Blindfolded at the console
Can you tell the difference?
20% off Focus and NUtility Toolkit until 26 August
In music production, there are many different ways to achieve the "same" result — using different recording techniques to capture the sound, processing with different plug-ins and signal chains, and more.
Of course, the end result is rarely — if ever — exactly the same. But how reliably can you tell the difference? And how confidently can you pick a preference? In our new series of videos, we've put these questions to the test using plug-ins from our Focus and NUtility Toolkit bundles.
For the first clip, we recorded an improvised piano performance in both stereo and mono, and then created pseudo stereo versions of the mono recording using Stereoizer and Stereoplacer. Finally, we ran a blind test using AB Assist 2 in order to figure out whether an impartial adjudicator could reliably pick their favourite between the true stereo recording, the Stereoizer version and the Stereoplacer version.
Check out what happened...
Blending a DI signal with the sound of a real amp is a very common way to record bass guitar, but chances are these two signals will be out of phase by the time they reach your DAW. So when recording a band, something the engineer will have to do in practically every session is ensure the bass guitar is in phase.
You could achieve this using a plug-in like Aligner, or you could do it manually. But can you hear the difference? And does one sound better than the other? We’ve put these questions to the test, with some help from Aligner and AB Assist 2!
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