Anyone have their heads wrapped around this? I've been messing with it and getting all kinds of weird results at various stages, and just wondering if anyone has seen a good explanation of how to gain stage now with this feature?

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016

Did you watch the Presonus webcast or the rebroadcast? There are also videos done by Studio On Expert.
Links to some videos are here https://audiosex.pro/threads/studio-one-3-2-release-notes-activation.23753/

If you have ever used a pro level analog console, you know how to gain stage. The basic idea is
you source signal should be as hot as possible before clipping occurs. For most signals you
want to back off the pre gain to allow the signal to breathe (headroom).

Back in the dark days we were fighting noise and unwanted distortion while maintaining the
audio signal integrity through the channel strip, to the bus and mono or stereo outs.

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016

I'm guessing you already know this and assumed everyone else did too, but it's important to point out for those who don't that analog gain staging and digital gain staging are NOT exactly equivalent. An analog console gain staged to just under clipping is NOT the same as a digital signal gain staged to -0.1 dBfs. If you're working entirely ITB, your gain stage should be NOWHERE NEAR where it clips digitally (at 0dBfs). The general equivalent is around -18dBFS. Plugins that care (analog emulation stuff mostly) will be designed to work best when the incoming signal is around -18, not -1.

 

Console Shaper format is pre fader, increasing drive raises level going into plugins, so understanding how it works is important. Crosstalk and Noise are added on every track, however Drive only adds gain in the individual channels, the harmonics and saturation are added on the buss channel.

 

Very well said Zentrophy. Some good knowledge here.

I have been shooting for a while now going for -18DFS or -24LUFS and has made a huge difference for my tracks.

My question is, why do a lot of VST Instruments come in so hot? ie: Sylenth

 

If devlopers knew that -18dbfs is the sweet spot in the digital world... why are they all different?

 

So given that it works pre fader and pre-plugin, what would be the best way to gain stage? Putting a mixtool on as your first plugin to compensate for the increased gain on each channel after turning up the drive in Console Shaper? In the video from Studio One Expert, the guy talks about actually trimming the gain on the clips themselves... It would be cool if they could add an input/output control for each channel to control how it interacts with the Console Shaper in a more intuitive way...

Yeah, I totally understand gain staging in the box, and use a VU meter plugin set to -18dBfs on each channel, and try to hit the master channel around -10/-12 dBfs. I was just unsure how best to control gain staging after Console Shaper, and before the plugins/fader...

It's funny, I was watching the Groove3 video on all the new features, and on the segment on the Console Shaper, the guy is trying to show how it works on a drum bus, and then forgets to even route all the tracks to that bus! Then sits there turning on and off the Console Shaper, going " wow, hear that? what a difference!"

 

Yes I am aware that diferrences exist. The theory is the same though. Most of the time in analog your bring it up to
clipping and back away roughly 6db then you start adding comp, eq, etc.. and adjust the pre gain accordingly followed
by the staging of each added process.

I was trying to speak in generality. Not as an absolute.

 

What i like about ConsoleShaper is that it's integrated right into the audio engine and when you engage the buss/interface, it's not like just one plugin was slapped on the bus and that's all. It also treats every channel separately, otherwise the crosstalk feature won't work.
If you mix under -18dbfs (approximatelly) that's mostly the case where the "Drive" knob will come into play in a useful manner. Someone recently asked me if he gets more "console mojo" if he drives it hard through that ConsoleShaper's Drive knob. Then i asked him to send me a screenshot picture with his mixer levels while the project was playing and his master-bus (no plugins on it) were near -1.42dbfs which was crazily high so i explained him that he still gets the mojo without the drive knob to exceed the 12'o'clock point.
@audiofiend because some devs are aware that potential young musicians customers with no "Analog" background tend to usually mix hot so they wanted to adapt their plugins to the "today's habbit". But anyway, the way ConsoleShaper was designed and implemented it clearly needs the gainstaiging as something that shouldn't be overlooked.

