, it’s that we don’t want them to introduce unpleasant distortions that the original analog hardware wouldn’t introduce. I use both on a daily basis, and yes I find myself reaching for analog more nowadays (easier to mix with your ears imo), but if I load an analog modeled plug-in, I don’t want it to cause problems in the mix that otherwise could be avoidable. And, as someone else mentioned, certain EQs and compressor plug-ins can totally introduce harmonics. I agree that not every plug-in needs it, and I seldom have to use it, but oversampling is not completely useless in the mix. Maybe it’s not worth every armchair amateur mixer getting up in arms about, but it’s helpful in some cases.
Good. Another thing I wonder about (and seeing a plug in here reminded me) is why, a couple of decades after people have mostly stopped using analogue gear, do plug ins still have virtual dials/knobs instead of faders? Why are we still emulating analogue equipment visually? Sometimes it's really tricky to grab a small dial on screen and turn it accurately.
In your example boosting the guitar with EQ is both adding a bell curve in the EQ and gaining in one step... if you make the same move with auto EQ you then need to push the fader up for the same result - difference is, you can now A/B the EQ without a level change. This is one of the reasons we love Pultec EQs - boost/cut doesn't effect your levels so you are only equalizing the signal. I find that pretty useful.
@@tommy9951Absolutely. Pultecs use passive filters which only reduce signal level. The tube circuits are in the amp which brings the level back to unity.
By nature, louder sounds better to our ears. So yeah, adjusting volume to match the volume before the effects DOES matter. That way you can identify if your changes were indeed better rather than just louder(which you naturally think sounds better). Not adjusting the volume can lead people to apply effects that aren't needed or get to a point where they are working harder for no reason. Or worse, make everything worse but not noticing it because the volume increase tricked them into thinking it sounded better.
Most people tend to reach for the fader is something gets too loud in a mix. The whole “it’s louder so therefore we think it sounds better” is something everyone repeats but it doesn’t play out like that in the real world. If I decide something requires certain processing, then that’s a decision I made and to concern myself with how the processed version sounds compared to the unprocessed is a total waste of time and more likely to lead to worse decisions. So there’s little purpose matching the levels of them. So it really doesn’t matter if I raise the level of a track when adding any processing, the focus is whether it works in the mix and everyone compensates accordingly when something gets too loud in a mix.
1. Gain Match: if top-down mixing was ur approach to mixing, you'd probably change your mind. I think it depends on the mixing style, no right or wrong here, the music will inform me of what to do. 2. Oversample: 100% agree 3. Plugin Doctor: if we see video footage of animals we eat, we will be less inclined to eat that meat, because the video has the capacity to desensitize us from the enjoyment of the meal. The same thing with plugins, if we find out that the 'background processes' are not having good attention, we wont trust the plugin even if it sounds ok, i don't think its a matter of mixing with ur eyes, its about trust...
Start asking anyone who comments about your "incorrect" methods to post their mixes. Also, just say this is about that one specific plugin review guy 🤣🤣
So autogain probably doesn't make sense on EQ, but it does (and is useful to have the option) on Saturation and Dynamics as scientific research says that, to our ears/brains, louder = better. That's what the whole loudness wars was about. So I, and many others, would like the option to have autogain on these as it creates an instant reference to hear A B's without constantly reaching for the volume control.
The autogain thing is about perception and understanding what effect the plugin is having by taking increases in volume out of the picture. There is a psycho acoustic principle whereby two identical signals will be judged as being better or worse than one another depending on which is louder. The point of auto gain is to take this out of the equation when assessing what your plugin move has done. The hilarious thing is that in the video he pretty much proves himself wrong with the point he's making, but chooses to overlook it. 😂
If, after leveling off, you have difficulty grasping the effects of saturation, then clearly the effect of this plug-in has more to do with raising the volume level than with saturation. This should set off a red light in your brain. Maybe I don't need that saturation, but only a level adjustment. If, on the other hand, I actually need the saturation, I listen to its effect on the sound in autogain mode, and then I can be sure that I am not being cheated with levels.
