Shrine

experimental ambient sound drift

"Today's music production is IT-based and cannot be operated without a passing knowledge of computing, although it seems that it can be operated without a passing knowledge of audio."

Today's music production may be IT-based (and it should be), but anyone who has ever dealt with it knows that software doesn't sound as full and deep as hardware, at the moment at least.

I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to get the sound from my DAW to sound like hardware, but it was a waste of time, I never could get that sound. I checked many books about mixing and mastering, but the answer wasn't there... I read all the crazy stuff, I knew about Nyquist and limits of sampling frequencies, I knew about oversampling, volterra kernels, harmonic distortion of several orders, I was familiar with Fletcher–Munson curves or equal-loudness contours, and I learned a lot of technical stuff, but it didn't help. There was something missing.

I was aware of how many professionals use software synths and effects and I started to realize that the difference between me and them is that they mix their tracks on huge hardware consoles and then send them for processing to mastering engineers with tens of thousands of dollars worth of outboard equipment, so eventually I decided that someday I'll build up my own analog rig and will process my mixes with hardware.
But it took me years to realize what kind of hardware I really need and what I don't.

I started to build my little home studio piece by piece in 2007, buying stuff I didn't really need, then selling it, then buying other stuff again. At first I thought that any piece of hardware is needed because it will make my sound better. Sometimes I bought gear just out of curiosity, or willingness to try it. Eventually I realized that hardware as a part of the creative process (synths, samplers, effects) is not really helping as I was able to achieve the same (and more) with software. As of now my audio rig is strictly built for processing, and more specifically analog summing and content enhancement, because that's where hardware really shines.

A very long VST delay perfect for ambient

Here is a little gift for you that's a good example of how superior software can be to hardware sometimes. It's a simple but very long VST delay with enourmous delay time of up to 600 seconds. No hardware can do that. Over the years I never needed delay time more than 64 seconds (most often I need something between 0 and 16 seconds), but considering that other delays are typically providing 3 seconds of delay time, this is pure gold. Originally it was a Synth Edit module, but converted to VST plugin a long ago by the guy who's running this website: xoxos.net, and shared for free on the KVR Audio forum.

The plugin itself is no longer available anywhere on the internet so I decided to share it here. Keep in mind that it's a 32-bit plugin so you will need a bit-bridge to use it in a 64-bit DAW. I myself never had a single problem using it bridged for many years already. Click on the image below to download the archive, then extract the VST dll (PC Windows only, no MAC version) and integrate it to your DAW:

Very long delay