Too Many Plug-ins or Too Many of YOU?

A quick in-studio video about using plug-ns, not using plug-ins and just enjoying the process. Not a rant video, but somewhat close...I like to rant.
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TONY BLACK is a Grammy-winning music producer, mixer/engineer & songwriter/musician. He has contributed to recordings totaling more than 80 million units sold or downloaded.
He won a GRAMMY AWARD for his contribution to the album “THE DIARY OF ALICIA KEYS” for BEST R&B ALBUM.
He also mixed and recorded “RIDE OR DIE” on the Grammy-winning album JAY-Z “HARD KNOCK LIFE VOL.2”

[@TonyBlackNYC]

Once in a while I do one of these inside the session videos...thank the rain and coffee.

[@malekkushimuzik3580]

Question..... Do you prefer stems with effects, or dry when you receive the files?

[@davebighos8370]

🫡

[@stiptreezy8481]

All about that coffee! Tony have you tried the brand Death Wish Coffee? I found out about them recently and so far all of them I’ve tried have been both delicious and effective!

[@stiptreezy8481]

While talking about plugins the XLN addictive plugins are extremely functional and absolutely sound amazing. I have a couple of the piano ones and I have no desire for any other piano plugins. If I need something different or more natural sounding I’ll just record with a Yamaha keyboard 🤘

[@ruzen3803]

The more plug-ins people have, the less time they spend working on the actual music. This generally leads to laying down something musically mediocre in 5 minutes and spending the next 2 hours circling through plug-ins to find the one that elevates the mediocrity to mediocrity+ level. If the chord progression, riff, lick or melody isn't interesting whilst dry, then one should keep working on the musicality of the piece first before touching the effects. Listen to Michael Jackson's *_"Beat It (Demo)"_* and you'll understand what I mean. It blows away 99% of final releases today, including Charli XCX project

[@stevebennett2447]

Wasn’t ”Billie Jean” from the same album mixed 91 times?

[@ruzen3803]

​@@stevebennett2447Something like that. I think they ended up going with mix no.1 or no.10. Besides the point, though. He had something intriguing enough that was worthy of mixing. Even if you listen to the home demo of Billie Jean, the musicality of it was interesting enough to catch the listeners' ear, and the mixing just brought it to life. Mixing can't save a boring song. The Kinks - "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were hits because of the musicality and riffs, even though the mixing was nowhere near the level of The Beatles or Zeppelin. Basically, artists are better off with a great song that isn't mixed well than a trash song mixed by whoever the leading engineer of the time is. In life, we bake the cake first, and then we decorate it. Many artists nowadays toss the ingredients in the bowl and immediately start frosting

[@TonyBlackNYC]

some embellishment never hurt

[@ruzen3803]

​@@TonyBlackNYCTrue. Life is a paradox. I love that bass line you wrote. That guitar sound is cool. What's this side project you speak of?

[@simonhornmusic]

Hey Tony, just wanted to suggest a topic for the next live stream; do you or your circle of producers still use session musicians, mostly session drummers or bass players? It seems Addictive Drums can do the job these days or can a session play still make the difference to a song? I can't imagine Rage Against the Machine or similar bands being produced with Addictive Drums. Perhaps it's different horses for different courses 🙂

[@TonyBlackNYC]

throw it in the hat next week...thurs night or possible saturday, thanks.

[@luiz-figueiredo-72]

Loved this!

[@EdgetoneStudios]

Thanks Tony. I've been enjoying your ramblings.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

wait, I ramble? LOL

[@EdgetoneStudios]

@@TonyBlackNYC I figure all of us who get on KZbin and blab about the stuff we know are rambling. ;-)

[@Chaos-Dynamics]

Nice tune 😊 I made a tune yesterday simple kick and snare, search a sound that I like and hit record, keep the faults no quantize and play whatever happens, then next track and repeat. Lot of fun and always a surprise how it will end up 😊

[@FloydFreud]

"This was played on some kind of instrument..." Great! That narrows it down!

[@TonyBlackNYC]

time stamp? I can't be held responsible...

[@FloydFreud]

@@TonyBlackNYC lol, it was about the pseudo-synthy organ part. 😋 Mix and arrangement is ace, BTW. 👍✌

[@intricateinc8566]

I added a memo on my community page for the Tony Black NYC layer cake lives. We gotta get some new members in here.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

thank you

[@Bville-E]

8.8 Yesterday... 8.93k Today !!!!!!! 🍰....Go.....Tony Black

[@UncleBenjs]

Thanks for the insight into your process Tony! 🔥

[@1loveMusic2003]

I love AD2! You can process the whole kit in the plugin if you want it's sweet.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

AD is powerful

[@wigmaster7894]

love that iron distortion on kicks and snares

[@jaakkokalke770]

Great song and sound Tony. ❤🤙

[@TheRealSilentsomeone]

Good Stuff Broski 💪

[@sincinati]

The first thing I do with Addictive is dry it out completely and set the all the stereo width controls to 0%. I guess it's a more electronic approach and I mostly use the Reel Machines Kits, but it just hits way grittier which suits my sound.

[@TonyBlackNYC]

Reel Machines is pretty sweet

[@jstanghi]

The layers on this Tony !

[@ProdbyGrimeyred]

I honestly use the same 5 or similar 5 plugins all the time.

[@stiptreezy8481]

My list is a bit bigger than that probs like 10-12 but I agree, for the most part I have the same set of “go tos” for whatever it is I’m wanting to achieve. If I were to break it down by instrument/type of sound tho it would probably be closer to 5

[@hugocaldeiravinagre]

nice :) reminded me of yo la tengo.

[@jeffpereira4767]

Drumless sounds sick honestly

[@NOPEASAURAS]

Man oh man .. the plug-in hell is real. Also, there is a such thing as option paralysis .

[@TonyBlackNYC]

self control

[@NOPEASAURAS]

@ or like I do, if it doesn’t fill a need there’s no need. I do break on Black Friday every year but I think that’s fair. What I notice is that people don’t let gear/plugins simmer. They want what the next best thing is but if you look under the hood of a lot of these plugins you’ll notice a ton of the, are doing the absolute same thing. Find a few plugins that offer the tone/character you want and learn them inside an out. Trust me , it’s worth it.

[@ttttiiimmy10bit]

I can really hear *insert 'hard' rapper name* on this 🤣

[@thegroove2000]

Cant go wrong with a bit of sound toys.

[@doemaardennis]

You only need Valhalla VintageVerb.

[@giorgiocatalinotto2013]

really Cool I enjoy learning from you !!!!!

[@ItsTheFuzzMan]

I could sauce up that bassline.

[@GT1981IL]

Nice feeling track dude!

[@wigmaster7894]

Fast attack t blizzy

[@alphaomega6062]

Practical advice.

[@b3astmedia173]

another ominous- and malthusian sounding- title

[@TonyBlackNYC]

googling malthusian...

[@DigitalChemistryBand]

Reaper... stock eq, and freeware vst... 2 comp (vca and opto), 2 rvb, 1 delay, 1 gate, 1 drum comp (m/s), and 1 master buss console emulator... that's it... my old computer runs these flawlessly through out 32 tracks... nuff said... stop seeking the newest, latest, and greatest... free your mind, and stop using presets... you'll stop sounding like everyone else.... and yea... NO SAMPLES... REAL INSTRUMENTS... NO AUTOTUNE... BLEH 😢😢😢