The fact that it becomes more subtle is the point, your supposed to hear the difference and not just “it got louder” the whole point is defeating the loudness deception, a lot of beginners end up with their mixes getting louder and louder and louder because they’re just going “yeah that sounds good” with every plugin when all they are hearing is the difference in volume, if I listen to a track at 60dbspl vs 85 the louder one will sound better, fuller and more dynamic, but if you just turn up your monitors there is no difference. Gain matching also serves to retain the balance you created while subtly enhancing the track with processing. When it comes to oversampling yes it’s barely audible and having it on all your plugins won’t make it a hit, but if your thinking like that then why not just record the vocals well and record the band with one mic in a room and call it a day? Do you really think that people care what compressor you used (or even that you used one) on a song as long as it’s a good song? The reason we focus on these things is to enhance the final result. As audio engineers it’s our jobs to find the best ways to enhance a track and to be bothered about the nitty gritty details, as I mentioned it’s very very small in terms of impact but it’s important to understand and have access to these things. When it comes to plug-in doctor it’s not for using in a mix workflow who is? It’s an analysis tool, most don’t know how to use it effectively so they see results they don’t understand and to “X PLUGIN IS HORRIBLE” but it can be very useful for understanding the ins and outs of mixing, I’m very technically minded but am I thinking about “how does this compressor measure in plugin doctor” while mixing, no, but if you don’t understand your tools then how do you expect to get the best out of them. Going back to the point of aliasing being barely audible, I think the reasoning used to conclude that if something is only barely audible then we shouldn’t care about it is nonsense, our job is detail, it’s about fixing problems that most don’t hear or care about, you think someone is listening to a track and going “hmm if only they brought the guitar up by 2db in the chorus instead of 1.5” (unless your an audio engineer) but we do it anyway, we make those adjustments, why? Because it enhances the feeling. Also plug-in doctor should only be used to diagnose (hence the name) and solve issues not to go poking around your toolbox seeing the issues (inside of a mix that is, I think there can be some utility if your curious about how a certain tool works and want to analyse it in your free time)
To point 1. Brains think LOUDER = BETTER. It's a studied fact. You gain match when you make tonal adjustments so you can hear the REAL impact of your changes without the LOUDER thus BETTER effect. The changes you demonstrated seemed more subtle to you because the LOUDER = BETTER factor was removed. Studious engineers have always known this, and tried to manually compensate when working before technology made this easy for us. If your moves were MEANT to make a guitar louder, you are no longer making tonal moves - you are mixing. If you don't care - that's wonderful. It is an objective truth regardless. I'm sure someone's told you this before, ergo your stated expectation of taking a hit in the comments on this one.
I agree except for the gain matching.. for example, saturation is about changing color, if you need more energy you actually should add more gain.. its very useful to isolate just the color of the sound so our ears dont get fooled by the loudness war effect. i think *that* case is actually where you hear what you are doing, and not the other way around. now.. for anyone that has been mixing for 10+ years, making the two steps on one CAN be a good shortcut (i do the same, but as concept and for new producers, i think the gain matching still stands). good video as always !!! edit: i continued the video and saw your clarification about the focus part.. i totally agree then! one can totally make awesome mixes without even paying attention to it once
Love your channel and I get a lot out of your opinions normally, but 0 for 3 here. Autogain is important, potentially (and maybe especially?) even on EQ. It's handy feature to stop your ears from tricking you and having autogain as default behavior is almost a no-brainer if you're really trying to hear what your changes mean for the mix. Oversampling is important when plugins add harmonic content to reduce aliasing, which is absolutely measurable and junks up the mix. To your credit, you mention that it's important for saturation and distortion plugins, but it's not just these that can benefit. Compressors also add harmonics, and I guarantee you use multiple compressors. Yes, engineers likely have used plugins without oversampling before and made classic records, but they've more than likely used expensive analog compression and/or their mix wasn't as great as it could have been due to the aliasing introduced by these plugins. Digital mixes in the 90s and early 2000s were pretty terrible by today's standards. Plugin doctor serves a very useful purpose for analyzing exactly what a plugin is doing to your sound. Most people don't actually use plugin doctor mid-mix unless they have tons of time on their hands, but it's important for evaluating the tools you use so you can get a better idea of what they're doing and how best to use them.
Small correction is that compressors with VERY short attack and/or release times can create aliasing. It's unlikely to be audible... Aliasing is normally only audible in distortion/saturation plugins (someone else also mentioned EQ cramping). Hard disagree on Plugin Doctor-you can only benefit from knowing what your plugins actually do to your audio. I agree that focusing on that gets in the way though.
You say you add saturation because you want more energy, but the autogain decreases the level "taking away the energy so that it's the same as before"...sounds like you didn't want saturation in the first place...just volume. Maybe you should have just reached for the fader.
