What's your take on all this? Let me know!

Never found a piece of gear that sounds as good as a cool chord change!

Refreshing video. I've been mixing for tv for 18 years, and still every time I go on youtube my confidence drops due to some video telling me everything I do is wrong! 😅

That’s the beauty of this whole thing. Your heart, your ears, your soul sits at the forefront of all things hardware and software. Without these, all things are dead.

As much as I love and use the Analog gear we have, as well as their digital counterparts, a career of producing and mixing over the last 30 years has taught me that its the 'song' first above all else. A poor performance recorded beautifully will always be a poor performance, no matter how good the mics, mic pre's, converters, outboard gear or plugins are. And the reverse is true as well. A killer song and/or performance recorded with modest gear will always sound better. Ground loops, crappy cabling, and poor monitoring conditions will trump the best converters and sample rates every time.

Excellent debate. Completely agree with your honesty and in line with your knowledge and expertise. Very professional and honest debate. I'm a 50 years old sound engineer with a bit more than 30 years experience... And since long time ago in same conclusions as you in all this areas of discussion. Once again excellent debate! ✌️

nahhh this video is way too short. Keep going that talk ! Such a good time to watch and listen. Overall, all agree with both of you. Oversampling is overate, sample rate is as well, the debate analog vs plugin is sleepy (same with some guys that goes "i can do all type of eq with pro q 3, so stop buying eqs!", which btw, would be nice to have your take on this. Even tho on a math/science shows we can copy bunch of eq curves with ProQ3 by tweaking using plugin doctor, then going back to the session to match everything… counter-productive as hell. I still think the workflow of a plugin is underated by sooooo many people).

Glad you talked about cumulative effect in regard to converters. I’m 100% that where converter quality shows itself is when you increase the amount of tracks converted with that better quality converter. I own an IZ Nyquist for years and have tried Apogee and lynx, Presonus, rme and yamaha converters beside it. The IZ is more invisible and richer/heftier. But for one channel with a mic or guitar plugged in Chris is right. It’s hard(er) to tell the difference.

The thing with aliasing is it only noticeably affects sources with a lot of high frequency content and at high levels of distortion. So if you're adding saturation to overheads, or overdriving a guitar or vocal, then oversampling can be very useful, whereas on a bass guitar or for subtle saturation, not so much.

I think you are correct. I use 48k sampling and a Steinberg UR12 interface. It works for me. And I can’t tell any difference with oversampling. I don’t even own analog processors. All in the box.

Great video!! The thing is to have a good balanced monitoring system to know what you are doing! Then ITB or on a desk or with analog gear, 44,1khz or 192khz etc it doesn’t matter unless you compare the same song with a different mixing setup! A great pair of ears can make a great mix! Thank you for your great videos!💪

Quality guest right there 👏🏻 However, there’s ONE topic you didn’t cover that rules them all : cables matter… …NOT 😂

I have never turned on the over sampling with any plug-ins that have, and it hasn’t held me back at all.

Quality CDs, which I still play and enjoy, *SEEM* much more pleasing to my ears. If sample rates impart more dynamic range and don't overdrive the mids, then I would say higher sample rates and CDs are far superior to MP3s. I save waves, share waves, and expect a listening experience to never 'hurt'. Smooth balance, consistent appropriate volumes, and sonic goodness are what I hope to attain. Thanks for the video.

A great song/piece over everything you've discussed. Now that's a NET WIN.👍🏿

Salut Selim, j’adore ce nouveau format ! Bravo et à refaire bien sûr 😊👍

Awesome video Chris! I've been watching your videos for years and this is one of the best. You need to do more with Steve Dierkens. The back and forth banter, the hesitations, the funny looks, and humour are priceless. The combined experience of the two of you says so much as well. Thanks for doing this. I really enjoyed it.

Love it! Couldn't agree more.

Compliment, Chris. One must be brave and honest to give clear opinions on these subjects, under risk of loosing followers that don’t believe you. In theme audio there are a lot of myths: myths, myths everywhere. I would say even more in HiFi audio.

1st thing great video! I've tested every nonlinear plugin I own & none of them alias when gain staged correctly. I will also say that when some are pushed really hard they create fold back distortions in the 2k & other ranges that sound really nasty. So oversample maybe a matter of using your ear & decide if you like the distortion with or without it 😊

IME oversampling definitely matters when mastering. When mixing, less so, but it does still matter a lot if it’s on the mix bus and you’re doing something like clipping. I think that’s the biggest thing is with clipping, and even then, 2x oversampling is fine. The aliasing is not even noticeable, even if it is there.

