I was really curious about what was happening to the “tone” when in Re-Mic mode. So here are some frequency charts for different settings in the UAD Sound City Studio plugin.
As always, “if it sounds good…” or whatever silly saying you want to throw out there, but I was interested in how the frequencies were being shaped. To actually approach something like simulating a studio (sound of a mic within their space, their compressors or compression techniques, Neve-style eq, etc.) the only thing worth messing with is Re-Mic mode. Otherwise you just have a reverb with some extra bells and whistles (howbeit an excellent and engaging one). And I was curious what was happening to the shape of the sound in order to do this.
Let me be clear that looking at a frequency analysis of a reverb doesn’t tell the whole story about the “space”, obviously. However, Re-Mic is supposed to take your sound and make it seem as if it was recorded through a certain mic in a certain space. From there it can be compressed, EQ-ed, etc. just as if recorded at Sound City Studios through one of their mics. Analyzing how this process affects the “tonality” of your original recording gives some insight into what is happening, or more importantly gives a starting point to knowing the changes that will occur.
A few things (and hints):
- Pink noise measured with frequency curve normalized to 1/2 octave. The actual curve is more complex than the graphs show, but I think this gives a more accessible reading while still maintaining overall accuracy.
- I only measured the Re-Mic mode, and the “close” mics, for the reasons above. I don’t really care about what reverb “looks” like, but I do care what “Re-Micing” to simulate a studio is doing to the sound.
- I didn’t measure the guitar/re-amping settings because I expect sound coming through cabinets and so forth to sound significantly different from the original. Again, I would not expect that when “Re-Micing” a vocal (for instance) in a way that is attempting to recreate a mic-in-a-studio accurately.
- I also didn’t post the Ensemble setting, because I thought I would leave something for you to do!
- I did some quick analysis of the compressor settings – see part two. The helpful thing to note is the dynamics curve of the 1176LN compared to the Bus compared to the Crush. The crush isn’t really all that “crushy” and the 1176LN is in the “all buttons in” setting. (Take a look at the UAD 1176LN if you like.) Also, the one knob controls ratio, attack and release all at once. Too bad, actually.
- Speaking of the compressors, the “Air” and “Encode” are old tricks using noise reduction hardware, in order to bring out the top end. I didn’t post any graphs for the “Gate” mode, for obvious reasons.
- Don’t get too hung up with this, but it does lead to some possibilities for what you do to a signal before feeding it to the plugin.
- The drier the signal you put in, the better the result (in my opinion). Placing a de-verb before this had some good results on a few things.
- There is a part two! (Or else the post would scroll forever.)
- One more time—this is not a be all, end all. It’s just something I was curious about and thought it might be helpful (or educational) for others.
Drum Setting
Acoustic Setting