Auto Gain is not someting that a plugin HAS to have, but I will still do it myself. When Mixing, your ears can be your enemy; louder will always sound better... and so auto-gain can help us think twice about the reasons why we make EQ moves... if it needs to be louder...put it louder. if its clashing with something else.. use EQ... but don't use an EQ just because its "sound so much differnt" when in reality you may have thinned it out, but putting it louder made you think it sounded better.
Haha, I guess I should have waited to look/listen til the end but, I don't agree with the Plugin Doctor ref either. That is a tool that is good to see what a plugin is and ain't doing. I use it when beta testing plugins or seeing what an EQ or saturator plugin is doing etc. I agree that people shouldn't use it to make choices if a plugin is great or not but, if a plugin designer says that their plugin has harmonics in their plugin well now you're able to keep them honest to see if it really does. I think its fair. I literally had a plugin designer tell me that an old hardware unit didn't have saturation/harmonics from the 50s/60s. I couldn't believe they would even say that but a month later, another plugin designer came out with the same type of plugin from the same type of hardware and they explained why the hardware unit not only had harmonics but saturation etc. Some people will lie straight out and this is a great way to keep everyone honest! Again, just my opinion. Sorry for the rants as you came across my feed for RU-vid. Good Luck!!!
Regarding oversampling and analog devices - I understand that you can downplay this issue, but as you probably know, you can't directly compare them because it's a different type of saturation. Transformers of analog devices introduce mainly even harmonics into the signal, while aliasing introduces odd harmonics. The effect on the sound of these two phenomena is very different.
I disagree with several things, but there's one specific use case I wanted to adress because I havent seen anyone talk about it. I mix top down. Gain matching is valuable to me becuse I don't want my signal to hit the mix bus compressor harder causing it to compress more. I set the compressor at certain levels for a reason. What I don't want is continuously upping the gain with several different moves and ending with a more compressed mix. I might want to give a specific track more perceived loudness so it stands out better without the entirety of the mix getting overcompressed. And if I want to give something more actual loudness, not just perceived loudness, why would I reach for something like EQ? That's what the fader is for.
2 things ... 1) if you cant hear a difference after eq ing and level match - you might just need to increase the volume of the track, dont even bother about eq) 2) i wouldnt put digital aliasing on the same level as analog saturation/distortion. nowhere near. that being said i often prefer not oversampled sound to oversampled.
I really enjoyed this video until I put it through plugin doctor. All jokes aside, awesome vid. I recently picked up your Clipper plugin and I love it, super simple and effective. Do you generally put your clipper at the beginning or the end of a channel chain when trying to achieve punch and perceived loudness on a snare for example, wondering what works best for you, before or after all the processing. Thanks!
The auto-gain thing is so annoying for me . It`s supposed to sound a bit louder too, you know ? Sometimes it`s too much so you turn it down a bit . They obsess over these technicalities , yet they can`t mix a record to save their lives .
when it comes to oversampling, the only plugin I notice a change in sound with is Soothe 2. For me, the 1x will give a bit of hair to anything it's processing and the 4x pulls back on that a bit. It's nice having the option to choose how much of that distortion i want introduced
Sounds like the snake oil guy. Cant make it through one of his videos without him complaining about auto gain, screws on the UI and companies being lazy but he cant be bothered to adjust an output fader
saturation input should be gain adjusted so the chain before the saturator... because that will change the frequencies added. output doesnt matter so much. make it roughly same and fine
I guess with gain matching its a matter of, after processing: is my sound now too loud for it's given role, and should I reign it in with a bit less output gain, not even level matching, just putting it back where it sits right. That's usually my process if needed
I really appreciate your point of view in this video and I think it helps build different workflow needs in this area. In my point of view, I still think we can make autogain and over sampling an option in our toolbox in case we need them. Plugin doctor does help us decide what sort of tool would fit our needs, as our ears can be deceiving.
Sensible breakdown of these topics. Auto gain confuses my ears, aliasing needs fixing if audible, and plugindr is useful when you have an engineer hat on. Thankfully you not only approach these topics with sense and intellect, you also provide different contexts for when these things might matter. And, anecdotal, i just spend two days measuring and adjusting my da-ad loopback with plugindr to minimize noisefloor and reduce thd-n before adding outboard analog gear in the loop. With I had a proper oscilloscope though :) Thanks again, and I’m looking forward to more content!
