Mateusz Wozniak

VintageWarmer was one of the first "must have" plug-ins for digital recording. Mateusz Wozniak is co-founder and lead developer of PSPaudioware. Recent plug-ins include PSP 2445 (inspired by the EMT 244 and 245 early digital reverberators) and the PSP E27 equalizer plug-in (modeled after the analog equalizer E27 produced by Avedis Audio Electronics).

When your first plug-ins came out, Poland was not known for audio software.

Everything comes from passion. I grew up in a house where music has been very important, and by music I mean not only live music but also recordings. I remember going to recording studios when I was a kid. It kind of makes me wonder whether the sound I used to hear back then is what I try to recreate now. On the other hand there is live music; a direct connection between the artist and the listener creates a huge emotional space, which I also try to bring out in our plug-ins. We had very good audio equipment at home that included an Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder, which was used by my father for his work in the theatre. Education was another factor that helped me develop my musical sensitivity. I didn't attend music school for an extended period of time, but apparently it was enough for me to be able to perceive music differently. I didn't feel capable of becoming an instrumentalist, which eventually turned out to be a good decision. Sometimes it makes more sense to give up on something and focus on the things that really drive you. I always wanted to work with sound, as well as do more engineering work, rather than just play other people's music. Shortly after finishing my first degree, I started my adventure with sound.

What was the first environment you worked in?

Initially I was working with MIDI on Atari ST running Cubase. A Tascam 238 [cassette 8-track], reverb effect, mixing desk, and a solid reel-to-reel ReVox unit as master recorder were added later on. The next step was, of course, a full-featured DAW. Our first digital system was a simple modular 16-bit Spectral Design sequencer with a configurable number of tracks, filters, and converters. Then came a Yamaha audio card with a DSP mixer on board, as well as two converter modules. At the time it gave us amazing possibilities — we could connect our external reverbs to it while mixing while the filters and dynamics were handled by the DSP module. That was very important, because the CPU was too weak to handle all those tasks and the audio software was not very reliable back then. I was learning as I went, which resulted in making a lot of mistakes. One of the most common ones was making bass-heavy mixes. But there were some good sides to the old days too. For example, mistakes made on tape sound completely different than mistakes made in a fully digital environment. Understanding the difference is crucial when looking for a good sound, from the algorithmic perspective.

They say that analog tape is very forgiving.

The first analog mixes I made were rather grotesque sounding, or at least had an archaic vibe to them, but they still managed to sound quite pleasant. Making similar mistakes while working on a computer usually caused the material to be totally unlistenable. What I used to do back then wasn't quite suited for the radio, but still sounded pretty cool, as far as demo projects. I used to work on theatrical projects as well, and those problems don't exist in that world. What fascinated me the most were the reverb effects — we could get some nice sounds out of those units in the late '80s.

Is there any particular reverb module you have in mind? There weren't a lot of them around back in the '80s.

It's true, and on top of that the ones that were available were not affordable. Luckily we managed to get our hands on the Dynacord DRP 20X. It was a digital reverb unit with additional chorus and delay effects on board. The reverb sound was stunning. I can't imagine anything sounding better back in the day, unless, of course, you had money to get yourself a Lexicon 240 or 480. The thing about reverb is that listeners' preferences change with time. Back in those days we were looking to get some big sounds out of our reverb boxes. This was especially applicable in the theatre music, and when we were looking for more experimental sounds.

How did you learn more about creating software?

I had an opportunity to learn at the newly opened Polish- Japanese Academy of Information Technology shortly after. We began to work with Professor Andrzej Czyzewski from Gdansk University of Technology. I'd been interested in computers and new technologies since my primary school days. I was even doing some programming in attempts to get interesting sounds from my Atari 800. Academy of Information Technology gave me an opportunity to get back to coding, and the great scholars of Warsaw University instructed us to think about algorithms with an open mind.

When did you meet PSP co-founder Antoni Ozynski?

