by Jason Karman

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of one of our valued community members, but do not necessarily represent the views of AudioScape management or its employees.

At the turn of 2020 I had been given a seemingly simple task: produce a backing track for my daughter’s

upcoming singing competition. It was an enjoyable experience but, little did I know, I was about to

stumble into a very frustrating issue that inadvertently plagues modern producers — it is something I call

“Upgrade Hell”. This is the constant need to upgrade software to maintain compatibility across a vast

production landscape. And, as I quickly learned, things don’t always work out the way you think.

School had just resumed; excitement filled the air. After auditioning in front of a panel of judges, my

daughter was one of eleven students selected from across the district to perform in a school-wide singing

competition. Naturally, having the equipment and the know-how, I was asked to produce her backing

track. The song she picked was a very good one, Speechless, very new at the time, it was from the live-

action Disney film Aladdin. The song had a pretty nice musical arrangement and demanded a full vocal

range consisting of both low and high notes for a female voice. It was definitely going to be a challenging

song to perform, in the best kind of way.

I was beyond excited for her, and also very excited to be able to help her with this project. We didn't have

much time, so I began by using some orchestral VST software-based synthesizers and put the

arrangement together quickly. Even though this arrangement was being put together using MIDI and not

real recorded instruments, I still wanted it to sound like a real recording. I utilized an array of different

plugins to shape individual tracks, add shimmer and depth, giving the instruments space, and dynamics

processing to give a sense of togetherness while maintaining the energy.

The work environment I was in had me working quickly, and monitoring with headphones, which was the

easiest way to get the job done at the time. And, of course, mixing with headphones — and especially

EQing with headphones — really just making any aural decisions with headphones, will almost certainly

blur, obscure, and mess with your decision-making process. I had planned on this going into the project,

eager for the opportunity to test out a new plugin that I had recently acquired. This plugin modeled one of

the legendary control rooms from a British recording studio, offering the ability to simulate the tone,

reflections, and ambiance of what I would hear in that control room, all within the comfort of my

headphones. If that didn’t sound amazing enough, it also offered “Head-Tracking”, which matched its

performance with the ballistics of several brands and models of headphones, making it compatible with

several right out of the box, including mine. My new plugin was going to be perfect for doing work on the

fly.

This plugin worked very well. It didn’t take long until I was satisfied with the mix. I was done. Now all I

had to do was burn a CD — yes, that’s what the school wanted. Honestly, I was pretty happy to see

someone asking for physical media.

As soon as I went to export the mastered mix, my DAW crashed. I kept trying and trying, again and

again, using multiple export options: image, CD, file. Still, after every attempt — crash. After hours of

troubleshooting, I had finally discovered the culprit: the headphone modeling plugin! The craziest thing

of all was that I wasn’t even using this plugin in the mastering session. It was simply that the recording

software had loaded the plugin that the conflict occurred.

Neither the plugin developer, nor the recording software company, were willing to offer that they might

patch or update their software to make it work. Both pointed fingers at each other, leaving me stuck with

a plugin that would break my audio production system. Many emails were exchanged, and even though

this headphone plugin was released within the last month of my recording software’s version, they came

out with a major new version shortly afterwards; compatibility with the now non-current version of my

recording software was not guaranteed. Really, the only solution offered to me was to either discontinue

using the plugin or pay for an upgrade to my recording software. It was quite frustrating to hear this

because on top of it being January, which is usually when I have the least amount of money to dispose of,

there really weren't any new features that were exciting or enticing to me in this new version. In the end, I

declined to upgrade.

Inevitable Incompatibility

This experience really highlighted the deeper issues that can arise from an over-reliance on software

systems. It is pretty common to think of computers as something that depreciates into obsolescence, as

everyone continues to desire faster, better, and more efficient. This progression has driven all industries,

even audio engineering. However, the experience that I encountered is something much more profound; I

call it “Upgrade Hell”. It is the relentless need to upgrade various components that should otherwise work

together, but don’t, just because one component deems the other incompatible. What I mean by this is that

with software components becoming incompatible with one another, eventually a scenario will occur

where not only will you be in a situation requiring you to upgrade the recording software to get a plugin

to work correctly, but you would also need to upgrade the other plugins, as well as the operating system

and the computer hardware itself. That’s because each of these links in the chain would eventually

become the weakest and affect all the other links upstream, impacting the entire chain.

At face value, this might sound normal and perfectly acceptable having to deal with upgrades. However,

every action has an equal and opposite reaction. To illustrate this, let me tell you about way back when I

was living in an apartment. At the time, I was really just getting my hands wet with all this stuff and I had

collected quite a few plugins that I really liked. These plugins felt pretty advanced at the time, being both

32-bit and VST2 — who would have thought we would need to jump to 64-bit and VST3 so soon? Right?

