Just curious if anyone uses this plugin regularly and what kind of results you get from it. I was reading a conversation on here about mixing and when summing came up this plug came to mind. It always sounded like something that might be of some help, but I've never actually tried it (I'm at work right now so I can't test it out.)

As I recall it just kind of gets thrown on the master bus. What does it to do sound?

 

I use it all the time (and also sonimus Britson/satson). There are 2 different plugins. One for channels and one for the master bus. It is subtle, but very musical. It helps add that extra oomph in a mix. Hope this helps.

 

Oh I guess I should tell you what it does. It simulates the sound of using a mixing console. This helps remove the sterile, in the box sound of modern pc based recordings.

 

I have NLS, Satson & Britson, and Slate VCC (now version 2). If I had to pick only one, I'd go with Slate because the others don't add non-linearities, only harmonics.

Non-linearities in analog consoles mean that a cyclic sound (like a kick drum) will sound ever so slightly different every time it is played, sometimes with more harmonics, sometimes with less.
Though NLS stands for "non-linear summing" the amount of harmonics added is based on the amplitude of the signal, with no variation with signals of the same amplitude.

I use 6 instances of VCC for my productions, one on each buss, and one on the master. Its included is my default template.

The key is to mix through these plugins and not add them in later. You dont notice much difference when you add them, but when you take them away thats when you really hear what theyre doingl.

I also use the other two, but for mixing vocals.

Satson/Britson go at the end of my lead vocal chains to open the top end.

And NLS goes on my All Vocals buss to give everything a similar flavour and help cut through.

Just remember that these plugins will not fix a bad mix, they are the icing on the cake - without the actual cake youre just a fat kid eating icing out of the bag.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rpqNRtKFIk

 

if you want to mix 'console' style, go for nebula emulations. They are next only to hardware itself.

 

Yeah but the latency and cpu usage with nebula is crazy, what youre supposed to do with these plugins is put one on every channel of your track and then your mix buss.

You'd probably hit +70% cpu with no other plugins, and 1-2 seconds latency so the playback relative to the waveforms would be way off.

 

Plugins like this are for morons who can't make music. They like to think that a few lines of digital code can make their rubbish music sound like their favourite 1970s analog recordings, but it won't.

Just make music, and use the awesome 24bit 44.1khz transparent sound of your DAW to make it sound exactly how you want to. Don't waste your time and money on these stupid plugins, they do literally nothing.

 

yeap, no easy thing with nebula, i tend to not use it either. But if you want some real "juice" you gotta sweat for it.

 

i thought i was on my own with this opinion until the dude said it earlier...

i think its pretty much bullshit. All i hear with these plugins it slight saturation and thats when its cranked right up...

 

I use them. I can make music. I question your understanding of the word "literally."

Real physical consoles saturate when driven hard. That is the desired effect. It's a very specific type of saturation. Infact, Waves modeled individual channels on the consoles they based NLS on.

 

But why look at a wave form when mixing?

I use my ears and not look at a waveform on a screen i even turn it off sometimes
But then again i am not searching for the loudest possible bass sound or looking to a spectrum analyzer all the time.

I dont use 100 + tracks almost never over 30

But you can freeze all channels and use only use busses when mixing but with 100+ tracks you will have something like 40 buss channels so i guess that wont do it either?

 

I repeat, these plugins are meant to be used from the start of a mix. They are meant to be always enabled, and not nuisances which you have to freeze every 10 seconds.

Blinding yourself is a technique for making effective sonic decisions like gainstaging, eq, comp etc not for editing 101.
You need to refer to the playback and the waveforms when youre doing cuts and or comping, try automating or riding levels with a 1-2 sec delay.
And remember PDC does not remove plugin latencies, it compensates by delaying all other channels to match.

Even with 20 tracks, try loading a nebula preamp on each of them and see if your cpu will burn down your home or not lol, nebula console emulations should use the same amount if not more.

 

Subtile ? Are you deaf ? You can even see the change when you have a look at the waveform. Try a scope ;)

Regarding Non linearities. the N in NLS means Nonlinear

 

This should pop up everytime someone opens a daw What people need to realise is that if your music sounds shitty, no plugins will make it good just by adding ''nonlinearities'' (even the bigs use stock vsts because it's faster & you can focus better on what you're doing)

 

Yeah I suppose it did come across a bit harsh. It wasn't my intention, it just annoys me that people worry about this stuff, when it makes about 0.000001% difference to the finished song. It's like arguing about 24bit vs 32bit float, just get on with making music instead!

As you said there's far more important things to worry about, such as song writing, arrangement, sound design etc.

 

I'm sure there are top tier engineers all over who will vouch for the value of metering, or using the waveforms relative to one another, or a spectrum analyzer for quickly locating big resonances.


As far as I'm concerned, people keep repeating mix with your ears, not your eyes because it comes from a place of "stop picking your nose, little brother" superiority. Unless someone's talking about a mixing decision where the speakers give them one thing and the spectrum analyzer another, it's just hot air.

Not saying anything about you personally. I know you meant it constructively.



Anyways, thanks to everyone for chiming in about the NLS stuff & related plugs. As with everything, opinions are varied and I should just try it my damn self.

 

Lol yeah I've seen the video. Every time I watch a waves commercial I spend the next five minutes thinking "holy shit I can't live without this", and then I come back down. Your feedback on the usefulness of it was a big help.

 

I finally took the time to check it out today. It wasn't really necessary on mixes that I was already happy with -- I guess that goes along with the sentiment that you're supposed to mix through them and not just tack them on afterwards -- BUT there were a couple problematic tracks where I felt the mix was kind of lifeless and I couldn't find a solution that I was totally happy with. Threw the NLS channel and bus plugs on their respective places and wow, it really did add some very subtle but very important piece to the puzzle.

I appreciate your input. To the guy who said these plugs are for morons who can't mix: maybe--I've only been learning for about a year. But unless your mixes are already so good that there's no point to adding some life to them, I question the ear of anyone who doesn't hear an improvement with these.

As Army of Ninjas said. It's subtle -- almost imperceptible. But when I saved two different instances of the same track and A/B'd the one with and without NLS, there was a very real difference in the amount of life in the mix.