Industry standards for effects?

[rectifryer]

Hi guys.

I am wondering what are the common reverbs/compressors/modulators/eqs used today?

I ask because I keep trying equipment that doesnt seem to do exactly what I want. Maybe the popular choices of professionals will offer more versatility?

There are some tones from my youth that I created with some lower tier line 6 equipment that I would like to replicate. I dont really want to bring a spider in my humble small studio for just a single track but will if I have too.

Feel free to move this. I dont feel like my studio is a 1k studio, its more like 10k but that is crap compared to most guys here hahaha.

[kmetal]

Well, as far as pluggins go Waves, sonnox, and UAD offerings are pretty common in professional studios. Outboard stuff your looking at eventide, lexicon, t.c electronic, Neve, dbx, Focusrite, Universal Audio, Manley, and API. These as well as other offerings are some common, high-end brands. What is good for you will be determined by what sound characteristics you want/expect from a piece of equipment. Most expensive doesn't always mean it's the best for your needs.

If you like the sound of a line 6 spider, check out their POD, Toneport, and amp simulator software. "amplitube" by IK Multimedia offers a free version of their amp sim software i think.
If you describe in more detail what you have, and what you want from it, you'll get more specific recommendations.
Good Luck

[djmukilteo]

Hi guys.

I am wondering what are the common reverbs/compressors/modulators/eqs used today?

I ask because I keep trying equipment that doesnt seem to do exactly what I want. Maybe the popular choices of professionals will offer more versatility?

There are some tones from my youth that I created with some lower tier line 6 equipment that I would like to replicate. I dont really want to bring a spider in my humble small studio for just a single track but will if I have too.

Feel free to move this. I dont feel like my studio is a 1k studio, its more like 10k but that is crap compared to most guys here hahaha.

Not sure what sort of recording equipment you are using currently because you didn't list anything.
1K or 10k doesn't say much
Are you using a computer and DAW or strictly vintage guitar amps and mics with a mixer and tape?
As far as the reverb Lexicon would have the old school tones you might be looking for.
Are you really 67? Line 6 (pretty low end) stuff hasn't been around that long?

[Mirrormix]

I'm always entertained at the phrase "industry standard".

I imagine Don Draper in a meeting with the rest of the characters from Mad Men trying to figure out how to sell an entire upcoming generation of wanna be recordists on the idea of needing to buy more expensive versions of the same old stuff that people everywhere have been using for ages to do the same things that have always been done.

Of course I'm just being silly.

But the truth is there is no such thing as an "industry standard", ESPECIALLY with a creative "industry" like audio production. So many people use what they want and don't talk about it because it really doesn't matter.

Yeah, there are things that are crazy popular, mostly because they do what's asked of them without much fuss. But time and again I see people with all kinds of really cool, "popular" gear and all kinds of really lame sounding recordings. So I'm pretty sure "industry standard" is a euphemism for "popular"

...or maybe it's a marketing term that roughly translates to: "This piece of gear will do nothing to help you make better sounding records because actually you're deaf (or you might as well be with the sounds you put out) but we really would like you to know that there are people who actually CAN hear that sometimes use gear similar to this piece and they make pretty good sounding records, therefore you using OUR knock off of the real deal will get you (in your own mind) closer to feeling like you're involved in the audio industry".

But again I'm just being silly.

In any case "industry standard" is BS.

Now if you want to get specific about what gear you're using that you're not getting along with and then clue us in as to what sound you're going for I'm sure you can get tons of replies from people that happen to use a good piece here or there and have found a few they like, maybe even some they like that help to work towards the specific sound you're going for.

As for me, I like the stuff that comes in the metal boxes the most.

[rectifryer]

Well, as far as pluggins go waves, sonnox, and UAD offerings are pretty common in professional studios. Outboard stuff your looking at eventide, lexicon, t.c electronic, neve, dbx, focusrite, universal audio, manley, and api. These as well as other offerings are some common, high-end brands. What is good for you will be determined by what sound characteristics you want/expect from a piece of equipment. Most expensive doesn't always mean it's the best for your needs.

If you like the sound of a line 6 spider, check out their POD, Toneport, and amp simulator software. "amplitube" by IK Multimedia offers a free version of their amp sim software i think.
If you describe in more detail what you have, and what you want from it, you'll get more specific recommendations.
Good Luck

Thanks for answering my question instead of going on a rant albeit a reasonable one.

