when i watched the introduction video on waves site towards the end Mark ´Spike´ Stent sase something about play with the Mic button there going to get a surprise LoL ya surprise it sounds like sh.t to me maybe i'm using it wrong just want to know ether peoples thoughts what do you guy's think ?

 

there are 32 options for each console, some of them sound amazing...(try to measure the input so it doesn't get out of hand).

 

o ok thanks

 

One word. Led Zeppelin - Black Dog guitars and The Beatles - Revolution fuzzed guitar intro

its a very cool distortion feature. I tried it on a vocal bus.

 

Thats like... 8 words.

 

Ya this thing makes things sound full and warm sounds grate when you know your way around it im a hip hop producer but you gota love Led Zeppelin you got to get the Led out some times with stairway to heaven

 

Well it comes under distortion in the list waves plugs & distortion sounds like s**t

 

Mic button is most likely to boost quiet sounds up to a analog distortion level, after all it is a mic button...
Its probably boosting the level maybe 20db+ into the headroom so thats why you hear distortion on line level signals.

 

It's to emulate useing a phono input. Your sound file will run threw the plugin as a emulation of the signal running at line level on the channel, click the button and its sent to the phono input not the lint input. So it's a emulation of line level signal sent into a phono input.

They've made a full emulation of each channel.
Running a line level signal into a channels phono input is something you can do with the real thing so they added it to their emulation of the channels.

It's an effect, someone will have a use for it.


I think they thought the same thing when they made it judgeing of the length of time it's shown in the demo.

 

mic. line level into mic level. clip.

 

Exsacterly but for analogy gear clipping also distorts the sound. In electronics you'd call it a saturated signal, the signal is almost all there but the wave is squashed. Digital just clips, creates straight line across where it's gone over forming almost a square wave.

The hole idea behind the plugin seems to be based on the effects gained from running sigals above 0dB on analogy gear.

The mic button is only an effect added to compleat the emulation as far as I see, I can't see me useing it.
Someone ask what it dose an that's what it dose and as far as I know running line level into mic level is the effect it's giveing.

It's a form of clip'd distortion.

Clipping in digital adds an almost infinate number of odd hymonics, hence the square wave apperance.
Annalogy clipping only adds a few harmonics creating a saturated shape, hence the thick ness to the sound or warmth.

People who used analogy and have tecniques will find it great.
My only exsperience is with tape machines. When recording aim for red, so between +3dB and +8dB, and use the saturation circuit.

The thing I've found with it is that -3dB is where the 0dB should be on the meters. Everything above -3dB,ie red part, has the saturation applied so gains the hymonics or warmth or whatever we're calling it.

(I'm not sure the top wave and the other 2 are lined up right cause I trimed the image before takeing the next screen short. also I normally use cubase but soundforge gives a clearer image of change)

I think the top file is alittle too far left ie shows slightly earlyer in the wave but its enough to give an idea

 

You guys realise that the meters (for some ridiculous reason) display output signal in dBFS right? Why Waves opted to put PPM meters on their analog console modelling plugins is completely beyond me, especially when most of their recent modelling programs have employed VU meters just like the original hardware. Obviously this is going to confuse most people (especially as they print VU on the freaking meters!!) and lead to most people mixing into the plugins at levels far hotter than what they should be.

If you are using NLS your signal should not be anywhere near the top of the meter. I highly recommend you use a proper VU meter to gain-stage your signals before they hit NLS. Here is a link to a great free VST plug: dBVU

sleepytimerecords.com





And there's always the old *** freebie: *** VintageMeter

***audioware.com/free_***_plug-ins

 

I imagine anyone on here who has NLS will have Kramer Master Tape right? The meters in KMT are proper VU meters calibrated (by default) to -18dBFS.

If you want to see why the NLS meters are useless for the proper operation of NLS put KMT after NLS Buss on your mix bus and watch the meters on both plugs as you play some non-percussive program material through your mix bus.

Calibrate your gain-staging so that the meters hover around 0dBVU on the KMT.

Now look at the meters on NLS . . this is the ideal operating range for NLS. Depending on your program material they are probably hovering around -12dBFS . . yep, near the bottom of the scale. This is useless for setting a proper operating level. Also, the response of VU meters is quite slow, about 300ms. This correlates more with human hearing and reflects the perceived loudness of your program material much more effectively than a PPM meter.

Again, Waves have included proper VUs in lots of modelling projects recently . . why they've neglected to do so in the one plugin where it's imperative to do so baffles me!?! Obviously people will then just run the plug too hot and complain that it sounds shit!?!

 

great tip! I assume when you do that the NLS Buss has to be to default. (The drive and trim knob at 0DB) ?? as well as the KMT at full reset?

 

Well, I've noticed that you can bypass the KMT and the meters still function (in Cubase anyway), so you could put bypassed KMT before NLS and just use the VU meters if you wish . . if you put a second bypassed KMT after NLS you could go nuts with the NLS drive and use the second KMT to monitor the output level . . but given that the drive control on NLS reduces the internal headroom and thus exaggerates the saturation I'd personally be more inclined to just leave the drive at 0 and push hotter signal into NLS instead (the difference in approach is especially apparent with the SSL bus) . . in fact I really think they should have left the drive control off the plugin

Alternatively you could buy Klanghelm VUMT for about $5, it's a great VU meter and very customisable