 

As with a real console or console emulations, i find the console shaper to be more efficient if you should gain stage your session at -18 db.

The drive section, when cranked, tends to quickly mess your gain staging, so it has to be changed carefully. I think that the problem with the drive knob is that it turns up all channel faders pre-insert, so this can clip your other plug-ins and modify your gain staging. This is quite a odd behaviour in my opinion...
You also have to be careful with crosstalk, if you get up too high you are feeding every track through every other tracks plugins, and narrow the stereo image of your project (i generally use a certain amount of crosstalk on the drum bus, leaving it near 0 on the master bus, but as with everything, you have to experiment with it).
I think that to get a grip on the console shaper, you have to set it at the beginning of your session (gain staged at -18db if possible), then leave it almost untouched and mix into it. For the short amount of time i've been using it, my usual settings are drive at 2 or 3, no noise, and crosstalk between 0 et 5.

Last thought : i find this new tool far for perfect in term of use and gain staging, but as far as i'm concerned, i love the sound and what it does to your mix! Better than Slate VCC IMHO

Hope this is usefull, peace

Edit
i'm really looking forward to see nebula implemented in the console shaper!

 

The only one with a rational explanation so far is @WillTheWeirdo
Plugins like this have to be inserted in the very beginning as it can later mess your whole system up.
Compared with Satin it takes the same amount of resources though within a big project for some reason it attacks your cpu in an unfriendly manner.(cpu meter)
Presonus needs to hire better code developers,maybe Slate`s team can help them out here.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Mar 1, 2016

The way it's been implemented, you have to load it in the beginning of a mix, set up its drive level to taste and leave it alone.

Use a VUmeter calibrated to -18dBFS on every track as a reference for your levels. Studio One's native VUmeter is perfect for this task. It's ok to go red, but you must stay white most of the time, and the needle needs to keep moving.

If you decide to change Console Shaper's drive somewhere in the middle of a mix, get ready to re-check all of your tracks' gain-staging, because the drive knob doesn't increase/decrease drive internally like all other plugins in the world; It directly messes up with the level of every affected track.

Don't ask me why Presonus chose this path, because for me it's total nonsense. No plugin should force you to commit like that...Like I said on another thread, they should've at least given the option to apply the drive pre or post fader.

Anyway, as for the gain-staging itself, I've found that the quickest way is to setup a macro. This way, if you have a lot of tracks you can get them pretty much in the -18dBFS ballpark instantly. Just create a new macro and copy theses settings:



Notice that the volume level argument is set to -13, but you can play around with that value until you find one that suits you best. Should be something between -10 and -15, depending on how hot you like to gain-stage.

R.

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016

It's a cool feature but I've already found a bug (which is probably related to the sustain pedal abrupt release "feature"). I don't know what to think anymore. I thought they were slow on the software side, now I feel they kinda rushed it... This pre-fader thing is kinda weird, too. And probably buggy as I quickly found out. I put it on from the start but changing levels became confusing. For example, a kick would get overpowered whether I turned it down from within the sampler [instrument] or not; it didn't really seem to make a difference. It was like it got stuck at a certain level. The mixer track fader did nothing. It could be because the console fx is pre-fader but I'm not sure. I'm still confused by it. Then, two tracks also got "disconnected" from the mixer. If I pressed mute on the mixer channel, the track in the arrangement would still play. If I muted from the track it muted normally and showed the red "M" both on the mixer and the track. From the mixer, it only showed on the mixer and didn't mute it. So weird... MIDI volume and fader volume automation still confuses me. Not being able to undo micro-edits and mixer edits still feels really weird. But, overall, I'm excited to see what they'll do with this hardware-hybrid thing they seem to have started.

