Dat Analogue W A R M T H

Modern producers love the idea of analog without analog. They want the tone of analog, but the perfect replication, zero physical size, and ease of multiple instances of digital. While personally I use actual analog to get the analog sound, from analog sound sources to my analog console, run through analog rack gear and into my analog summer which then goes to my interface for digital conversion and recording, if the tone is all you’re after with none of the idiosyncrasies, this article will help.

The first point to note is that ‘that analog sound’ isn’t just shoving everything through a tube emulator and analog compressor emulator and saying it’s analog. You can, however, run each channel into an analog preamp or channel strip plugin, use analog emulated effects, EQs, compressors, etc., in the mixing stages, then master with more analog modeled plugins like compressors, EQs, limiters, exciters, wideners, etc. Sound like a lot of work? Probably is for those not used to working with analog, and for a totally digital environment it is a bit overboard and you may notice performance issues. However, in an analog studio, this is the norm, just with actual analog preamps, channel strips, compressors, EQs, etc.

So, shy of getting a ton of analog gear or using an insane number of plugins, what options are there? That depends on what aspect(s) of analog you want. What people don’t know is analog tries to be as clean and clear as possible, so short of inducing heavy saturation or intentionally using poorly designed devices, analog tends to sound pretty clean. Certain devices, like vari-mu and FET compressors, can impart their own tone if driven hard, and preamps tend to be clear and transparent unless you drive them. If that ‘overdrive’ sound is what you want, using a saturator plug-in can get the results you want. Saturation is what happens when a signal entering a component, such as a tube or transistor, has almost more signal than it can handle going through it. The loudest parts of the signal will softclip, usually with a non-linear frequency  response. That subtle distortion of the signal causes low end compression and high end harmonic generation.