Exactly what is creamy audio?

You have to hand it to them. The marketing staff of audio hardware and plug-in manufactures have deftly exploited the selling potential of forums, advertorials (yes, you heard us right!) and adServer networks to target and convince us that it's not our lack of talent that produces poor results (let's face it, it's pretty hard to put your hand up to mediocrity), oh no, we just don't have the right professional gear. Yet!

We all watch those product demos introduced by amazing musicians, producers and engineers. And we all forget that it's almost always their talent that makes the products sound so good. Not that many of the products aren't good, it's just that getting the best out of them requires a lot of skill and practice.

The manufacturers promise us that with their products we will achieve the same results as the professionals who endorse them. But stop. Just think for a minute.

Once upon a time their market was professional studio owners. Not free-lance engineers, they rarely owned expensive gear. Why would they need to? But now that market has shrunk. Studios have closed, recording budgets have been decimated, professionals have been laid off.  We, yes us home and project studio owners, us happy band of amateurs, we are their primary market!

Ever wondered why all the manufacturers marketing emails and social media posts are published on a Friday afternoon and how all those busy, successful and in-demand professionals find the time to promote gear?

Time was you never saw a UA compressor or API mic pre in a home studio. Now they're everywhere.

But we digress. Our primary rant this week was supposed to be about all those meaningless terms that marketing folk use to describe their gear.

Now we're fine with "transparent". We know what that means, what goes in comes out. But what about "creamy"? Seriously, do we agree on what "creamy" sounds like? And is "creamy" good?

A nice pre amp and some, err .. cream

How about "warm"? It seems an audio device is better if it produces a "warm" sound! Anyone care to define this? because we're at a loss. And why is "warm" always better?  Were Kraftwerk concerned with "warm"?

Here's another, "silky". Apparently a mic-pre can be silky. Someone please, define this in terms of frequency response or some other technical description! (Don't even get us started on "air"!).

We guess all we're saying here is, keep your guard up, try before you buy, and remember that it's the creative decisions we make, not the gear we use, that determines the 'quality' of our productions.

Thanks for watching and reading
FairFax