No offense to the others, but I dont want advice on this particular instance on how to create something. I know the exact settings I had and have since then recreated it with the soundlab plugins. I would rather know what is being used then form a way to accomplish that sound instead of coming hear to make some poor engineer spoon feed the entire process to me.

Lets be specific here, I didnt list my equipment before because I didnt want input on it. I didnt ask for a review of it. When I do want a review or input, for the sake of clarity, I will probably start a thread for that purpose or just google it. In this case, site:recording.org searches on google turned up nothing so I felt a compulsory need to inquire!

I will take all your guys points to heart but for now, back to loitering anonymously...

For gits and shiggles, I will explain my prior problem and we can all diliberate on it.

I was having a hard time using sonitifus plugins to recreate a flanger that was used on the line 6 spider 1x12s from around 2004. The sonitifus program could never get the exact amount of bandwidth for the sweep or the type of sweep right. Also, the center of the sweep was wrong. It seems to be something this plugin wasnt designed to do. This brought me to realize, I am really struggling to get anything useful out of the Cakewalk plugins. The reverbs suck too. I figured I would get a good grasp of what everyone else is using then research from there.

At the moment, I am using and amd 6 core computer with 4 1tb drives, 8gb ram, delta 1010lt. Cakewalk Sonar 8 PE.

Mesa amps, multiple low end mics (SM57, solaris, ect) m-audio audio buddy(its was 50 dollars and my dmp3 is failing :().

[jimmys69]

Sorry to state the obvious here, but the processors that are used today, are the ones that give the sound a particular engineer is looking for. The only standard is deciding for yourself what works for you.

Selecting effects you like is what is important. Asking the question only shows that you have not had enough experience to form your own opinion. Yet. Try as many as possible and you decide. Any suggestion I make, will be just another opinion. Means pretty much nothing to anyone else. :D

[rectifryer]

Jimmy you got it completely right. Your post is enlightening. I have been googling for examples of the equipment someone previously posted to see what I like but I need to get out there and work with some other studios. I am only selling songs for myself at the moment, but there are some local studios that wouldnt mind working with me.

[Bertrand Batz]

As for plugins and freeware, try as many as you can and you may find some that work aight for u. If you liked that Line 6 flanger for any specific reason and you don't feel like having a good time to find it sounding right, just grab in the goddamn Line 6 inside and work it out. >;]

I've been reading and learning thru a lot of stuff and thought about industry standards before, but nowadays I'm more inclined to think it's more about standard practices than gear itself. As some guy said above, we all know people with 'vintage' and so called 'pro gear' that have their records sounding lame and still talk about their pro gear as a gift from god.

As a propaganda student, I see there'r a lotta misleading stuff coming out from companies as the same guy said before, to make people believe it's all about gear etc.

To a certain level, it's true. I can't tell you 'gear doesn't matter, just dial in whatever you like and it's done'. But there are lotta things that matter and are just forgotten by so much gear-centered thinking.

[Davedog]

Industry standard has become less of a Benchmark than it once was. Not to say there arent 'industry standards' as far as types of gear being used, but theres more of a definitive line drawn as to LEVELS of industry standard these days.

The seven figure plus studios will have a list similar to each other in every case as will your mid level studios, as will your upper end garage studios, basement studios, home facilities, all the way to the one desk in a bedroom set up.

There will be commonalities at every level. I suppose these commonalities could all be considered industry standards at their price point. Yours would seem to be (from your brief description) to be the singer/songwriter/home recordist who's recording his music for a purpose other than simply pleasure.

So that makes it somewhat more serious than a hobbyist.There are industry standards for this level too.

It sounds like you have plenty of horsepower in your computer to check out the myriad of programs available to achieve the sound you're searching for. Theres a lot of freeware as well as shareware to be had. But I also detect a bit of frustration with your current DAW and its related plug-ins. Or maybe its just the plugs themselves while the DAW is fine.

Theres a program called Reaper. I have heard great things about it. It has a nice beta version and the paid for version is quite inexpensive. I wont say that I know how it works but there are many on here who know it quite well and put it up with Pro Tools as a level of quality and ease of use. Just a thought. Perhaps a change will do you good.

Forgive me for nosing about too much.

Of course you could just buy a UAD-2 card.....they're spendy but they are industry standard throughout the entire sweep of the recording gear world.