Fader 13

[Dingo]

As the Black Friday emails start to fill my inbox, I am amazed at the number of totally esoteric one trick ponies there are on the market.
The pursuit of a magic 'glue' and 'analog' fairy dust appears to increase each year.

So I thought a real plugin was needed, one that reflects the real analog 'condition'...

With decades spent rock / roll mixing on magnetic with actual knobs and real faders I am distilling the highlights into a new series of plugins.

Fader 13 is everything that analog seekers could want... the Holy Grail of fail.

We don't want to cramp your style... so our handy presets will include:

Dry solder joint - intermittent signal dropouts, spikes and crackle
One legged signal path - just dropping off 6dB and your bottom ended.
Microphonic state - everything you tap taps back
Buckets of hum with harmonics - we have both flavours 50 & 60.
Hiss you cannot miss - good old yummy analog noise.
Distortion - we raise the floor and lower the ceiling.
Failing capacitors - dry caps crackling an old favourite.
Itchy and scratchy - crusty crackles and noise when you twiddle the knobs.
Resist or die - the unmistakeable roll off of failed resistors.
RX_RF - pickup your local taxi or cop radio bands with this doozy.

These are just a few of the console based analog gems I have experienced... next plugin will be..

Champex Old Master 123 - fag ash in the tape path, coffee across the Master, drop outs, shedding, over biased, off azimuth with woeful flutter and non aligned zenith this little plugin will wrap your head in analog goodness

[sunrat]

Gearslutz goes nuts!

[Theotherguy]

Dingo, From one analog guy to another.  (Where is my spool of solder) Thanks for this thread. Really on point. I know Max will appreciate it. I nearly fell off my chair.
Of course, it won't stop those seeking the magic dust.
Thanks Again
Alex

[jeff_sloan]

I grew up analog, and never liked it!
I would listen to the best outboard effects, and to me, hear tons of hiss in "the quietest xyz ever".

I ran my FOH mains amps at about 9 o'clock, instead of all the way to 0 like most.
It got rid of the constant hiss, and let me run the signal to it hot without killing everyone.

What I really can't stand, is guitar amp and effect emulation that includes all the noise, like it makes it good/better...
Give me emulation for the intended sound, without all the hiss, hum, etc.
Can it not be done?
I understand if someone wants a recording through a sim and tries to pass it off like it was recorded with the real thing, but give me a switch to get rid of the junk altogether. NOT a noise gate, I want the sound clean to begin with.

[Holger]

Dingo, could you please add an soldering plugin as well - as you know, every dry solder joint sounds much better if we add a huge amount of cheap solder. And if we do it for every instance, we'll have different crackles on every channel!

[tseaver]

Dingo, you need to sell a "smell-a-vision" add-on which replicates the smell of the various board components undergoing slow heat-degradation:  otherwise, no *real* audio engineer will believe the sounds you are replicating.

Extra bonus points for replicating the cognitive damage due to bad lead-based solder joints overheating.

[Dingo]

Great idea @tseaver ... I miss the smell of burning caps and hot metal.... I have been thinking of a USB powered knee warmer to give you the hot belly pan effect.
I think the world took a step back with lead free solder - just makes the sound that bit blander.