Solid State Logic's Duende: EQ Compression Gate Expander Tutorials

If you're not familiar with Solid State Logic... get familiar right now. They are hands down one of the most sought after brands in the audio industry and continue to evolve as the market advances into the digital realm and beyond. Solid State Logic's consoles and gear can be found in studio's at Capitol Records, Dr. Dre's house, Sasha's project studio and Timbaland's tour bus. Not to mention the rest of SSL's history scattered about the planet in some of the most legendary studios known to man's ear. The sonic character, quality, unique features, and intuitive use of Solid State Logic's gear make it the obvious choice for professionals looking for that special touch on their production & mixes.

Solid State Logic has done some interesting things over the past few years to bring the legendary sound and quality of their products to a new market. A market fraught with creativity and independence, this would be where you would input your own name ______ ________. Because, chances are, if you're reading this blog you're precisely the person SSL has marketed their latest line of gear to. Gear like their X-Rack which allows users to custom build a small analog 500 series rack outfitted with any combination of SSL's dynamic processing and input modules. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what SSL manufactures that one could consider affordable. Cheap... No. The legendary sound you've heard on countless hit records since you've exited the womb... Yes! Obviously it's not "cheap" you're paying for quality, that quality is just now more affordable and more available to the public than ever before.

The Duende is mainly why we're here though. Solid State Logic released the first version of Duende in 2006, it's built on the same technology available in SSL's "C" Series Digital Console. Basically, it's a box with an SSL DSP engine that hosts SSL Plug-Ins for your DAW.  It's a baby SSL that lives in a box and connects to your computer, turning your laptop into a mult-core resource eating beast! The Duende comes available in a small FireWire desktop box and also a rack sized PCIe version for you HD users. Most of you will most likely benefit from the Duende Mini. Especially laptop users considering Duende lightens the CPU load when you're using the SSL Plug-ins specific to it.

I almost forgot to mention latency... Sloppy.  Let's say you have some outboard gear, for this example since we're in SSL land we will assume you have two SSL Super Analogue EQ's in a Mynx rack.  Now, assume you'd like to process the Moog synth line you just recorded into Pro Tools.  Before you do that though you slap a plug-in compressor on the synth track inside of Pro Tools.  So you've got the synth recorded into pro tools (at as high of quality possible cause you're a geek) Being processed by the plug-in compressor and you're ready to route it out to your interface so that you can run it through the SSL outboard EQ to sculpt the low end and bring out that high end analog noise post compression.  After some tweaking you decide that it's now sounding nice and you're ready to record it back into Pro Tools.  You record it back into PT, play it back with the rest of your mix and you will notice your synth track is now delayed and playing behind everything else.  You're now thinking... WTF???

This is because of the delay introduced by the plug-in compressor on the original recorded synth track.  It can only work so quickly to process the audio and spit it back out.  By the time it does this and the track is sent out to be processed and recorded back to PT it is behind the other tracks in PT.  This isn't really a problem in Logic and other DAW's because most have automatic delay compensation.  Pro Tools LE does not though and you have to either adjust the timing by hand and move the recorded waveform back in time or find out the delay time and then add digi's delay compensation plug-in (I will do a tutorial on this process very soon)  Now hopefully you see why this is a problem and can be quite a pain in the ass.  Not all plug-ins create delay but most native ones do and you can check in Pro Tools by "apple" clicking on the digital scribble strip in Pro Tool's Mix Window (see picture).   The Duende however introduces no latency whatsoever!  Case & Point: Solid State Logic's Duende DSP powered plug-ins mean no delay compensation hassles!  Now you're most certainly wondering why you're here since I've yet to show you any tutorials. Stop wondering, just one more paragraph and you'll be on your way to audio knowledge heaven.

Solid State Logic has created a series of tutorials for Duende that cover everything from basic EQ knowledge to more advanced techniques like parallel compression. While these tutorials are specific to the plug-ins available with Duende, they also have a ton of information packed into them that is useful to anyone searching for audio processing knowledge. A compressor is a compressor weather it's the stock Logic Studio Compressor or an SSL Compressor. Same goes for EQ's and other plug-ins as well.  The following little bit of info comes from some of the greatest minds in the audio industry and is certainly more than worth your time.  If you've got a Duende then it's just like a double whammy as you'll be trained in the recording arts (EQ, Compression, ETC.) and get a product specific tutorial for use with your software!  Sorry to spit so much promotional SSL jargon at you but it's all honestly how I personally feel.  The main goal of this blog is to spread awareness regarding quality gear, SSL is quality gear and I felt I needed to respectfully give the brand the attention that it deserves.  Now, without further a do; I give you Solid State Logic's Duende Tutorials!

Duende Tutorial 1: Compression & Limiting

Duende Tutorial 2: Using the Gate/Expander Section

Duende Tutorial 3: Basic EQ

Duende Tutorial 4: Using the Duende Channel Side Chain

Duende Tutorial 5: Duende Bus Compressor

Duende Tutorial 6: Advanced EQ

Duende Tutorial 7: Parallel Compression

Native Instruments Traktor's 12! Traktor Pro's EFX Now Available in Your DAW!

