View Single Post
Old 04-27-2012, 08:17 PM   #52
Wilkesin
Human being with feelings
 
Wilkesin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Birmingham, AL
Posts: 501
Default

It's got to be the first channel or (hopefully) obviously the sound drastically changes because of the gain staging, and yes your whole mix will fall apart if you start with it and then bypass it.

After another full day of working with NLS I stand by my original thought on it (and in general this console emulation thing). It sounds great. It absolutely sucks for workflow.

If you track at what I would call reasonable, and some would call moderate or slight, digital levels then having an instance of console emulation on every single track is nearly transparent. So for all that CPU power and time lost putting it on each track you have a minimal net gain in sound, and then you have to get on with EQ, compression, FX etc., which it seems to need less of now, but this is not to say that you cant throw an instance of the buss plug on the master and get some things happening to at least the really transient material, and then that is only one plug that you have to gain stage.

The thing really starts to show off when you go in and drive and level balance each channel. It definitely pulls things together and you can selectively add some "hair" or keep it clean. I tend to not have a large track counts at all, and I cant imagine people who would want to mix with this on 20, 30...100 track count projects.

You have to be careful putting it on FX send channels too, it will drastically alter what you hear if placed on say a Verb send...

My thinking going forward is to throw one on the master and save the single instances for tracks that are harsh sounding or just need "something" to stand out from the rest.
__________________
ethersheets.bandcamp.com
Intel i5-2500K | MSI Mobo | 12 Gigs RAM | Win 10 Pro x64 | Reaper x64 | Studio One v3.5 x64
Wilkesin is offline   Reply With Quote