The Amazing Shrinking Pro Tools Mix

T

tony moore

New member
I've been given the task of editing and mixing a project that began on an adat, was transferred to some Yamaha DAW dealie and then exported to .WAV files. (This is an Americana, Folk-Rock type thing, BTW) I figured I would finally enter the 20th century and learn Pro Tools and by an mBox. All is well in tech land, no issues at all with the mBox, PTLE and my Mac. Even using PTLE is dang easy, on the surface anyway...

BUT - On songs with a fair bit going on, say 20 tracks or so, the bounce just sounds "small". Monitoring the tracks doesn't sound "small". It's a pretty simple affair. EQ only when needed, just a bit of verb and a slight delay on the main vox. I never had this problem with ADATS, or stand-a-alone hard drive recorders. I think I'm hip to gain structure and am careful with the meters within PTLE. What am I doing wrong?

Being a newbie sucks...

Thanks!

Tony
 
You might try recording the mix without bouncing it. I've never been a fan of bouncing, no matter what the software.

What you would do is buss all your tracks to a stereo track, and then record that.
 
i agree with Sonic....a lot of people prefer that.

a few other options/things to watch:
make sure you're mixing with a master fader and watch your levels on that.
make sure you're bouncing with dither on the master fader track....anytime you're going to 16 bit (whether you're current audio is 16 or 24 bit too).
you may also try bouncing as multiple mono files, importing them into a new session and then doing a "Export selected regions as files" command...and do an offline bounce and avoiding the mix bus.
 
Thanks Guys!

I like the bussing to a stereo track idea as it would let me use a decent analog eq and comp. Do you have a preferred device like an Alesis Masterlink or something?

I have been using a master fader and using the Pow'r Dither.

I'll look at both and compare results.

Thanks!
 
tony moore said:
BUT - On songs with a fair bit going on, say 20 tracks or so, the bounce just sounds "small".
Click to expand...

Welcome to mixing in the box!!! But one thing you can do to help this is to mix to another device (out of the SPDif output) or you should be able to go out the SPdif and then back in SPdif and record the mix to a new stereo track (muted of course) and then just export the mix track instead of bouncing.
 
Ronan said:
you should be able to go out the SPdif and then back in SPdif and record the mix to a new stereo track (muted of course) and then just export the mix track instead of bouncing.
Click to expand...

SonicAlbert said:
You might try recording the mix without bouncing it. I've never been a fan of bouncing, no matter what the software.

What you would do is buss all your tracks to a stereo track, and then record that.
Click to expand...

I've done A/B null tests, and these make absolutely no difference.
 
You could also throw money at the problem by mixing outside the box. You will need 8-16 channels of high quality DA conversion, a summing box, and a mixdown recorder such as the Alesis Masterlink. If you go with a passive summing box like the Folcrom, you will also need a high quality two channel preamp. The whole setup should cost about 4-5K (ballpark) depending on your equipment selections. (Oh Shit! I spent all that time and money getting stuff in the box! And now I have to get it out!)

http://www.barryrudolph.com/mix/strictlysumming.html
 
I like mixing "in the box." The one time I set up to mix digital tracks thru an analog mixer to use the summing buss came out as one of the weakest things I've ever done.

Maybe I've been digital so long that I'm able to neutralize it with different mixing techniques.
 
the obvious difference between your ADATs and your stand-alone machine compared to what you are doing now is that ADATs and stand alone machines both have faders, whereas protools has algorithms.

I haven't tried the stereo bus thing though. But I have imported a bounced track and flipped the phase and heard total silence.
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
I like mixing "in the box." The one time I set up to mix digital tracks thru an analog mixer to use the summing buss came out as one of the weakest things I've ever done.

Maybe I've been digital so long that I'm able to neutralize it with different mixing techniques.
Click to expand...

curious question -

were all of the track volume adjustments and plugins still used ITB? and the mixer was just there to sum the outputs?
 
Cloneboy Studio said:
I like mixing "in the box." The one time I set up to mix digital tracks thru an analog mixer to use the summing buss came out as one of the weakest things I've ever done.

Maybe I've been digital so long that I'm able to neutralize it with different mixing techniques.
Click to expand...

I've been reading about ITB versus OTB mixing for a year or so now and the bottom line for me is that it depends on the quality of your DA converters and mixing board/summing box. If you have great converters and a great board, it's worth it. If not, it just seems like an exercise in excess conversion.
 
I personally mix outside the box, using analog outboard along with digital fx processors. That's after going 100% digital for a while. The digital mixes just didn't do it for me.

What I'm doing is becoming known as "hybrid" mixing, where some of it is done ITB digitally using plugins, and some of it is done OTB using outboard hardware. The OTB aspect is more than just summing.

So for me, I basically am doing an 8 buss out of the computer to my outboard hardware. This is then processed using my analog outboard and then mixed in my Speck XtraMix's. The mix is then sent to my UA 2192 converter for the A/D conversion, and then recorded back into a stereo track in the DAW.
 
FALKEN said:
curious question -

were all of the track volume adjustments and plugins still used ITB? and the mixer was just there to sum the outputs?
Click to expand...

No, did all the volume adjustments on the analog mixer, but the plugins were coming off the DAW.
 
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