Digital vs Hardware Studio Gear

#musicproducer #musicproduction #audioengineer

[Producelikeapro]

What are some of your favourite digital emulations of hardware?

[ninjaneer]

I like that you said “blessed”…that makes my heart smile

[tomaszmazurek]

I mostly have experience with comparing guitar amps and pedals with their digital counterparts, but my impressions are quite similar - you have to be more careful with gain and signal levels on the digital side of things.

[girkgirkus]

I agree. I am using a mic pre but everything is done in the box with some really incredible plugins. I was down on modeling for guitar and the rest for many years but it's so good now. I still want a destresser and API 2500. Haha.

[tooltroll]

I figure the dodgiest process is converting D to A or vice-versa; Once I have something in the box, I prefer to keep it there if I can. While an emulator might not be 100% spot-on, nowadays the differences are usually so subtle that nobody can really hear the differences, except maybe in solo, and nobody'll ever hear it soloed, so. . .

[julianmorrisco]

Sound? Digital is great. It matches anything I’ve done with analogue hardware and these days, most of my boxes - a few choice pieces aside - are gathering dust. The reason not all of them are? Workflow. I still find that for some things, one button or knob per parameter requires less thinking so less chances I’ll screw up my flow. But the sound? The recallability? Digital is easily good enough these days. With the caveat that you do need to watch your levels into the A/D whereas with analogue hardware having a signal too high just gives you sometimes interesting distortion. The biggest problem I have with digital is that it’s so tempting to get and use far too many different things whereas back in the day, even in a top line studio you’d get maybe one or two compressor choices unless you planned ahead and hired a range. And then you had to justify the hire cost to the record company. Unless you were working on something a-list, chances are they’d say no to your request to have gear lying around just in case you were inspired. :D.

[Readdy-]

I mix hybrid also..I can’t just do one are the other..I like to have both

[amiraskar]

I think that nowadays analog hardware is mostly used during tracking and recording stage. It could be useful during mastering, but I can’t say that surely.

[andreirlmeier]

hopefully the small loudspeakers on the base of Bach and Beethoven will work

[JustK]

“Real Folk” use hardware..Plugins are a definite asset but nothing takes the place of a viable pice of hardware