Yeah, if not for a generell correction of the overall sound, I want to emphasize a frequency to make a sound cut through or because it‘s missing in the mix. But with autogain on, every other frequency gets buried especially when you boost mids. That‘s contraproductive. Now I have a sound with more mids but you hear less of the high and low frequencies.
Wondering how you missed using oversampling for clipping and limiting...? I think it's pretty useful in these instances. Plus, oversampling would be helpful if you're running plugins across multiple tracks, once you start to stack them, if you're oversampling and keeping aliasing to a minimum, that's when it will really be obvious. Don't get me wrong, I can completely understand where you're coming from. But I feel like people in the mixing world are doing a larger variety of projects than you do in your studio, so you can't just discount this stuff because it's not needed in your world.
Okay, I love people being controversial, it shows that you are still in charge of your own opinion - and not some influencers on youtube. Here, though, I beg to differ. Let me elaborate why: (BTW, I'm 45, started doing this 25 years ago and used to work on analog gear. Our console was the Neve VR, I was really excited when Dirk from PA published their VX-console plugin.) 1.) Autogain being not necessary: True, I agree. ESPECIALLY with compression. Now many may think: What? That's exactly where I WANT autogain (!!!!!1). Listen, if you make a compressor cut off 6 db of your signal, why not giving those 6 db back to your signal to actually HEAR what kind of envelope you are creating? I'm not saying that you should keep those +6db in your mix, most likely you will pull it back it anyway, but by adding what was actually taken away you are way more likely to question your compression decision, and I think that's a good thing as most people tend to overcompress anyway. (It is also a great lesson how to set your attack and release times) 2.) Plugin doctor: There is a benefit you overlooked. Plugin doctor shows you what a plugin is actually doing. If you are using it wisely it can help you to reveal marketing bullshit. Don't use it to tell if a plugin sounds good or not, though. (with compressors I think Plugin Doctor really sucks.) Above I mentioned my excitement when PA came up with their Neve VX console plugin. I discovered pretty quickly that their TMT is nothing else than setting L and R slightly different. That's it. No magic. I couldn't care less for that, and I'm saying that as someone who actually mixed on an ANALOG NEVE CONSOLE. The thing is, on most channels you would have mono signals so there are no phase differences between Left and Right that would come into play. To illustrate that: I don't care if the high shelf on my HH-channel starts 0.1 Hz lower than on my SN-channel next to it. It simply doesn't matter. Plugin doctor should be used with a critical mind - then it CAN be a useful tool. If you use it to tell if a plugin sounds good or not... than you are in serious trouble as a mixing engineer.
I once saw a tutorial by a mixing engineer whose work I have listened to for years and absolutely loved. I realized he did not put on oversampling on a plugin and I contacted him directly on Facebook. He was like that doesn't matter... I was like... what? He said no it doesn't matter. I love the songs he has mixed and do I love them any less... no. Do they sound great to me? Yes! The bottom line is start with a great SONG! Trust your ears and move on
The point of saturation is to add harmonics, that's not the same as adding level. If you are also adding volume, then you're just fooling yourself into thinking it sounds better. No one is immune to thinking louder is better, not even someone with decades of experience. I do a lot of live engineering and see this ALL THE TIME with even very experienced musicians.
Points 2 and 3 are kinda one point. Oversampling reduces aliasing, the thing your plugin sucks at, as revealed by Plugin Doctor. Do we use an oscilloscope before playing a guitar on a track? Kinda. Ever heard of a tuner? This starts to sound like preachy garbage advise when you attack tools that reveal shortcomings in your product. Instead, you could be using these tools to improve your algorithms. Good job putting a spin on it though. What was lost in potentially improving a product was gained here in marketing strategy. Al the best with Black Salt.
Kinda agree yet disagree : °°° Gain Matching is actually more useful than we might think for those who want to mix more "natural" style of music when the song should not sound too "processed". Why level matching EQ or saturation? EQ : You are undoing what you are trying to make. That's the point. Maybe just pushing the fader was enough and actually that EQ move wasn't really necessary. Auto-gain can help to judge that. Saturation : You said it yourself "You are pretty hard pressed to hear the difference". Maybe because it actually doesn't make that much of a difference and pushing the fader would be just enough. Auto-gain makes mixing less fun, less ego flattering, but also in a way truer to the source and bs free (because if you're expensive chain of plugins/outboard is not cutting it, then it's not not cutting it, period). Although I agree with you, stressing out too much on gain matching is not a healthy mindset when mixing. And could be a waste of time if spending too much time on it and could make us loose focus and tire our ears. °°° OS : "People obsess about analog gear for saturation, distortion, noise but then those same people roast plugin for not being completely clean". Yes because analog saturation/distortion is related to the harmonic content. Whereas aliasing is non-harmonic distortion. Which is not always what you want because it's not always doing something you'd need. The analogy here doesn't really work for that reason. Otherwise I agree with you. °°° PDoctor : It's actually super useful to match specific outboard to some plugins or vice-versa. I managed to match my Trident Stereo FET compressor to the time constant of an 1176 thanks to that. It's darn amazing in my book. But otherwise I agree with you. Although there is no harm in being curious, about anything, period. As soon as it is not getting a destructive obsession.
