It takes a lot of plugins to do it, even the strongest cpu might not be enough, you probably need additional computer/s.
This is why it is hard to fool people when doing vintage production only ITB.
This is very different from doing modern music production or even heavy metal, pop, rock or hip hop.
Vintage 50s, 60s or 70s sound takes a lot more tinkering, planning and experience.

 

Or simply chords that contain more than three notes and skilled musicians. Don't know how you'll get that with nice ploogins or some nice looking steel boxes.

If you play Ramones with 5 string barre chords I can guarantee you you'll sound vintage as hell.

 

Last edited: Sep 28, 2021

Instead of obsessing over vintage/analog better obsess over proper acoustic treatment. Then you'll hear even 0.5 dB eq changes. Then you'll be able to dial in whatever character you want your sound to have because you can really hear what you do. Sadly room treatment is boring while vintage/analog is "vibezzzzzz"

 

Are we obsessing again about hardware that a tiny tiny percent of us have actually used more than once?

 

The behavior of tubes, capacitors, transformers and transistor circuitry must be entirely modeled and reproduced. Those units are made of different materials, their natural inconsistency and high probability of 'randomness' is what makes them sound unique and.. 'vintage'.

Maybe, in a much later future, with more computing power and especially more complex algorithms, it may sound very close. There is hope, because take a look at what happened to the 35mm film and where it is now with digital cameras / photography. (still, the color look more natural on a picture taken using some iconic kodak film than with some high end digital camera with a 128MP sensor)

 

This is why it takes chains, to get those imperfections and movement. You can not just slap a stock compressor and move on.
I think of it as art.

 

99% of the people in this forum couldn't tell the difference between an analog mix and ITB mix if their lives depended on it.

 

Define vintage sound, please?

 

Bounce/print your audio tracks first.

 

Agreed, I was very discouraged to use my best phat racks/vintage processing cuz of cpu hit. Now with BIP M4L in ableton i can bounce small sections easily and im much less concerned about cpu hit. Max out your cpu for a better sound and then just bounce. If u can

 

It is an obsession and inspiration but not sure i like the condescending tone of this statement because it implies i or others who participate in this thread have no experience with vintage gear.
We are talking about limitations of computer power when dealing with ITB vintage chains of plugins.

 

There is literally no limitation of computers as of now. There is nothing that you can think of that can't be done by a computer. The only limit is you and your experience in chosing the most efficient way of doing the said thing, suggested by the fact that you started the thread. Do you really need 100x instances of Acustica, do you need all Diva instances on "divine"? Do you need everything oversampled? etc. No one is able to teach experience and, as I mentioned above, make sure your monitors truly give you a real representation of your work. Cheers!

 

Nah, its exactly my experience knowing what works well to get the sound i have in my head fast but it takes a lot of cpu power.

 

Nonsense, just put some vintage plugins on your insert to get "the ITB vintage sound".
Renaissance Equalizer and Compressor for example... very light on CPU.

 

If vintage gear were perfect they would sound like plugins

 

I like your answer because you get it.
Most talk about room treatment and other reasons, but the core of the problem is the authenticity of plugins that is hard to emulate even with chains of carefully selected plugins which is cpu demanding.

 

and the other 1% (if they exist) will tell you that the difference is totally irrelevant.