I had these issues in the first 20 mins or so... I wasn't doing anything extra sophisticated. It's just these little things that make me uneasy... I can't focus on what I'm doing because I have to worry I will have to re-load the project to undo it, I may edit the wrong parameter, it may bug out for no apparent reason. I keep second-guessing and fearing that I have to save every 10 seconds so as to not do anything very destructive.

 

My guess is the Loudness Wars. When developers publish sound libraries and release synths and virtual instruments, they want them to sound as loud and polished as a final record so that potential customers who listen to their demos bite the bait and feel urged to pay up. This trend fools people who are not used to gain staging. Most digital processors that do not emulate any analog gear are designed to take a blast of gain without a problem, working at 32 bit floating point, which makes them virtually unclippable. Analog-emulated software, however, imitates the response of analog gear, and here's where analog and digital 0dB differ. A down-to-earth explanation is featured here:

https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep13/articles/level-headed.htm

Edit:
I learned this here at AudioSex. For 4 Euros you get a VU meter that automatically manages your gain stages. You simply place it before any analog-emulated processor and the plugin automatically rides the gain to match the intended gain value (-18dB by default, no wonder).

http://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-vu-meter/

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016

That's the whole point. It's to be configured prior to getting your hands all dirty in the final mixing stage, such as a console has it's default properties. It's about using it as an "alternative" to S1's default mix engine.. and in any other DAW there's been no control the user has over that. It's about swapping the initial engine out as opposed to applying a virtual console as an effect in addition to the native properties the DAW already has which has always been the case with plugins before this. Of course it can throw off the gain stage if you adjust the drive too much after the fact because it's a "prior to all" function as it's supposed to be. The drive knob is clearly functioning in a way where it's scheme is to shift the weight balance between the lows and mids. Even if you want to adjust the drive knob after the fact it doesn't throw off the gain stage unless you were to shift more than 0.25dB in one direction or the other.. and shifting further than that after the fact shouldn't yield a desirable result anyway.

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016

Well, I disagree. How you're supposed to know how much drive you want to apply before you even start a mix? I think it's plain stupid.

Besides, if, like you said, the point was to truly emulate a console's workflow, it shouldn't even have a drive button at all...Then I would perfectly agree with your premise.

However, since it does have a drive button, I think this behavior is insane.

We can always agree to disagree, though.

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016

That's like asking why anyone should ever use a preamp. Your tracks are going to be present and audible before you start gain staging and mixing, correct? So if you want to you can still pick your flavor before you begin staging and mixing. I know how to use it, and I think it's great. If you don't latch on it's no difference to me. The problem is you keep looking at it like it's supposed to be a global post effect like you're probably used to. Whenever you load any DAW it pulls up it's default engine. You play and record tracks in total disregard to the properties of the DAWs engine, and at the end you or someone is going to mix those tracks in that same environment or another. So if you turn the drive all the way up in advance which could mean "I want extreme console proportion".. you are then going to leave it alone and gain stage and mix relative to that new default property.

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016

With all due respect, I think you're using poor arguments as you attempt to justify a badly implemented feature that most likely will be fixed in the future, since a lot of people are complaining about it everywhere.

But yeah, it sounds great, but it's impossible to justify a drive feature being implemented like that.

Anyway, like I said, we can always agree to disagree, without being disrespectful to each other, although your opinion about it doesn't make any difference to me as well...So, lets call it even.

 

All i hear is drastical volume drop after pushing drive on console shaper,makes no sense to me but if this is by design then personally its just plain stupid

 

The only thing you all need to understand is it is a global "pre" and not a global "post". Understand that the drive is to be turned up totally in advance. Then you leave it alone and do your gain adjustments and mixing tasks in relation to that predefined setting. If you decide to use it after you've already set your levels and other things you can't expect to be drastic with it. Even if we use it after the fact it is still a pre effect we are applying. I've thrown it on some older projects and either kept the drive turned off, or when on and set right at 0 the warm characteristic is great.

 

Last edited: Mar 1, 2016