Mahesh

Nice to have you onboard Alice! Welcome to the gang.

These kind of plugins (Gullfoss, Soothe, Trackspacer) are very much popular these days within the mixing world. It'l be interesting to see how it'll fare. If somebody tries it out let me know. For now, I'm using a free alternative called Wavegrove Vastaus which is a plugin that removes harsh and resonant high frequencies. I don't use it much but good to know I can slap it on to the mixbus on a low amount and expect to clean the high end a little.

Meh, aren't we sappy songwriters at heart after all? Welcome to Songstuff @UnholyHoax. Looking forward to hearing your music and geeking out on indie musician things around these boards!

Now that we can agree on If there's any of you who do check out these plugins and maybe test it on a recording, let me know what you feel about it! Point taken! I've been working with the staff in building a social media & content strategy that allows us and our site to be as useful as it can for musicians out there. I'm adding your suggestion on to the bucket.

Agreed about the grand diversion here John. Although I'd be happy to continue the discussion on another topic or something if you feel like it, bud. Onwards and upwards to plugin nerd talks...

Pft. Now you're starting to sound like John's actual wife Karen And I'm sure Peggy is around here somewhere thinkin "You haven't seen nothing" reminiscing our staff meetings 😆 But really, I count on John to disagree with me, even if sometimes it gets outta hand

Definitely not dismissing this. In fact I agree with you wholeheartedly. I am dismissing how this idea relates to what you do outside of your creative process and time based expectations.

I'm almost tempted to pick some plugins out of the hundreds of Airwindows plugins in random and challenge myself to record a record with a timeline in mind and all things considered from my label and coworkers lol might be a good mixing challenge to put for myself along with a test to see if my understanding of these things hold as well as my confidence of it.

I read the response John but I still disagree with the way you are putting these things across while I do agree with the logic of the points you're making. I know of many mixing and mastering legends who still use one knob plugins that are a decade old even to this day because they think it just works right. (RComp by Waves is one such example) As for back compatibility, thank God for the VST and AU standards still holding strong within the digital music industry. They don't use one knob plugins for everything ofc. But if say, a saturation plugin gives a good sound right off the bat when you slap it on, it just works. There's nothing more to it. Whether the plugin maker made a two hour video or none about how the plugin was made, the plugin works the way it does and there's nothing more to it. I also think you CAN recreate an old mix with these plugins or others if you know what you should be listening to. I disagree that his long rambling videos impedes my creative process in anyway. Like I said, a reverb is a reverb regardless of its GUI or interface. The use cases of these plugins as I've described in the earlier posts doesn't in anyway impede my process because if it did, I'd be using a different plugin for it which serves that purpose. In fact, it's not even about these plugins and my point applies to ANY plugin in general - simple GUI or not, long rambling videos or not. Although I don't have time to go deeper into it just this moment because of the fact that I've to rehearse, prepare and head to soundcheck for the gig later in the evening. I will get to it when I can maybe in a different topic because I think this has strayed away from the usefulness of plugins to a schematic outcome of a grand plan of things. (which is a legitimate thing to discuss!)

I don't disagree with you here. I'm disagreeing with why such plugins would need more time than the others you may consider that don't? Is it because the guy who made the plugins puts videos that are long and rambly? (which I agree with you!) is it because you think one has to go thru it to learn how to use the plugin? (because I don't) Again I watched it for hours because I like watching such things. I'm sure musicians have all kinds of hobbies that they engage in outside of their TTM window; which they'd participate in for hours - video games, spending time with family, hiking, watching music theory YouTube videos, or maybe about plugins. I'm not gonna put all of that in one basket and go - how are these affecting my TTM? I might have an expectation or timeline for myself. But if I start calculating math for every second I spend outside of my creative process, I might as well add more time to my creative process thereby doing exactly what you think artists shouldn't do. Lol

Also, I'd like for us to come back to the talk of plugins on here. So please feel free to start another topic where we can continue this broad conversation