We've known each other since high school. The friendship lasted throughout our college years.

What was the first software you created?

The first audio software was an audio editor of sorts, but I quickly abandoned that project and moved on to some more exciting ideas. I was really into reverb effects and limiters. After graduating I tried to apply for a job, but it turned out that nobody in Poland was really looking for an audio plug-in developer. Luckily Antoni was a management graduate, so we kicked off our business. There were no outside funding sources, but we believed the most important factor was passion. Antoni was supporting the project financially and I had the knowledge. We created our website and started selling our first set of plug-ins.

How did the Polish press react to your plug-ins?

The Estrada i Studio magazine staff was very supportive. It was a very pleasant surprise for us, because up to that point we had mostly been experiencing discouragement and disbelief on multiple areas of our activity. Later on we received the same feedback from the foreign press. If it wasn't for the support of the music industry press, we would have never really kicked off, from a business perspective — it was essential for us.

StereoPack was your first batch of plug-ins. Can you tell us how they came about?

StereoPack was a toolset containing a couple of stereo plug-ins. To be honest, we were a bit underwhelmed with the response we got. At the time there were already many computer-based DAW users, but the plug-in market wasn't too big. Unfortunately, it turned out that it wasn't enough to gain more attention. We were still a very young and inexperienced company, and we kept learning from our own mistakes. After releasing our first plug-ins, Antoni started getting in touch with the press and people from the industry. We kept developing new products and, with time, we started getting more and more attention.

Antoni once said that pirated versions of your plug-ins were your best marketing tool, and people who had been learning on them purchased the legal version later on.

This is a very complex issue. On one hand, what Antoni said is pretty accurate, but on the other hand, we have to take into account that in the last ten years many things have changed. This definitely helped us kick off, because we didn't have to prepare any marketing strategy — people were doing this for us by spreading good word of mouth. Today people tend to work on pirated software not because they can't afford it, or because they want to see what the product is capable of. Quite often they choose to use pirated software because they are taught that they don't need to pay for intellectual property. Interestingly, these are the same people would probably want to be paid for their music. Fighting piracy was never our main goal — we are not going to fight human weaknesses by overprotecting our software. We've always wanted to focus on making a great product, as well as to have great relations with all our users. We don't think of ourselves as policemen or typical sellers. We feel a sense of responsibility towards our clients. This responsibility lasts for many years. The plug-in has to be the best it can possibly be.

Which of your plug-ins would you call a game changer?

It was the PSP VintageWarmer, of course. It's still our best- selling plug-in. We can proudly say that there aren't many producers in the world who don't know what VintageWarmer is. Our plug-ins are cited as exemplary professional plug-ins in many mixing and mastering textbooks. Each new edition of Bob Katz' book, Mastering Audio , contains more and more of our plug-ins. It is very gratifying. Bob not only is our user, but also a beta tester. We are always very open to his suggestions when designing plug-ins. Bob is not the only one we work with — among our cooperators you can find such a great pro audio individuals as Bob Ludwig , Alan Silverman, George Daly, Stuart Price, Hank Linderman, Barry Wood, Steve Levine, Andrzej Karp, Joachim Krukowski, Andrzej Rewak, and many others. After all these years I still feel a bit shy when inviting Grammy award winning folks to beta tests. It is, however, the best way for us to verify what we are hearing in our plug-ins — especially when designing a new solution. There is always that dose of uncertainty as to whether what we had in mind and what we hear will be useful in a practical area of music production. I have not been actively working on this field for the last 15 years, so conforming our ideas to the reality of modern music production is a challenging process. Something that sounds great to me does not necessarily sound equally great in a professional mix or master.

What exactly where you trying to achieve with VintageWarmer?

