Analog summing vs. Digital Summing
- Thread starter fenix
- Start date
Jburn34
New member
What convertors and what board were used? What software was used?
Jeremy
www.NamesakeProductions.com
Jeremy
www.NamesakeProductions.com
regebro
Insane Genious!
Teacher said:
Digital summing done badly would rather make the sound harsher, by introducing unessecary digital artifacts. This would happen if you for example have sixteen channels, and divide them with sixteen before adding instead of after.
Doing that is incredibly stupid, however, and no professional software does this.
Once again, this is not an issue about digital vs analog summing. It's an issue about digital vs analog mixing. And many prefer the sound of analog mixing. Exactly why I don't know, but I'd guess it has to do with the filters, and probably the input amplification curves off the high end in a nice way or something.
I note that we still don't have an answer.
regebro
Insane Genious!
OK, let's recap:
Blue Bear Sound: Y: Analog, X: Digital. Prefers Y.
Massive Master: No opinion on which is Digital. Prefers X.
tmix: Prefers Y.
Kylen: Y: Digital, X: Analog. Prefers X
Kylens wife: Prefers Y.
Chessrock: Prefers X.
Teacher: Y: Analog, X: Digital.
The answer was that X is digital, and Y analog. So, 2 out of 3 guys were right in the guessing of which is which. However, the real question is what sounds BEST, and then we have the following statistics:
Blue Bear, tmix, and Kylens wife preferred the analog mix.
Massive Master, Kylen and Chessrock preferred the digital mix.
A big, phat 50/50. The conclusion: It's not even possible to say which is best of analog or digital MIXING, which according to the analog crazies necessarily would sound incredibly awesomely much better than digital. Image how hard it would bet to say which is better of analog and digital SUMMING.
So there. Quod Eras Demonstrandum, as the romans would say.
Blue Bear Sound: Y: Analog, X: Digital. Prefers Y.
Massive Master: No opinion on which is Digital. Prefers X.
tmix: Prefers Y.
Kylen: Y: Digital, X: Analog. Prefers X
Kylens wife: Prefers Y.
Chessrock: Prefers X.
Teacher: Y: Analog, X: Digital.
The answer was that X is digital, and Y analog. So, 2 out of 3 guys were right in the guessing of which is which. However, the real question is what sounds BEST, and then we have the following statistics:
Blue Bear, tmix, and Kylens wife preferred the analog mix.
Massive Master, Kylen and Chessrock preferred the digital mix.
A big, phat 50/50. The conclusion: It's not even possible to say which is best of analog or digital MIXING, which according to the analog crazies necessarily would sound incredibly awesomely much better than digital. Image how hard it would bet to say which is better of analog and digital SUMMING.
So there. Quod Eras Demonstrandum, as the romans would say.
Jburn34 said:
The recording:
Vocals: nuemann tlm103 through avalon 2022 pre
acoustics: neumann tlm103 through avalon 2022 pre
Bass: fender jazz bass through avalon u5
snare: audix d1
kick: audix d6
overhead: at3035?
overhead: at4033
*all drums preamped with presonus digimax
-recorded to a protools hd system. The in the box mix was mixed on the hd system with waves plugins.
-the analog mix was routed out from the hd to a mackie 8 bus. All eq was flat on the mackie. The faders in the box were at unity (0db) and the faders on the mackie were adjusted so that they similarly matched the in the box mix.
Jburn34
New member
How do you like that Avalon? I've got the 2022 myself and I love it!
There were some pretty big differences between the two tracks. I guess which one you like the best is subjective. But I do think it's pretty unfair to compare Protools HD to a Mackie Board. Everyone I've always talked to said if all you got is a Mackie, stay in the box. I've been told the summing bus on it isn't good and that you would need to move up to a Soundcraft or something equivalent to benefit getting out the box. I'm sure that HD's converters are pretty good, but there's also a lot better ones out there. I think if you did this through a better board and possibly better converters, the difference would be huge. Also, how many tracks were sent to the board?
Jeremy
There were some pretty big differences between the two tracks. I guess which one you like the best is subjective. But I do think it's pretty unfair to compare Protools HD to a Mackie Board. Everyone I've always talked to said if all you got is a Mackie, stay in the box. I've been told the summing bus on it isn't good and that you would need to move up to a Soundcraft or something equivalent to benefit getting out the box. I'm sure that HD's converters are pretty good, but there's also a lot better ones out there. I think if you did this through a better board and possibly better converters, the difference would be huge. Also, how many tracks were sent to the board?
Jeremy
kylen said:fenix - that was fun & educational !
Which one do you like the best ?
Also it looks like you inserted some Waves stuff on the in-the-box mix. Care to break the details out a bit (without giving the secret fenix recipe away - he he) ?
kylen
At first, we kinda wanted to go all out on this song. But then we realized keeping it simple might fit the idea of the song better. So we only had 2 acoustics, 2 vocals, bass and drums. Minimal mics were used. I didn't slap as much compression or eq on it. The comp on the vox is the Waves RenVox with an L1. There's a low cut on the vox and that's it! There's no eq on the drums at all, just some C1's and L1's. Bass guitar has a lot of eq due to some tracking issues. The acoustics have some low shelving but not a lot of compression.
I think I like the in the box mix better (x) but they both sound good to my ears.
BTW...this song was written and recorded for a local independent film titled "I like Simple"