Falstaff and Me
Have Plugins Surpassed Analog Hardware?
by Roscid Cup
The story of the First DAW Plugin.
It was in time past
that nerds were aghast
at the price of compressing machines.
They used ones and zeros
for their materials
and all that it cost them was beans.
An engineer,
his mind so clear,
stepped forth among the host.
He had no pith,
admired the Sith,
and his face was as pale as a ghost.
“Those hardware guys
are full of lies.
They fleece you and fleece you, oh yessir!
Down with their guild!
For we shall build
a software dynamic compressor!
“It’s simple, you see.
Why, even a wee
little brat can do something like that.
You take but a threshold —
beyond that a ratio —
compress it to make it sound flat.
“A small algorithm
to bypass the system —
musicians will think it a gift.
You haven’t the errors,
you haven’t distortion,
you haven’t the temp’rature drift.
“Your date, you’ll impress her:
‘A perfect compressor!’
— well, okay, perhaps not your date.
But homegrown musicians
have more than petitioned
for cheap ones that don’t ship as ‘freight’.
“And think, ones and zeros
are wonderful heroes:
They’re never in need of repair.
For if a poor noob
should blow out a tube
the musician can only despair.
“What say you, technicians,
shall we make musicians
be happy to pay us five bucks
for a plug-in that’s better —
perfect to th’letter —
than a hardware compressor that sucks?”
He looked ’round his hosts —
assistants and minions —
he sought validation from them.
He waited a second,
waited some more,
while casually clearing some phlegm.
“O Smart One,“ said one,
a tech who could pun,
“O Smart One,” he said once again.
“I dare to rebuff
just some of the stuff
you thoughtlessly said in vain.
“My main contention
(to spare the suspension)
has mainly to do with repair.
The software, it can
have such a life span,
but only with long-suff’ring care.
“For how many plug-ins,
dot–S–O’s, and /sbin’s
have lasted as long as all that?
Support firms go under,
and so it’s no wonder,
that Time sends them all off to scat.
“To put it more blunt
(as is my wont),
you see all the plug-ins say ‘Bye,
We go way up there.’
And do you know where?
Bit-Bucket up there in the sky.
“Losing their mojo,
their bit-depth is so-so,
And people forget they exist.
They did some small feat;
they’re now obsolete,
Well anyway, you get the gist.”
The engineer,
his mind so clear,
considered these words without hate.
His tech was so loyal,
and down to the soil,
so nat’rally his words bore some weight.
What next he said,
surely was bred
from ever a sensible man.
“Off with your head,
you ought to be dead!
We’ll all carry on with my plan!”
And so this poor tech,
he now hit the deck,
his head was promptly removed
“It serves you right,
you insolent wight,
just see how the rest are behooved!”
They went with the plan
of this sensible man,
because they could plainly see:
he wasn’t a cad,
he’s just ravin’ mad
(“And next time it just might be me!”).
After some shruggin’
they built a fine plug-in.
They built it with skill and with care.
It took them five minutes
and also five minutes,
but they were improved for the wear.
An easy technique —
compressing a peak —
the algo was really quite swift.
It had not the errors,
it had not distortion,
it had not the temp’rature drift.
Our engineer,
his mind so clear,
decided it’s time to sell it.
But — what a disgrace! —
he’d egg on his face
when discovering what next befell it.
The hardware guys
and music small-fries
Agreed that it sounded like crap.
“That does compress,”
one did confess,
“but my taste fell into a trap:
“I’ll make no excuse —
I’m really quite used
to the analog-digital rift.
I like all the errors
and also distortion;
I like the temp’rature drift!
“I don’t have much money,
but — isn’t it funny? —
musicians know nothing of thrift.
I’ll take fiscal harm
for ‘analog‐warm’
so give me that temp’rature drift!!”
The marketing guys,
all full of lies,
balked at our engineer.
They teased and they baited —
really they hated —
they sent him away with a sneer.
“You see that your software
cannot beat our hardware.
It never will make the grade.
Go back to your heroes —
your ones and your zeros —
and tell them that they’re overpaid.“
Our engineer,
his mind so clear,
perplexed that this wasn’t a hit,
decided then
he’ll try again.
“I’ll give my compressor some grit.
“Upon my word,
to drawing board
go I to fix this gaffe.
And — by this hand —
in all the land
they’ll know I had the last laugh!!
“These dissentious rogues, that rubbing the poor itch—
—sorry, wrong timeline…
“Instead of perfection,
We’ll get a collection
of some of these hardware compressors.
We’ll model the circuit!
That’s how we’ll work it!
So much for our predecessors!
“If you look here you’ll
find bills of material,
and there we’ll find sheets of data.
We’ll model distortion;
we’ll model the errors;
we’ll not even skip the errata.”
“But Engineer,
with mind so clear,”
said yet another apprentice.
“We cannot do it,
there’s too much to it,
with limits that nature hath lent us.
“Did you not know?
Computers are slow!
It’s hopeless to go down that road.
Processing power
takes more than an hour
for just ModelSim to load.”
“Off with your head,
you ought to be dead!”
said engineer just as before.
“Your mind, I bet,
is too weak to get
the wonderful Law of Moore!”
Epilogue
And so as the years passed
our engineer held fast,
and built his software compressor.
He went on a date,
and — what a fate! —
the plug-in: it even impressed her!