Reply To: Tracking thru plugins

[James GormanParticipant]

Unless the artist needed it, I'd choose a chain that keeps the latency low rather than looking for specific tones. I've always printed raw to keep my choices open. That said my ITB chain ends up looking a lot like what you get from recoding desk -> media -> mixing desk, with layered compression and eq.

Pros for this I can think of:
- you're aiming for the best sound with just the source, mic and pre
- can set things up for whatever is best for the artist - eg going wild with compression, distortion, etc without worry about the mix (or having to set up complex routing matrix)
- keeping information loss to a minimum (this may be my background in data showing through - always store with the lowest loss!)

I suppose the biggest con I can think of is that if you're using to avoid commitment to a sound you may end up on the road to a big mess.

I like to think the last point is big one for me, rather than not committing to a sound. I find it freeing to be able make a bold choice knowing the source is still there.