We still ask ourselves what exactly VintageWarmer is. We set it in a certain form factor 13 years ago — a form factor that worked, and one that we cannot interfere with too drastically. We are still perfecting this plug- in on the inside and adding features on the outside. We keep it up-to-date with new environments, but we will not change its core functionality. The idea was to create a plug-in which would allow us to achieve a sound reminiscent of the sound of good analog tape recorders. It's not a tape emulator, though. I used algorithms similar to the ones used in limiters. It's written in a very specific way, which eventually gave us a sound that we were happy with. As a response to feedback we had received from the beta testers, we added a multiband mode. But, to be totally honest, I prefer using Warmer in the mix with the SingleBand mode switched on, instead of using it on the master track. This, however, may be the result of my belief that this kind of operation should be left to the mastering engineer. [laughs] In the mix, however, it's better to use VintageWarmer very gently on each track. For example, to get the drum sound very similar to the one known from a heavily saturated tape recording, if that's the kind of sound we are looking for. The algorithm was written by me, the plug-in was made the way we wanted it to be. And while it's not a typical tape emulator, it allows the user to achieve sound similar to the one known from the analog tape and old condenser or tube mics. Personally I love using VintageWarmer on acoustic guitars. To make it easier to use it in the mix we even created a single- band, simpler version of VintageWarmer, which is MicroWarmer. It works great when used on single tracks, like acoustic guitar or drum tracks. Some engineers use it on vocals as well. A few years ago we were thinking that it may be time to let the Warmer go, but it turns out it's still alive and well. It is still being listed as one of the most important tools for every engineer and there are many world-class producers who cannot imagine having to work without VintageWarmer. And even so many years after we debuted it, VintageWarmer is still a one of a kind tool. We often hear that when using VintageWarmer you can actually forget that you are working in a fully digital environment.

What is your approach when designing your plug-ins?

With VintageWarmer it was pretty straightforward — it was mainly focused around listening and achieving an organic sound. As I mentioned earlier, it may be possible that I was trying to recreate the sound I remember from my childhood. The process of searching for the right sound is based on listening to the audio file I have processed by the algorithm to verify whether the direction I have chosen is sonically satisfying. I run it on drums, bass, guitar, and vocal, and then I listen to what is happening to them. That's how I did it with VintageWarmer — we don't have one method that is good for every plug-in. With each project we have to learn everything from scratch. I think there is no point in doing projects that don't teach you anything. At every stage of my work I feel like a student. Sometimes we realize that there is some missing element in the project — when that happens, we put it off for as long as it takes for us to find what the plug-in is missing. Then we might come back to it after a couple of years with new experiences, [it often leads to a] different approach and it may just be enough to turn the project into something really solid.

VintageWarmer wasn't a software emulation of any existing hardware. Later on you started analyzing physical devices, and the Lexicon PSP 42 is the only hardware emulation plug-in you have made so far [of the Lexicon pcm 42 reverb].

Yes, Lexicon PSP 42 was our first emulation. It is a great plug-in created by Hubert Pietrzykowski. It really got people's attention. The Lexicon guys approved this plug-in and gave us permission to use the Lexicon name. It was a great moment for us, as it proved that our approach, and everything we have been doing so far, was right. We do not want to "steal" something from the market, especially if it is still alive and well. This is the reason why you will not find many PSP plug-ins based on the actual devices. Usually we prefer to take inspirations from certain sounds, rather than try to recreate it accurately. PSP 42 is the exception here — it's the first one, but probably not the last one.

So new emulations are in the making...

We have always rented various [pieces of] studio gear and analyzed every possible aspect of them to know how they behave. This is what I've been learning from, and I still do. Our job, and passion, is to create algorithms, but for me working with good analog equipment is a beautiful experience. It's very different from working in a software-based environment — you can feel the device, twist the knob, and even appreciate the ergonomics and design. And, of course, we learn from that as well — working with good hardware teaches us how to build a user interface from scratch to make working with it easier for musicians and engineers. And that's the reason why we rent equipment. Once we were able to afford them, we started purchasing the ones that we liked the most.

You have your own studio designed for testing hardware?

