Do I really need a Little Analog (outboard) ?

oh yeah smart peeps at daptone for sure. Then there's artists on drag city, burger records, truth and soul etc who use what's considered even more 'low end' (considering the value hierarchies of capitalism when making art is counter productive id say, if you need a good brain surgeon they come in handy of course) and are also selling tens of thousands of records.

I just took issue with the poster who said if it's for curiosities sake don't bother. Get a 1/4" machine and see what you think! Could be way more interesting than ableton for their thing. A tube amp into ableton aint gonna give the same experience either.

I bet your trident sounds awesome btw :)
 
I said "don't bother" because the original question was asking if he should get a cheap Mackie to experience analog mixing. The Mackie doesn't have any real analog mojo and the one he mentioned doesn't have enough eq to be useful AND he doesn't have any outboard gear to mix with.Thank you

I really don't know how tape machines entered the conversation.
 
yeah fair enough, you're right in that case. perhaps I have gone on a bit of a tangent in my attempts to provide some other analog options. Sorry Farview.
 
Well, tape will work. Plus, you cam miss-match eq and bias, Plus you can overdrive it.

This dude says he masters to a Akai GX600DB;
Akai GX-600DB Tape Mastering - YouTube

I use one as my daily player because of the heads. The Dolby does track well. And it is capable of sounding like tape, remarkably. These have output, also. So, you can pump that up
 
The op never came back to answer the question about what he was trying to accomplish: the analog sound or the experience of mixing on an analog board.
 
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Well, from the other threads, I have to suppose it is about the console joy and sound, but I just wanted to say he could just plug in some tubes rather than buy a VLZ.
 
Oh my... I'm so appreciate and excited to all your replies, brain is ringing now, Wahaha.

So sorry to say that I was and I am a fully "in the box" guy! And, I am wondering how will "anologue" polishes my audio? The purpose is to ensure whether an "in the box" plugins can do the same job?

I wish to give it a little experience with those small tiny gears like mentioned VLZ OR ALESIS HD24 (whether it's possible to?) as an outboard gear for recording and especially during the mixing stage?!

Most of the recording sessions were so rush, have no time for experimentation. What I can proceed is to ensure gain staging correct and clean recorded, then polish & enhance & pump the recorded wave during the Pre-Mixing (processing stage).

Therefore, I'm here to listening to your precious suggestions and advices before proceeding to High Cost Expensive Awesome Gears (Hahaha.)

Once again, thank you for your patience upon my ZERO knowledgeable.
 
Oh my... I'm so appreciate and excited to all your replies, brain is ringing now, Wahaha.

So sorry to say that I was and I am a fully "in the box" guy! And, I am wondering how will "anologue" polishes my audio? The purpose is to ensure whether an "in the box" plugins can do the same job?

I wish to give it a little experience with those small tiny gears like mentioned VLZ OR ALESIS HD24 (whether it's possible to?) as an outboard gear for recording and especially during the mixing stage?!

Most of the recording sessions were so rush, have no time for experimentation. What I can proceed is to ensure gain staging correct and clean recorded, then polish & enhance & pump the recorded wave during the Pre-Mixing (processing stage).

Therefore, I'm here to listening to your precious suggestions and advices before proceeding to High Cost Expensive Awesome Gears (Hahaha.)

Once again, thank you for your patience upon my ZERO knowledgeable.

If you are a 'fully "in the box" guy', then that's probably the best place to be at the moment. Analog is not going to add much polish unless you go for hi-end equipment.

I think you are right in working on gain staging, clean recording and so on first. Focussing on your recording techniques is where you will make your greatest gains, and one of the key factors is developing your critical listening skills . . . because it is your ears that will tell you that you are improving.
 
yeah, don't bother. If that's your process then get good at mixing ITB.

Just for the sake of offering another perspective that you might not have come across yet, consider this (this is the analog forum after all heh). So for example, when you're recording a snare drum it can benefit from some top end eq to open it up. If you do this while tracking you can check to see how much this eq'ing has also affected the hi hats next to the snare drum.
If you leave it until mix down, you might not be able to brighten up the snare because you'll realize all of a sudden that the mic is picking up too much hi hat, and that they become to loud or to harsh and brittle sounding.

What I'm saying is that you will have to make mix decisions at some point. You could choose to take them one at a time and learn from your mistakes and get better doing things right the first time, as opposed to leaving everything until mix time and then having to deal with a 'rubix cube' like situation where you have a million problems all affecting each other and no real way to gain control over the different aspects of your mix.

You seem kind of new to this so just thought I'd share a more old school production perspective for you, as maybe you never thought about it like this. Hope it helps in some way :)
 
As has been said, unless you are going to add a tape deck or high end analog outboard gear to your system, you are not going to get any of the benefits of analog, just the downside.

An Alesis HD24 is just a stand alone DAW. It is digital, it is probably old (I don't know if they still make these) and vintage digital is not a good thing.

Good plugin emulations of high end compressors, EQ's and tape decks will get you that sort of sound at a fraction of the cost and much less hassle.

If you really want to spend money on things that will make a difference, get a good mic preamp and a few good mics. It isn't that digital is harsh, it's that analog tends to get rid of some of that harshness. If you start getting better mics and preamps, you won't have any of the harshness in the first place.
 
Well, I look out for old digital, the same way I snag some analog

If SOS suggested it sounded Superb, , or maybe, excellent and users say it has better sound quality than all the others, etc..

Maybe, it won't have Butterfly heads and WIMA Tantalum, but digital can still have something going on
5252111848_807aa4ba37_o.jpg
 
Do you have good converters? If not, then you'll lose more than you gain. Prism will cost you $10K+ while Antelope will run a few thousand. This is your bottle neck and there's no way around it. Are you just doing analog for fun or do you want to improve your tracks? Today's options of tape and tube emulations will serve your needs quite well if you do some research. I have a rack full of gear and own three multi-track tape machines but I only use them if I want to have fun. When ITB there's many options that I use. NLS, J-37, SSL-E, TG12345, Bx-Console, Softube Tape, Decapitator, Scheps73 ... etc. You have a plethora to choose from and these are only a fraction of the ones in my collection. Don't get me wrong, I still love tape and turning knobs. It's just that it is no longer the best option if you want control and quality.
 
I think about anyone can hear good converters, but they are, often, limited to good enough. I took to heart Jack Renner's (of TELARC) statement that he didn't like the sound of digital, 'til he got some custom 192k. Nothing I do requires that, however.
 
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