I would love to see more of these things put to blind listening tests. I'm convinced that even the people who claim to be able to tell can't. Our ears aren't nearly as sensitive as we think they are. It feels to me like there's a lot of pseudo-science in the audio industry. And people cling desperately to their preconceptions even when confronted with counter-evidence. You see it among musician too -- obsessing over things like "tonewood." Even ff you show them in a blind test that there's no audible difference, they'll get really mad and come up with reasons to not accept the evidence.

Hi Chris everything you said is right. I’m a guitar player and record my original songs for fun on my IMac, and I have to say that unless you record all your instruments right in the first place no plug- in or producer is going to be able to mix the song. Keep making videos Chris

All very good points. I do ITB mixing and my plugins are what I have. It's up to me to make it sound good regardless. Thanks!

My philosophy is this: _"If it sounds good, it IS good."_ We can bicker about the finer points of dither and other things that nobody can hear, but in the end, if you've mixed a track in a bad way, it's going to end up rubbish. You can have an extremely experienced mix engineer using low quality gear and cheap (if not FREE) plugins and making an amazing mix, and a sub-par mix engineer using the best analog gear and failing miserably. I suppose if I was to be doing a specific task such as archiving, I would be using the highest sampling rate, the best quality converters with lowest noise and highest linearity. Most of the time, these features you're talking about (sample rate, oversampling, etc.) really don't matter if the track ends up sounding good.

Time to start a podcast

Years ago I sampled a TR-808 drum machine into a Kurzweil K2500 workstation. At 44.1Khz the bassdrum had a ringing sound added to it. This was gone at 48Khz. That's when I started recording at 48 Khz. 24 bit is more than enough for headroom even if the DAW defaults to 32 bit floating point.

Sample Rate - Agree. Scientifically the sample rate does not need to be higher than 44.1 to create the full range of human hearing. Aliasing can become a problem if you aren't careful but if you know what you're doing you never need anything higher than 44.1. Pretty much all modern plugins have oversampling these days. As far as the stretching thing that is a myth (proven through null testing). However, the benefits to higher sample rates come when lowering (not raising) the pitch of a sound. In practice, you have to lower the pitch about an octave and half in order to notice any difference (that being a loss of high end frequencies). I would argue in most cases if you are mangling a sound that drastically why are you concerned with the fidelity? Clearly it's not meant to sound natural! Is it worth slowing down the entire workflow over? Not for me. Converters - We are spoiled today. Converts DO matter but there are many great options these days. The lowest common denominator is what matters in audio. It's also important to differentiate between input and output. Output may be up to preference but input will be printed into the sound. Oversampling - Oversampling can matter for people like me working in 44.1. You can use aliasing creatively. As long as you know what you're doing it's a preference/creative thing. Hardware vs Software - Agree

Love this discussion so much because I know I have made recordings with Sonar back in like 2006 that still stand up today, and I can't even tell you if it was 44, 48, or anything like that. It just still sounds good and, in the end, I think that's what matters most ;)

At the end all are just tools and the only thing that matters is what comes out of the speakers 😊

I've never needed to go above 44100. If there is a merit in doing so, then I'll certainly check it out. With regards to convertrers, the reason I chose to get the M-Audio 192 | 14 was because of the the number of inputs/outputs. These days, as far as I'm aware, converters in the vast majority of interfaces do a great conversion job. Oversampling - there are some plugins where oversampling is evident. I enable oversampling when I use Tokyo Dawn Labs plugins and, sometimes, the SSL Channel Strip 2. Definitely a power grainer, though. Analog gear - I don't have any, although I'd love to acquire an analogue compressor for vocal recording.

Hello guys! Good video, useful topics, great comments! Personally, I think it all depends. What is your line of work ? Mastering? Then I think converters and sample rate matter a lot. Sound Design? Yep, it's better at high sample rate and oversampling mean something, you can actually hear it when heavily processing certain sound sources. Mixing hybrid? Of course 48 channels of DA-AD on bad converters can potentially break cohesion of your mix. So bad sounding analog boxes too. What genre and style of music are you mixing? Classic? Standard jazz with a huge dynamic range ? Then every little nuance is so important. Clients will ask for high resolution, at least 96, and 192 is not unusual. At the end, like mostly everything in life, it all depends. And don't we forget : we're not all created equals. Some people can actually hear the difference, even when they don't have the right words to express what they feel. Eh, that was long, sorry. Thanks for the video and have a good day!!!