We use it when we need to test out or measure some audio gear. One of the times we needed it was when we were working on L'otary — we brought in two Leslie units and spent hours listening to it, testing various mic'ing techniques and different settings, and recording audio which was going to be used during the programming work. It's quite a tedious way to learn about the sound, but in this case there was no way around it. It is one thing to mic a Leslie and make it work perfectly within the context of a mix, but it's a whole other story to witness its sound organically inside the room.

A Leslie speaker is an electromechanical device. Transforming all these little details into a digital format generates a huge amount of data.

Yes, it's not easy to completely convert it into algorithmic format. This, however, didn't stop us from trying. [laughs] A Leslie generates a lot of noise, which mostly comes from the motors. There are two motors for each speaker. The sound is different, depending on the speed. Accelerations and slowdowns also cause a noticeable difference. All these aspects make recording a Leslie an incredibly difficult thing to do. On the other hand, most emulations available on the market do not implement all these little artifacts and noises, which I think are the key to achieving a believable sound. This can be applied not only to Leslie sound, but also music in general — removing all "unwanted" elements of the sound makes music sound way too artificial. That's why in L'otary we allow our users to control many mechanical aspects of the device. It was very challenging, but it was definitely worth doing. The success of this plug-in proves that the approach we have chosen for this project was right. We came up with solutions that we are very proud of. This plug-in was our first highly advanced teamwork project. We were forced to work on this one as a team, due to the complexity of the issue we were dealing with. At one point our developer version had more than 100 controls. There is always a huge dilemma before releasing the Beta as to which regulators to keep and which to remove.

PSP offers a great series of EQ plug-ins. Were you also carefully analyzing the behavior of hardware equalizers for these projects?

Those weren't easy days for us, because we really wanted to get some plug-ins out there, but I was having my house renovated, which was consuming a lot of my time and energy. I was writing this set of plug-ins at night and actually it turned out to be one of the best in the history of PSP. Those plug-ins were hugely inspired by classic analog hardware — they sound very similar to specific devices, but they are not exact emulations. Our primary goal was to achieve really good sound processing within the plug-in [in order] to recreate the way filters behave. We also wanted to have great GUI [graphical user interface]; usually the setting up of hardware EQs is not very precise. We want to make sure the user focuses on what comes out of our plug-in, not how our plug-in looks like, in terms of displayed parameters, values, or meters. We asked a lot of our engineer friends who are familiar with a certain group of equalizers to share their measurements, experiences, and opinions. We owe a lot to audio engineer Joachim Krukowski, who measured various classic EQ devices and was kind enough to share them with us, along with his subjective view on how they should sound. Personal opinions turned out to be more useful than raw measurement data.

What is your view on the future of the pro audio industry, especially the plug-in market?

I never would have thought that we would be trying so hard to make digital audio sound so much more analog-like. Computers are getting faster and converters are getting better, so algorithms cannot fall behind. I think that, at first, software sound processors were written by people who weren't that familiar with music or sound — usually they were just regular programmers who had to learn everything about audio from scratch. That's where these "hardware better than software" legends come from. We've managed to catch up with digital hardware processors pretty quickly. Now we try to move as many positive aspects as we can from the analog world to the digital one. It is just a theory that we like analog sound because we are used to it. There is much more to it than that. Authenticity, emotionality, richness, and fullness of details goes beyond our "sound education." This is probably far more than just a single issue, like an analog distortion or its lack of digital-like resolution. Analog workflow influences all creating, recording, and mixing processes.

What keeps PSP going?

The key factor in our work is to maintain good relations with people around us. We need to remember that our support does not end on writing a user manual. Anyone can contact us, and it is our duty to do our best to provide them with the best solution we can. We always try to explain how each plug-in works and how to find the right approach to the certain problem. I encourage all engineers to use various plug-ins — I am not pushing PSP plug-ins on anyone. I try to encourage people to test, use, listen to, and learn how various plug-ins are working. I would never say, "You need to buy ten more PSP plug-ins and that will get you a Grammy." We try to humbly educate people.