It's the Broadway singers. When a plugin has enough of em, it turns into a musical. Cue in the overly friendly forest animals and you won't only have a musical plugin, but a disney one!

 

To me musical means expressive. That's why musical for me might not be musical for you. Because by hearing something I know I can take out something of value out of it, I can express myself using it just like when using words you type down lyrics. It's obvious that it's not the same for everybody because each one of us has a different background. I heard people talking wonders about a piano library recorded ages ago, reworked in recent years, I swear everyone just faints or gets wet everytime a "good emotional piano for" thread comes up but to me is utter crap even from the pricing standpoint. Give me 1000 buck to compose something with it and I still wouldn't be able to because I don't hear what I put on the keys coming out as a sound. But the same simple thing can work wonders on other people hands. A beat machine + vocals, now make a hit! Isn't that what Royals is? I am simplifying too much but you should get the idea by now.
As for mastering plugins, eq or anything else, musical might refer to the way they handle the material. Certain eq might have classic bell shapes that you like more for your type of mixing or you simply love more because you know how to work with them in a non destructive way. In mixing more often than not less is more.

 

If they knew them cheap bastards would not come to us, and pay us.

If I knew that much, why would I need to see a mechanic who may not even know as much

 

God forbid.

 

Nah it isn't. Because within a range of 3-4k, there are many frequencies! And the range of what we call Presence is slightly different for each instrument.
I used to be a grammar nazi, so I can understand why people are getting a bit affected by this topic!
I don't doubt the difference in subjective opinions of sound, but all I can say is this.
When I was a teenager, before plugins were invented, I was trained (they did their best, but alas!) by guys who are in their 70s now who have worked with almost every big name.
They used these words back then.
I can't help thinking that anybody who doesn't understand this just hasn't yet been involved with music and mixing as a profession.

 

Exactly what i was trying to say, but you said it better

 

I agree with @vsuper - Fabfilter. Some of their plugs are amazing. I've been futzing around with them for hours, getting to know them. Their range of presets for each plug is impressive. Brings out stuff that's not even there with "normal" plugs.

 

Uh-oh. This one can add 'air' and 'pressure'. Any clue what it's doing?



Just friendly teasing.

 

I have two that can do a better job of adding "air" and "pressure" as needed with zero latency.
AIR

PRESSURE

 

Working great on SSL's, I can confirm.

 

No but today we can find out.
I also found out that the warm pultec black rooster just get's a bit lowmid sat and a bit boosting in this area.
Nothing warm about it. It's just technical.

And that's basically the answer for the thread question. We can find it out.

 

Last edited: Jul 26, 2020

There should be no defintive or exactness to the creative use of language. This is a gift. Stodgy denotation has never brought us wonderment, thrilling musicical concoctions or any art that pours us into the sweet viscous waters of the moment in order to float effortlessly and to lose ourselves, perhaps and only for a bit of a space of time at a clip in the beauty that transcends rational thought while sculpting our work to our own personal imperfection. There is nothing that is static or truly perfect, but rather since there is nothing at rest in our universe, all is constantly changing and hardly able to be pinned down and claimed as one's own. As artists definitions can only take us part of the way on the path of our dreams, the road must fork and we must hack our way with machete in hand through undiscovered territory to hopefully come through to the clearing where the sun reveals, delineates the shadow from the light and outlines where we may now choose and tell our personal stories. Boomy, dull, airy and scooped are but the starting point for the process of gussying up a mix or an individual track, the touchstone before our emotion guides our fingers and informs us of how to finesse the millions of puzzle pieces into a picture whole, one that we aurally paint using the accumulated knowledge of the hours spent at the craft. Recipes are great for baking cookies but never for creating art that is unique and personal...and so it is too counterintuitive for the use of predefined equalization to carve a living and breathing musical sculpture. Always and never...never.

 

Last edited: Jul 26, 2020

To me the term musical means that a device alters the harmonic content of a sound source even if you just put it on a channel before you actually start to tweak anything so the sound passes through the device "without being processed", which you could describe as the device having it's own sound, thus musical.

 

I agree to a certain extent. If it comes down to the artistic element, you can't pinpoint it and there is a lot of freedom. When it comes to terms like musical, presence, and most of the others mentioned before, they are not creative terms, they are representations for specific qualities that mean specific things. You wouldn't want to tell your co-worker that you need that thing with the metal head and the wooden stick attached to it, you just would ask for the hammer. In the same way those words are representations of different frequency areas or other qualities that roughly mean the same thing to professionals that use them. It is not 100% accurate of course, but there is a general understanding about what those terms represent or at least it should be.

 

And language is a living medium, even having differences between areas of the same country. And colloquialisms become everyday tools. I remember finding that hard to accept, but I would go mad if I didn't!
To @minozheros Thanx.

 

One's talent or lack there of, makes something/anything musical, eh?!

 

Sound engineer (frenetic attitude, dilated pupils): Big chune man! There's a vibe in it: it's really airy, with a lot of presence. I'd just crush the heat on the boomy end and add a more neutral touch on the warmer tones, so that the sloppy timing will pop out, then I'll squash those harsh frequencies so to give that cold feeling. The sound is gonna be more musical and groovy.

Me (placing a hand on his shoulder): Bro... you have a serious problem with methamphetamine, have you ever thought about quitting?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jul 27, 2020