There are no bad audio interfaces anymore...You can work with ALL of them, there's no more noise floor, great dynamic range too and 24 Bit is completely adequate for ALL (!) audio trasks. We should also never forget that the audio signal never leaves the computer! Songs are converted digitally as mp3 or for streaming. nuff said.

Please tell me which plugin sounds better than the analogue? I dont believe it...(:

Loved the video... song is king. Agree with all the discussion points.

LOVED this video. Y'all had fun. Kudos :)

Hi Chris I need your help I use Cubase 12 and I have pan problem. For example when I panned some track 100% to Left or R and when i press solo sound like a 70 80% panned and when i press L Listen button sound is more wide and sounds like 100% panned to Left or R why is rhis different and also i use A/B reference trick with cue and when I have created cue begin this difference between Solo and Listen button also when I listen refference track sound like more panned more wide I dont mean wide like stereo image plugin i mean pannned instruments they pan sound like a 100% Left or R but Cubase my pan show 100% but sound like a 70 80% . I use Cubase from last 10 years and I have most of the time this problem with stereo image from induvidual tracks and reverbs I try many things and nothings maybe I use most of time virtual instruments and they are stereo but I convert them to audio try mono and no difference always have reverb and stereo image problem track is mono but sound is wide and masking other tracks, maybe this is normal maybe real consoles have a more wide panning I dont know but I thinks Cubase or I have this problem. I hope you to read this comment and help me to solve this Panning problem, also I thank you to for everythings I learn many things from you.

Great video. Really enjoyed watching it

Oversampling is a thick one 😅 I'd argue on this one for DnB, Dubstep, Hardstyle... High distortion genres it's a convenient to have ^^

Great video.. you guys missed one that I'm sure could be an year long video. Microphones!!😅

i partially agree with the power of a great song, but i think modern production standards are so high w VI’s and melodyne, not to mentioned really great engineers and knowledge dissemination through youtube et al, that even a great song can get lost unless the production is great.

Thank you for this video

Hi Chris, what is the analog gear you would always use? the one that in your opinion is absolutely needed. Thanks!

Sample rates: If you;re compiling results, I'm at 48khz. Converters: If you have modern converters, you're fine.

To your last point: the sound quality on Queen's first album is abysmal, but it's one of the best rock albums ever IMHO. On the analog gear issue, perhaps when mastering, since you don't need 125 copies of the compressor perhaps analog gear might be preferable (if you can afford it - which I can't BTW). What do you guys think about that? Cheers.

Good video. One slight ex-school teacher thing. There is a question in a screen display that says "will whatever make or BRAKE the mix?" This is the spelling for brakes on the car. You should use BREAK in this context. RM.

Me, I just believe that music is ART. It's all about "taste". You like it, or you don't. MAYBE, some of those things you discussed matter..... not to me. I don't create music to be bought and sold, so if it sounds good to me, if it's how I want it to sound, then to me it's "right". I don't care if others like it or not. I don't think people give a crap about what paint brush Picasso used..... they like his art or they don't. Maybe, plugins have just ruined us all. We all have way too many, and lots for free...... Perhaps, less is more? Holy crap!!! I'm going down a rabbit hole!!!! Save me!!!!!!! 😂

I oversample on exporting otherwise like you guys said it kills the cpu, I can't hear any difference but I'm a newbie.

Cool vibes man! I feel like watching a Cheech and Chong movie..

great video!

Converters still matter big time…try a focusrite Scarlett or Motu m2, then an apogee symphony mkii or Burl. Does it matter for beginners or hobbyists, no……But as you said, fun does count too!

Great video smoking a cigar and soaking in some great 💡

great video - i´m happy using 44.1khz sample rate, in my mind 48khz is still the sample rate for video (even though we are long out of this area) :D - converters, i do not specifically care about convertes, but i do care for a good audiointerface with an overal excellence quality and performance and drivers - oversampling, never thought much about it, some plugins, like UAD state they do already internal oversampling, and i´m not only using lowcut filters, i like using highcut filters alot too :) - i like to use hardware when tracking, but in mixing i rely on plugins - i like to work on a digital workflow, but i prefer to turn knobs and faders with my hands than with the mouse, so i have a variety of hardware controllers to control plugin and daw parameters :-)

I use dvd audio solo to author dvd audio at 96khz to play in my car stereo the the sound quality is amazing

what about if your songs are to go on TV and film, don't they insist on higher rates (for whatever reason)

Great video !!