I'm a Traktor Gate whore.  In fact I've used and abused her so many times during live sets I was beginning to wonder if our relationship was ever going to turn into something more.  Well with the introduction of Native Instruments Traktor's 12 this relationship does indeed now have the beautiful potential to blossom into something much more serious.  Native Insturments just released Traktor's 12, you can purchase it as a stand alone plug-in for your DAW by itself for $79.00 and it also comes bundled with Native Instruments Komplete 7.  Traktor's 12 basically took 12 of the most popular effects used in Traktor and turned them into DAW plug-ings for use inside of their free Guitar Rig 4 Player.  Wondering how to get those crazy DJ style breakdown efx into your production.  Wonder no more, Traktor's 12 is here for you with some of the most well known DJ style efx bundled into a nice package that can run right inside of any DAW.

The effects that come with Traktor's 12 are as follows: Traktor Delay, Traktor Reverb, Digital LoFi, Mullholland Drive, Ring Modulator, Format Filter, Peak Filter, Beatmasher, GATER!!!, Reverse Grain, Transpose Stretch, Beat Slicer.  Traktor's 12 also has 120 multi-effect rack presets from standard presets perfect for basic processing and remix tools to complex and dense crazy nuts madness preset effects. Since Traktor's 12 runs in the free Guitar Rig 4 Player, the Guitar Rig Factory Selection of 22 tools and effects also comes included.

As you can see nothing is different about the effects we all know and love, they still feature the same 4 knob control that Traktor features and look identical minus some color changes.  I wasn't able to find any info about how these actually sound, quality wise inside of your DAW but I am on the hunt.  I just asked on GearSlutz for a little review of Traktor's 12 from a guy who just got Komplete 7 so hopefully I'll have more to share with you all once he gets back to me.  There is however a few sound examples on Native's website and the efx don't seem to sound half bad, very digital without any "true" character or feeling at all but what can you expect.  If they are anything like the on board effects in Traktor Pro be careful because it is very easy to over do it with these, hopefully this next sentence sums that warning up for you.  Long story short, the efx can be very unique, but, if you push them to hard this uniqueness turns to sound poo, bottom line.  And although while in your studio you won't be in a live situation it's just a good thing to keep in mind so you don't feel discouraged when you are going crazy hard to the walls and end up with sound poo.  The Traktor Pro Gate will always sound dope though, just don't over do the "noise" knob.

Beyond that there isn't too much to say about Traktor's 12.  It's just a bunch of DJ effects from Traktor that now work inside of your DAW for use with productions.  No more bouncing stems from your productions out and loading them into Traktor to re-record them using Traktor's efx.  They can now all be neatly stored in your DAW's Plugin Menu, for more information on Traktor's 12 visit Native Instruments Website.

Here's a quick little video showing what the efx in Traktor's 12 can do:

The Only Software EQ You'll Ever Need: DMG Audio EQuality EQ

So I am most certainly a fan and avid user of the Sonnox Oxford EQ plug-in.  Maybe I got sucked in by the hype... who knows, all I know is that I just discovered the God EQ.  I was doing some stumbling over at the GearSlutz Forum (The place I learn basically everything) when I noticed more than a few engineers were hyping a plug-in I'd never heard of as if it were Higgs Boson.  They were specifically saying that it made their Sonnox Oxford EQ sound like garbage.

I admit at first I thought... nooo, what??? That's my baby... no... it can't suck.  Needless to say I had to download the demo of this EQuality EQ from DMG Audio they were all speaking so highly of.  That way I could A/B it and the Oxford side by side to settle this battle.  I loaded up two identical tracks one with Oxford & the other with EQuality.  Before I even made any adjusts what so ever with both eq's flat, just having EQuality on and in the signal path made it's track sound better. (nice, even slight low end bump mainly, right around 70-130hz)  This might bother some, but if you're working with bass driven material this little bit of initial character will do wonders to your music.  I was immediately intrigued so I started tweaking each and it wasn't even a contest.  EQuality is far superior and much clearer the the Oxford EQ and a lot of other EQ's I've ever used for that matter. It maintains a level of clarity that I've never heard, and Sonnox can't match, while still adding a tad bit of it's own character to your material.  There is a feature that allows you the ability to switch digital processing options.  Basically meaning this EQ can be as a precise and clear mastering tool and also act as a sonically rich warm character driven analog EQ.   The GUI is understated, pleasant and quite functional when you're in the mix with it.  Some large multi-band EQ's can look quite daunting and almost scary when they're first opened.

EQuality doesn't scare you, instead she greets you with her warmth and supple bosom.  I can't show you how much better it is, you'll have to see for yourself.  Download a demo copy of EQuality from DMG Audio's website and put it up against your favorite EQ.  See how things turn out, you just might have a new special lady in the plug-in menu.  I haven't had the time to fully investigate this beast but I will, you can count on that. I think I'll even do a EQ Tutorial/EQuality Tutorial video to go with a more detailed review.  There is a host of features that will come in quite handy whether your mixing, recording, or mastering so I think this would be a useful video tutorial for the production/engineering world.  I'll get to know this EQ and get back to all of you with a full review and rundown of EQuality.  A full license of EQuality Retails for: $149.00 and is available at DMG Audio's Website.