Well — it was not that long — or at least it didn't feel like it took that long. At some point, I had switched

over to a new up-and-coming DAW, because I liked the workflow. Even several versions later, those

older VSTs are still not supported. In this scenario, I can upgrade the recording software, but I am unable

to use the same tools I may have used on a recording I had previously made. As for the plugins, the

developers have yet to update their plugins, and probably never will — you can actually still get them, but

you have to use an older, compatible recording software to utilize them.

There is nothing wrong with older systems either, other than maybe security holes that can be exploited.

Some of the most stable systems that would now be considered obsolete still do their jobs well. For

music, we could look at systems like Flying Faders, MIDI sequencers with SMPTE lock, and the original

Otari Radar. The same can apply to DAWs; multi-track recording on a computer was available to the

consumer when the internet was still dial-up. But if you ever want the latest and greatest, or ever decide to

add something new to your computer‘s ecosystem, you could reach a point that either it won't work, or

everything else has to change.

Hardware Still Matters

When it comes to building our studio, it feels like software has been triumphantly leading the way over

analog hardware, probably due to cost, but also because of other features that have a perceived advantage

over the hardware they try to emulate. Despite this, it is important to recognize that hardware still matters.

Unlike software, you can buy analog hardware once and use it forever. Sure, you might be able to use

that plugin on multiple tracks instead of only the one or two hardware channels, but the hardware will

maintain its value over time, and can be sold even after getting lots of use out of it (in some cases your

hardware may even increase in value!). Software, on the other hand, depreciates into obsolescence and

can be very hard to sell due to licensing restrictions.

Hardware has a unique character that software only attempts to emulate. In the simplest terms, the tonal

character is at a higher resolution with hardware. In more complex terms, the tonal character may come

from the reactive nature of the processing and impossible to fully emulate with precision even in the most

complex of systems. This improved character might be most evident on devices like analog compressors.

Hardware compressors give you a more natural feeling in their reaction than their software counterparts.

Just look at the 1176 FET Compressor. The fastest attack setting is around 20 microseconds, and 20

microseconds is around the duration of one sample of digital audio at 48KHz. Even using a higher

resolution with 4 times as many samples, would there be enough samples to properly illustrate the

waveform? And if so, would the software be able to react in the same way?

Going back to the topic of this article, hardware doesn't care what computer you have or what version

your recording software is or what plugins you have; hardware will always work and do what it is meant

to do.

Instead of investing in plugin bundles that give you so many sound options that your head spins, you

could invest in one real good piece of analog hardware. This item would last you through several

upgrades, would work with any DAW or any interface you throw at it, and, best of all, it will add a tactile

experience to your production workflow. There is something special about twisting knobs while listening

and being able to narrow in that subtle adjustment. All this without even going down the sonic rabbit hole

— or at least not too deep.

A Balanced Approach

Still, after talking about all the frustrations and showing a little bias toward hardware, I must say that I use

software regularly for music production. But I now keep the perspective in mind that it has limited

durability. There is a fun factor in software that is much different than hardware, and it opens up fresh

opportunities to do things that hardware cannot easily do. Creatively speaking, there’s never been so

many tools and so many sounds available (for better or worse).

It’s safe to say that software will not be going away, and in fact might become even easier to use. It might

come down to this difference of defining how much of your production is a work of art and how much of

it is functionality.

Personally speaking, I have always felt that audio production is both art and functionality. The studio

itself is an instrument, it’s part of the music that it’s working to refine. The atmosphere that the studio

creates, both sonically and in terms of how the producer interacts with it, is important. Not everything

should be all business; the art is what makes people want to listen to music, and the art is what makes

people want to play music.

Before this all even occurred, I was looking towards the idea of maximizing the benefits of both software

and hardware. Back then, it was more about trying to separate the recorder, the sequencer, and the effects

processing. Now I see the goal as an opportunity to focus my energies on building a studio based on the

sounds I want to create, instead of on the concept of unlimited everything.

For some people, the compact all-in-one systems may still be the answer, and those folks may get more

than their share of use from them, and embrace the journey that comes with going that way. For me,

embracing hardware as a backbone provides stability, and brings a physicality to the production process.

Being able to future-proof your mix, and ensure that you will be able to access the tracks, or even

reassemble it several years down the road, is important.

While software has revolutionized music production, it’s important to remember that the reliance on it

comes with a hidden cost. Eventually you will run into a situation where you will have to upgrade or deal

with a consequence. How much of a problem that will be will depend on how consolidated your

production system is.