The plug-ins that emulate the classic hardware have made it possible to have world class studio analog legends within everyone's reach. But do plug-in developers really manage to capture the magic of the originals without compromise?
Most of the equipment hardware may be cloned in the digital world. In general, analog hardware that has high bandwidth and behavior not linear presents the greatest difficulties in creating accurate models and it is often the sound of this non-linearity that makes original hardware so desired.
Hence, the more non-linear the nature of the hardware, the more complex the physical model required, and also the greater the processing power required by the digital system.
Anything created in hardware can be recreated in with . Writing software is a much smoother engineering method and, by its nature, much more flexible than a hardware design.
In some ways the idea that analog hardware is capable of doing something the average computer cannot do is outdated. The only limitations are only in the creativity, imagination, experience of the engineers who create the audio plug-ins and the lack of total understanding of the hardware to be cloned.
If your hardware processor is linear you can completely model the device by measuring its transfer function with sine sweeps or broadband test signals. While for non-linear ones it will be necessary to do more accurate tests and create unique models.
This week's test addresses just this big dilemma: Do plug-ins sound like hardware?
We used the equalizer 5500 API, version dual-channel of the famous 550B, comparing it with the version plug-in made by Waves.
What do we think?
Software is good
Hardware is great
Happy listening to all
Antonio Campeglia and the staff of The CTRL Room.
