Hi guys,
First, thanks for jumping in, Ben.
Anyway, I did some tests here. I really can't help myself. My curiosity is too strong.
I ended up with a bunch of analytical images which are pretty boring to most people. Just in case, here's a link to them, in case anyone is interested. Each image is named accordingly to its representation, i.e; "whitenoise, masterbus, lowshelf low", which means I've sent whitenoise to the masterbus and applied a full negative lowshelf eq.
Link to the full album:
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...t=3&page=1
Anyway, here are my most interesting observations...
The mixbus tape really does add a smooth negative highshelf roll-off by itself, starting at around 5Khz, as you can see here:
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...ort=3&o=21
And the mixbus tape does add a bunch of third-order harmonics indeed. This test was done using a 1Khz sine wave. You can observe harmonic spikes at 3,5,7,9 and 11Khz:
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...ort=3&o=19
(The masterbus tape behaves a little differently. It just adds one harmonic at 3Khz, instead of a sequence of them)
Another interesting observation is that the track/channel EQ adds a small lowshelf filter by itself, even if you leave all the knobs in the neutral position. In other words, turn it on and it automatically adds a lowshelf, as you can see here.
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...ort=3&o=13
There are other interesting things. All three EQs (track, mixbus, master) behave very differently indeed. The track EQ is more surgical and has a very wide gain range, it imparts a wide lowshelf automatically even if all knobs are neutral. The mixbus EQ has nice, wide and smooth curves. The master EQ is very very very subtle.
The compressors are all extremely clean and transparent, as far as I could test them. Apparently none of them produced any harmonics, aliasing or unusual artifacts, as far as measuring with a static 1Khz sine waves allows to observe.
My basic preliminary conclusion is that Mixbus sounds great because it's clean and transparent. Instead of emulating the "analogue sound" by adding excessive distortion and harmonics, it does it by avoiding the appearance of inharmonic digital artifacts. It's got a very transparent and clean signal flow.
95% of so called "analogue inspired" plugins are nothing but a mess of aliasing, inharmonic distortions and exaggerated harmonics with pretty GUIs. Add those on every track of a production and you'll end up with a big mess at the end of the chain.
That's NOT how Mixbus does its thing, apparently; There's no saturation anywhere besides a very moderate amount of harmonics on the tape saturation stage. EQs and Comps are crystal clear. Maybe the openness and depth of its mixes are simply the result of good and clean algorithms, tasteful equalizing curves and transparent compression after all.
Anyway, that's it.
Morgan.
First, thanks for jumping in, Ben.
Anyway, I did some tests here. I really can't help myself. My curiosity is too strong.
I ended up with a bunch of analytical images which are pretty boring to most people. Just in case, here's a link to them, in case anyone is interested. Each image is named accordingly to its representation, i.e; "whitenoise, masterbus, lowshelf low", which means I've sent whitenoise to the masterbus and applied a full negative lowshelf eq.
Link to the full album:
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...t=3&page=1
Anyway, here are my most interesting observations...
The mixbus tape really does add a smooth negative highshelf roll-off by itself, starting at around 5Khz, as you can see here:
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...ort=3&o=21
And the mixbus tape does add a bunch of third-order harmonics indeed. This test was done using a 1Khz sine wave. You can observe harmonic spikes at 3,5,7,9 and 11Khz:
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...ort=3&o=19
(The masterbus tape behaves a little differently. It just adds one harmonic at 3Khz, instead of a sequence of them)
Another interesting observation is that the track/channel EQ adds a small lowshelf filter by itself, even if you leave all the knobs in the neutral position. In other words, turn it on and it automatically adds a lowshelf, as you can see here.
http://s592.photobucket.com/user/rafaelm...ort=3&o=13
There are other interesting things. All three EQs (track, mixbus, master) behave very differently indeed. The track EQ is more surgical and has a very wide gain range, it imparts a wide lowshelf automatically even if all knobs are neutral. The mixbus EQ has nice, wide and smooth curves. The master EQ is very very very subtle.
The compressors are all extremely clean and transparent, as far as I could test them. Apparently none of them produced any harmonics, aliasing or unusual artifacts, as far as measuring with a static 1Khz sine waves allows to observe.
My basic preliminary conclusion is that Mixbus sounds great because it's clean and transparent. Instead of emulating the "analogue sound" by adding excessive distortion and harmonics, it does it by avoiding the appearance of inharmonic digital artifacts. It's got a very transparent and clean signal flow.
95% of so called "analogue inspired" plugins are nothing but a mess of aliasing, inharmonic distortions and exaggerated harmonics with pretty GUIs. Add those on every track of a production and you'll end up with a big mess at the end of the chain.
That's NOT how Mixbus does its thing, apparently; There's no saturation anywhere besides a very moderate amount of harmonics on the tape saturation stage. EQs and Comps are crystal clear. Maybe the openness and depth of its mixes are simply the result of good and clean algorithms, tasteful equalizing curves and transparent compression after all.
Anyway, that's it.
Morgan.
