Hardware vs Plugins Effects

One of my favorite things to do when tracking is to run stuff through guitar pedals, distortion boxes, spring reverbs, FX units or usually some combination thereof.  I love the character that distortion can bring out on a vocal or a drum track or a keyboard patch, or the emotion a dark and trashy spring reverb can lend to a particular part. Delays, reverbs, distortions these things take sounds and re-contextualize them. They make sounds seem darker, happier, closer, farther away, etc… As an engineer, those are important things to be able to accomplish.

In many ways, there’s never been a better time for effects. With plugins, you now have access to every kind of effect you could imagine, whereas in the past you either had to create an effect manually (ala reverb chambers, tape loops, etc…) or buy a really expensive dedicated processor like a plate reverb or a Lexicon 480, which only big commercial studios could afford. Not to mention that plugins don’t have to be maintained. They sound the same every time, and you can lock them perfectly to the tempo of your session at the click of a button.

All of the above features are great things, but they create a few problems. For one thing, everyone has the same plugins with the same presets. You wouldn’t think that would be a huge deal, as most of these plugins are endlessly tweakable, but the fact of the matter is that the stock setting or the presets end up getting used all the time because 1) They’re easy and 2) They already sound great. Someone’s done the work for you. And that’s really the biggest downside that I see with plugin effects. You have an idea, pull up a plugin, find something that works and move on. Plugin effects don’t usually inspire me to create some unique, signature sound for a specific part or song.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love plugins. The SoundToys bundle, in particular EchoBoy, are huge favorites of mine and plugins that I use every day. But I want to encourage you to, literally, get out of the box and try some hardware effects, preferably analog ones that don’t have banks of presets. In every studio I’ve ever been in there’s a closet or tech room or box somewhere full of unused guitar pedals or old reverbs or weird crappy eqs. Even a lot of the older, cheapo digital fx boxes can be great…and the best part is that they’re not getting used by everyone and their brother! For me, there’s something inspiring about physically connecting an old distortion pedal to a digital delay box and then running that through an old home stereo spring reverb or whatever the case may be. Not having presets and having to use the knobs and switches on a piece of hardware is just more fun.

Things get even more interesting when you use things for something they weren’t intended to do. Take a cheap or crappy sounding EQ and overdrive it and use it as a lofi distortion box. Or use it as filter/tone control in front of a reverb. Don’t have any old effects laying around? Use guitar amps! Grab a ReAmp box and send vocals out to a guitar amp with spring reverb on it, record it back in and use that as your vocal reverb. Send drums to an amp setup in a hallway and mic the amp from a distance for some overdriven ambience. Or how about this one: Use your piano as a reverb chamber. Weigh down the sustain pedal, put a speaker near one end of the strings and a mic at the other and you’ve got a totally unique reverb sound.

These are just a few examples to hopefully inspire you. Break out that old junk and start experimenting. Here’s a partial shot of my little FX station. Enjoy!

Tags | fx, tips