I see what you're saying John, but I still don't understand how any of that relates to why one category of people would use certain kind of plugins over the others. It seems like you are saying that with the assumption that such plugins add delay.(no puns intended) Which is the fundamental place of disagreement here. Let's take these very plugins. If I find something I like in it and it does the job (maybe even better than others) and I've the ability to add them onto my channel strip or my automation template and they sound good, how is it adding to the delay that you're talking about? Those plugins may even add to the kind of "sound" you maybe going for and creating for an entire project/album. It's just a plugin that did its job and I'm not thinking about it beyond that. I move on. There seems to be an assumption that in order to learn a plugin, you'll have to sit thru videos for hours. I don't think that's the case especially with these plugins above that often have few knobs that can do a lot to manipulate the sound. Moreover, if you're picking a delay plugin regardless of brand, you know what a delay plugin is supposed to do. You don't have to relearn that every time. I watched the videos cuz I'm a nerd lol but anybody can just slap on the plugin, move the few knobs around and they know what it does to their signal. This is how many mixing and mastering legends suggest people to learn. My earlier point of obsessing over technicalities were not to put it on a pedastal, but just to show anything of too much or too less can be bad. A lot of serious musicians plan soooo very much but when it comes to execution are too hung up on the details to release music at all. They lose the TTM window. Some are very good at keeping the frequency but are all over the place with the quality or strategy of delivery and engagement of their audiences because they are always on a race. I clearly don't see what you mean here because of this.

I strongly disagree with this but I see the point you're trying to make. Plugins don't decide who breaks thru or doesn't. One's ability to use them in the context of what is needed to get the mix going does. Sure, I can see a lot of people who don't want to learn the technical subtleties wanting to rely on plugins that don't need a lot of learning or is simplistic. Maybe even extremely nerdy music grad types who'd shit on everything but their own approach and ways of doing things using these because they "understand" music better than them listeners out there. But I can also see many who are serious about their work finding a plugin out of these and realizing that it gets the job done with a sound that their professional ears can find pleasing and as needed for their creative path.

Yes, I had a similar "Mahesh - Topic" account and Distrokid confirmed with me that this auto generated account was still attached to my account and the views would be credited to me. If I remember right, the auto generated topic helps with cataloguing for their Youtube Music service.

All good points by both of you! Some things raised that I may wanna add to. - CPU efficiency is key when it comes to post production work for me. Especially when I've an M1 MacBook Air from which I do all of my work. These plugins by design being so tiny along with the lack of fancy graphs and visual elements make them extremely CPU efficient, arguably than even some of the stock plugins themselves. - The lack of many knobs and controls is not always good particularly when it comes to things like EQ, side chain compression & anything requiring precise surgical work. So I've found these plugins to be useful only when I don't want to think too much and just want to slap it on and move things around until I like the sound I hear. Things like saturation, stereo widening, console emulation and some other cool fx particularly in later parts of the mixing process are where these little plugins come in handy for me. So I must say the applications for this "genre" of plugins are limited. Which brings me to the next point... - John is right, this guy is a very nerdy analog dude who is putting no effort into convincing anybody why or how these plugins should be used. He isn't a producer. As somebody who's spent many hours over his videos and relentless tech talk (so that none of you would have to) and from what I've read about him and his plugins - he knows his stuff and a lot of people within the space swear by his word. He literally asks his followers not to use the plugin if they don't know why it exists. Pretty strange business strategy and a very narrow demographic being served lol but it is what it is I guess. - I'm also of the opinion that mixing is the art of listening and not about the tech that goes behind it. But as long as one is aware of this and is able to separate the two, there's nothing wrong at all for a musician to be curious and obsessed about the tech side of things even if as just another quirk of being musically inclined. I just want to point out that these two aren't exclusive and they don't have to be. And sometimes knowing what goes behind the scenes may empower your process than hinder it. Anything too much or too less of something can be a potential problem. I've seen this to be the case particularly with music marketing. Many tend to stray away from nerdy marketing talk within the music space which puts them in a place of disadvantage a lot of the time(especially if you are a full time musician by choice like me). And those who obsess too much about it tend to lose the purpose and joy of music making. Balance, common logic & practicality are the words I guess. - He definitely needs someone from a mixing background to do the demo video work lol