Awesome video!

44.1 on my main DAW, 48 on my second machine.

9:22 whether you convert 96 channels or 2 channels isn't it the same? you are not putting the 96channels in series...

The only thing I have over sampled is beer! 🤣 Over sampling beer/alcohol is bad! 🤣🤣🤣

48 is standard in the sound production school I'm in

Clearmountain always talks about how important converters are. Just sayin'. Like this 2 person format 👍

KZfaq……Never boost more than 4 DB when using an EQ Chris Lord Alge……proceeds to boost 30 DB using EQ. Also wins a Grammy 😅

1. Agreed! Higher sample rates only make a difference when you're making creature sound effects and you need to pitch-shift 12 semitones or more to preserve top end clarity. In music, it's quite irrelevant. 2. Also agreed. Converter quality is ridiculously overrated for all the wrong reasons nowadays. 3. Also agreed! Oversampling is sometimes better, sometimes, it isn't. It's not this magical button that will fix all of your problems that its advocates seem to preach. 4. Ambivalent. Hardware and plugins both have advantages and disadvantages in relation to one another, and I think the best route is to use the best of both worlds. Limiting oneself to one choice alone isn't wise. Neither should affect the artistic aspects of music-making! 5. *Break! Just kidding! Q:Is it safe to put units on top of each other like that? Especially tube units like the WA-2MPX and the VTRC?

Isn't it true that one reason for 96K sample rate is to reduce latency at recording? Or is it wrong?

I'm glad you got to the point, EVERYTHING is overrated except the song. Case in point, I was working in a studio as an assistant in 1991. An engineer cancels because he is violently ill. The producer turns to me and says can you do it and I say of course having never done any of this before. We mix and record the whole record in 3 days. I have no idea what I'm doing but I fool the producer and the mixes sound like crap. You probably can't go a month without hearing at least portion of a song off that album even though it was recorded and mixed by an idiot that didn't know the difference between a fader and a compressor.

There is so much in the audio sector that is completely overrated these days .... But young unsure people believe what influencers spread. (...)

As for oversampling I really can only tell a difference on mixdown. Live while mixing, I can barely hear a difference. Example "standard clip" has an excellent feature where on mixing you can just keep it at 2x oversampling and on mixdown it can be much higher like 32x... and when I play back mixed master it is better. but while live mixing that plugin barely a difference. As for analog vs digital... been over that debate for years. I rather take total instant perfect recall of in the box over the hassle of analog. The average idiot listener doesn't care!

Sample rate: started with 44.1, tried 88.2 and 96 and finally settled on 48 Converters: yeah, at this point it's irrelevant Oversampling: meh. It's kinda relevant when it comes to introducing harmonics. But even then, you can either turn it on, leave it alone or use something else. Analog v digital: I am so sick of that discussion. Bottom line: make something the best you can with what you have and WGAF about what was used. Make or break: most of the time, it's you ... and by you, I mean yourself, because I don't think you (Chris) are the type who invades sessions and makes people's lives hell XD =]

Music and records is about content, not sound.

Wow, it was like watching you and Steve juggling with a live grenade! Brilliant content that flys in the face of the brainwashed afraid to make their opinion know for fear of loosing subs. Well Done guys.. more content like this please!

I only record at 420kHz / 69 bit rate.

Here's my (bound to be controversial) opinion; unless you're recording stellar performances of excellent musicians playing a great song, none of the stuff mentioned here is going to be consequential. As long as your recording quality isn't absolute crap no one cares. They care about the music. The average person listens to music, not sound. Meaning; they aren't sitting there enjoying the artful sizzle of the ride cymbal. They are listening to the music. If it's vocal music they're listening to the vocal melody and the quality of the singer's performance. The sound quality really only has to be good enough not to *get in the way*. Now, I'm not saying that bad mix decisions can't ruin the listening experience. Just that things like sample rate, over sampling, good plugins vs hardware, etc. are little more than a distraction for mix engineers unless they are competing with pro mixes done by the elite of the industry and even then... it really doesn't matter. Unless you have an amazing recording of an amazing performance of an amazing song. If you're not starting with that then you're just spinning your wheels looking for a mythical silver bullet.

@10:33..😂😂😂😂

There are none so blind as those who cannot hear!

Anything above 24 bit 48khz is a waste of processing power. No human can hear anything above 48khz.

That’s some ignorant shit

yes it masters