Time related effects (including acoustics). It's more that a certain mic focuses on certain frequencies a particular way or responds dynamically in a particular way and the perspective you're hearing is the color.Sound quality/character isn't THAT complicated or "magical". "Color" isn't something added on top by a certain mic. You usually want the cleanest signal path to your recording medium to capture the most sound. Trying to keep a serious tone and explain why I think this can only be snake oil.
But if you actually learn how to use the thing and adjust it to hit like you hear in your head, you get a lot further and the presets start to look silly and pointless. Yep, you get a signature sound with preset number 123 and the mix is better. This strikes me like say, presets on a compressor plugin. But you can do all that simulation digitally anyway and if you start with traditional high quality mics and preamps you'll get a lot more bang for the buck in the long run. I have no doubt that the thing delivers some usable results and hits a few "sound textures" recognizably (in the way that an mp3 sounds like a CD.
You're certainly not going to get that with an extra round of AD-DA conversions and DSP. It's more that a certain mic focuses on certain frequencies a particular way or responds dynamically in a particular way and the perspective you're hearing is the color. You can only push around what's already there. You can't create nuance that wasn't recorded by processing it in. Save your money for real mics and preamps. Then it would lay nice next to other tracks recorded with the real deal. If this modeling is in the ballpark or better. The Royer was the only one that was easy to pick out. Other then 2 songs I where I used a Royer121 for vocals after I mixed you really couldn't pick out which was M49 or KSM32 or the U95. Where the singer tracked with me on a Soundelux U95s and KSM32.īut also he did tracks at Q division in Boston with an M49 they all sounded great. I mean it may or may not be perfect but would help mixing. Or even if an artist did some vocal tracks for a project at some other studio with a 1073 Elam251 setup.īut is now at your place to do a few vocals would be nice if you could sort of get an in the ball park setup. You can use the other mic and do some gtr amps if you want.īut I'd be more interested in just having a few high end options. I have plenty of mics and pres for that sort of thing.īut the idea if it sounds good to at least have a few good options of other vocal mics is nice.Īnd a bonus would be yeah. But Steven has mentioned mic up drum kit with a bunch of these. I don't care about the idea of having several systems. I can't wait for folks to try out the product and totally dig being able to get away from vintage gear lust/insanity the gripes me all too often. I love their attention to absolute detail, passion for audio and for fully embracing analog emulation. So in a way Slate is just selling you presets for your eq and saturation, etc-albeit ones that have been shown over time to work really well! Maybe this is great or maybe we can get there by learning how to use our plugins better.Īnyway, by no means am I saying the Slate virtual plugin may not be a totally great. However, lately I've found that I don't change physical mics and rerecord but carefully adjust the eq and saturation (izotope trash is my new favorite plug). So in this way Slate is reproducing the working style of the studios of yesteryear-something doesn't sound right? - try another mic/preamp etc, except this time its digital. Or rather, it was easier and accepted practice to "manipulate" it by selection of mic and preamp etc. But maybe the reason that engineers did this is that, unlike today with digital technology, was it wasn't possible to manipulate the eq and saturation exactly like that after recording. For example, a particular mic with mid range bump and saturation sounded good in a mix with other instruments. Before digital, engineers used microphones to zero in on desirable sounds. However, I wonder if its a little bit of the case of the "iron horse" (early car designs imitated horses because horses were what people were familiar with "driving"). The Virtual Microphone system is a great concept and it looks very attractive. I use his drum samples all the time and they are top notch.