Bravo..very good detail. But for some reason, I like when gainstaging in Fabfilter while eqing the guitars.. _ Also about oversampling...maybe your are mixing in higher sample rate and that's why you don't listen differences. For me in 44.1 / 48 khz oversampling gives me clearer results. Really in what sample rate are you tracking / mixing?
What I am missing on the internet is methods of mixing like they made in the 80s and 90s for example, before even Pro Tools ever existed... Many of the features we use today didn't exist back then, yet we have so many great mixes and masters from that time period...
1. Gain matching...use the gain knob and a compressor/limiter. 2. Oversampling...beyond the nyquist limit is inaudible. 44.1khz is all one will ever need. 3. Plug-In Doctor...if you need nonsense like this, just delete your DAW, and take up another hobby/occupation.
Dude the argument about ppl wanting OG analog for the warm, overtones, ect, and then bitching about alising artifact it the one I'm making (privately) for years!
bend a high note on guitar using an overdriven/fuzz/distortion tone and you'll absolutely hear a difference between no oversampling, 2x, probably 4x, and maybe 8x - beyond that probably not (and I agree that it's not something to obsess about for plugins that aren't doing a lot of nonlinear processing)
I honestly dont get people who do Plugin Dr and look at what its doing behind the curtain or whatever,like, I dont even get why I got so many plugins over time when really only a small small magic ones are really worthy and not 5 types of the same delays reverbs compressors etc
Gain matching can be useful in a scenario like mastering I guess. But yes for sound design and mixing, it will do more harm than good. If I think a track requires compression, EQ or any other processing, then there’s no reason to compare the processed and unprocessed versions and it can give you a false perspective on what you’re doing. Gain matching makes it worse because the unprocessed sound, which you felt needed this processing competes with the processed version and as a result you find merits with the original sound and dial back the processing.
Yeap! Your mixes are great, but they are great because you are well experienced and your ears are that good so you can hear immediately what tool you should use, even without looking at plug-in interface. You just professional that know how to make world class records. And most of us, the subscribers, we believe everything and everyone if they say "this is so great plugin, listen how good is it. And you should use gain matching (or wherever tool) that made my sound so good"
IF IT SOUNDS GOOD, IT IS GOOD. PERIOD. END OF STORY. People spend far too much time on the technical details, and far too little time actually learning to LISTEN.
I really like you, you are honest. I ran across your video last week and have been watching them. I started mixing in 1992 with a pair of ns10's and thought I needed something more expensive. I wrong was I.Same thing goes with the thousands of dollars I spent on plugins.And the hardware units I spent so much on like Manley,Universal audio, Warm audio, JoeMeek,Vintake,Presonus,and the list goes on. I wish I had ran across you 20 years ago. Before I spent all that money. If you got good musicians then your mix is not that hard. And you don't need all the plugins that someone on RU-vid is bragging about, or all the hardware. You can't polish a turd with all that equipment. Thanks for your videos I enjoy watching them.
"To be honest, I question whether I'm actually hearing any difference at all." aka it's all in YOUR ears. That's actually BRAVE thing to say for someone who has worked a long time in the industry. A lot of people out there in the popular "forums" loooove to pontificate on stuff, always in the threads posting about plugins hahaha I dont even mix/produce music in your genre but... SUBBED! Refreshing sh*t, sir!
Totally agree. As a mixing engineer, you need to train your ears to recognize the different frequencies. Once you do that, you will cut or boost frequencies to achieve the sound you like. There is no point on level matching. If you are still getting fooled believing that sounds better because the signal is louder then you need more ear training. At some point you will be able to recognize when something sounds good without any level matching.
This could've been scripted way better (perhaps in a less "clickbaity" way), like I get your points but your wording opens a lot of room for misinterpretation and ignores a lot of important nuance regarding all these topics.
