In multiple interviews with the beloved Andrew Scheps, he said “I have Waves PuigChild on my master bus. Sometimes I don’t even use it for compression – I just like the way it sounds to have it there.”
Later on in a more recent interview he did say, “My master bus changes a lot over time, and I realized PuigChild was just adding a gain boost that I liked so I ended up removing it because it was tricking my ears.” (Rough quote based on memory.)
However – he was right the first time! He DID like “how it sounds” to pass audio through even without adding compression. It wasn’t just a gain boost he was hearing — I ran a 100hz sine wave through PuigChild 670 and it’s actually doing a lot!
In fact, PuigChild 670 adds significant harmonics to what passes through it even when the compression is turned off! So you can put it on a track or master bus, switch off the compression, and still get analog style harmonics.
I suspect Scheps never did this test, and he thought he was imagining an improvement before removing the plugin… But he wasn’t! His ears were telling him the truth when he liked the sound, because he was getting analog style saturation even when he had the compression turned off.
For comparison, I tried the same test with the SSL Master Bus compressor and it does add analog style saturation — but not nearly as much as PuigChild. PuigChild does a NOT! It’s VERY colored, and that’s amazing. That makes sense, since SSL Master Bus Compressor is VCA based, and the PuigChild is modeled after a tube based compressor.
Anyhow, the more I study 100/1000hz sine Waves and pink noise through Waves plugins with a spectrum viewer, the more I realize there’s a LOT going on, and I wasn’t imagining the differences I was hearing. And neither was Scheps!
Owing to its multiple tube and variable-mu (gain) architecture the Fairchild adds a lot of harmonic whenever you simply pass audio through it, even without applying any gain reduction. Your results verifies this.
Not surprisingly as time went on manufactures sought to create a cleaner signal chain as harmonic distortion as viewed as a bad thing. For the time the SSL Buss Compressor was the best they could do to achieve a low harmonic distortion compressor. It’s not perfect though and still inject its own character on the audio, but at much improved lower levels. A lot of this was due to abandoning the tubes and using solid state components and utilising a VCA type topology.
Yes there is harmonic distortion in many plugins that are modelled from analog gear.
You should try this though.
Run a 10kHZ tone on the Puigchild so the first harmonic you get is a 20khz, and the rest of them would be much higher.
Then gradualy shift the tone upwards. When youre at 15khz the harmonic you should get would be 30khz and the rest of them much higher. But your DAW stops reproducing frequencies at around 22khz maybe? So the 30khz tone produced by the Puigchild bumps onto the 22khz and is misrepresented as a frequency lower than 22kHz. Thats called aliasing and its non musical, non analog distortion at best. Artifacts at worst. And the artifacts that Puigchild produces in that range is very audible. Maybe thats what Andrew Scheps didnt like but couldnt straight forward say it.
I just found out that CLA Mixdown does the same. I run it at 96khz to get a higher frequency celling but aliasing is still there. Im pretty dissapointed to know that it doesnt work at 196khz. Well it does, but every frequency gets shifted an octave, meaning it doesnt sound the same.
Thanks @alx396 — at the time I made that post I was just discovering the harmonic magic, and how it’s one of the great variations between one analog emulation plugin and the next.
And you’re right about aliasing! You explained it very well, but I saw it in a Dan Worral video and learned what to look for. You’re right, you can see it.
With that in mind, I now use Reaper’s integrated oversampling and it works great for Waves plugins as long as you’re not running higher than 48khz. (It appears that Waves plugins can’t go beyond 96khz without having issues.)
I do think it’s time for Waves to add switchable oversampling to their plugins… And I’m sure they’re aware of the issue and one of these days it will be the big WUP feature for V15 or V16 or V17.
For now though, Reaper’s integrated oversampling is great.
But maybe I’ll try a song at 96k and see if my plugins and drive can hold up with my giant songs. I normally don’t turn on oversampling until the final mixdown, which allows me to have the performance gain until the very end.
It’s a bit of a mixed thing as many of their plugins do have oversampling, most of the Abbey Roads for example, but others don’t. I think they choose what market to aim for with a particular product and adopt whatever oversampling approach they require for it. Plugins intended for live for example, require minimal latency, so their oversampling options are limited.
But I’m with you guys. I believe these days oversampling should be the choice of the user. I’m sure they’ll come to the same conclusion as its becoming steadily more popular. I just don’t know how long we’ll have to wait.
That WOULD be a killer option! Voxengo plugins have that functionality, an “auto” mode, I believe.
So it can be done, but I think it does require the DAW to support it. I’ll have to look into it… That would be a killer update though for a future Waves version.