Do I need an external analogue mixer like the pro's ?

A

Aly

New member
Hello everyone..

I know I'm still a newbie here, if you look at the post count. Thruth is, I've been active for about 5 years now, doing not a bad job in recording demo stuff for friends and bands who actually pay for them.

I learned a lot by reading here, reading here again and again, and of course by trying. I never went to a single course in audio engineering or whatsoever, so, I guess like most of you, I learned the most important stuff from the masters here.

But now I got a serious question, and I'm kinda stuck.

Up till now, I record everything direct into the pc. I got two Hoontech (StAudio nowadays) ADC DAC 2000 C-ports and this gives me 16 inputs (32 bit) simultaneously, direct to hard disc that is.
Drums are done via dynamic mikes (Dedicated shure drum mikes),
bass goes in direct and then via tube preamp,
so do the guitars and the vocals. I got those ART tube preamps (rack mounted one) and a few nice tube microphones (ADK TC 51 C, AKG solidtube,...)
Vocals go in same way via Solidtube..
Microphones and preamps are not the issue...

So now, everything records well and at the end of the session I got about 20 tracks or less (depending on how many overdubs a band needs)
We get to the mixing stage. And here is where trouble comes in.

When I mix it's quite ok, but it's never superb ! I now sonusman and son of mixerman talked about it years ago, and I agree to ther point of "pc recording still not as good as analogue tape etc". It's got to do with truncating of those 0's and 1's in the digital world, and the fact that when you use effects on your mix, it actually degrades the overall quality.
I use effects, like compression and delay and reverb (whatever the mix needs) and I fully agree that the mix suffers from this. A clean mix where you do nothing sometimes sounds better than a mix with tons of ecffects (so to speak)

My question now (finally) : Would I benefit from buying a decent (soundcraft studio or likewise) analogue mixer, send every recorded track from the pc into the mixing bord via XLR to mixer preamps, and then mix on the mixing desk ? So I would not use the pc, and not further degrade the sound quality ? Then I suppose I also need ouboard effects like compressors and reverbs etc ? Would it be worth the investment or am I just going nuts and is there another problem with my sound ? I really would like some answers from the semi pro's here... This way every track is saved to pc digitally when recording, and I would still be able to use an analogue table to do the mix.. Is this the way to go ?

Thank you all very much !

Aly
 
Don't bother. The experts don't agree that there's an improvement in sound quality and any difference is actually quite small in the grand scheme of things. At our level there are so many other factors affecting our results that it's not worth worrying about. The weakest links that we must overcome are our skills and the rooms we work in. The loss of convenience of mixing on an external analogue mixer will have more impact than any alleged improvement in quality.

It is true that the more digital processing you do, the more the signal gets degraded but that is small and only noticeable if the processing and reprocessing is getting out of hand. The best way to deal with this issue is to work harder at getting the sound right before it hits the analogue to digital converters so that less correction is required.
 
You might want to get a couple of compressors to run them through before you get them to the pc. At one point in time I was just running a preamp and I changed it to a compressor and it took some time to get the settings "right" I guess you can say but after I did the overall quality came out better.
 
Analog works. And digital works.

Just to add to these excellent words..
iqi616 said:
.. At our level... The weakest links that we must overcome are our skills and the rooms we work in..
Click to expand...
It's the front end first.. At any level.

It is true that the more digital processing you do, the more the signal gets degraded but that is small and only noticeable if the processing and reprocessing is getting out of hand. The best way to deal with this issue is to work harder at getting the sound right before it hits the analogue to digital converters so that less correction is required.
Click to expand...
-Solid tracks stand on their own..
-those tracks need less fussing over and lead to..
-mixes that fall into place because of tracks that work..
-regardless of the medium.

Now, (assuming that) there's 'how you like (and can afford) to work it, and which candy/fluff the flavors comes in.
 
There is no reason to degrade the sound..why come back out to a mixer...every time you come in and out the sound quality is getting worse!
The less things you have in the path the better!!

Get a DAW controller if you don't want to mix with a mouse!!
 
Thanks for your input everyone..

I was just wondering if getting from pc to mixer for processing and then final mix back into pc would be better or worse than doing everything with the pc and software effects..

Any other ideas, anyone ?
 
Unless the gear is crappy, it'll be more "different" than better or worse. If the gear IS crappy, it WILL be worse. Regardless, it would be more hassle than doing it in the box but ultimately you do what works for you.
 
Aly said:
Thanks for your input everyone..

I was just wondering if getting from pc to mixer for processing and then final mix back into pc would be better or worse than doing everything with the pc and software effects..

Any other ideas, anyone ?
Click to expand...


It depends on the Anaog to digital & digital to analog converters you have, because in order to do that you have to do the following conversion: digital to analog to digital, thats not counting the first convertion you made when you recorded the instruments. So if you dont have good converters you'll endup loosing more of the audio integrity than adding something interesting to the signal. Its good to note that if you have good converters and you want to do this, your outboard gear must be something really good, if not, stick to your DAW.

Regarding the Analog desk, well i dont say that you need one but its really cool to have one, again, if its not a very good desk stick to your DAW.

And remember

good ears + crappy or expensive equipment = good sound
bad ears + crappy or expensive equipment = bad sound

Cheers ! :)
 
Thank you very much..

So assuming that my converters are quite allright, and I assign each recorded track in my sequencer to an individual output on my soundcard (I've got 16 independent analog outputs, in two seperate breakout boxes);

Then I connect each out to a separate input on an analog mixing desk;

I need excellent outboard gear here, like a pro compressor and some decent reverb unit;

Now I would finally be able to play the whole song, each track leaving the PC AS it was recorded, in 32 bit pristine quality;

I can then adjust EQ, send to compressor and reverb unit and do some external effects with the mixing desk;

and send the sum of the mix back to PC, record this again on a separate track in 32 bit again..

Is taht how the pros do it ? And let's say I got time and money (or time to wait for some good gear to come on ebay, and buy it at a cheaper price than in the stores)
Would this not be benificial... ? Just wondering..

You know, I've really been into pc mixing for years.. But I don't know... Lately it seems that every mix I made.. I mean, it's like it's just not good enough.. And hey, I want PRO stuff here, almost like the stuff on the shelves..

I know I'll never reach that goal, but I can be aiming for that standard right ?

Thank you all... You're too kind in answering this stuff.

Aly
 
Analog summing is NOT what decides if something has a "pro" sound or not

Tactile control maybe though for some people.

The tracks wont be leaving the PC at 32 bits, theyll be leaving at 24 marketing Bits, which is more like 21 bits usually

Sonically all you are doing is adding noise, distortion and changing the frequency response. In a MASSIVELY bad way with most under 50k$ consoles, in a not quite so bad way as you get over the 50k$ mark
 
Sonically, you will be worse off coming out of the box and into a so-so mixer. If you had a neve, SSL, Midas, or some other super high quality board, it would be worth it. But some $1300 budget board would do more damage than good.

I think that the stuff you are quoting is pretty old information. A lot has changed in the last 5 years and most of the recent CDs in your collection are probably mixed in the box.

Now that almost all DAWs run at 32 bit float, there is no truncation until the very end when you put it on CD. That will happen with anaolg tape too, it's part of the mastering process and a limitation of the CD format.

If your mixes sound degraded or cluttered or unfocused, unfortunately, it's probably the person mixing it or the way the tracks were recorded.
 
you would be better off posting something you have mixed and asking how to better it.
also if you can , some people have posted their tracks for people to mix and had the final mix sent back to them ,ask them what they did differently to you if it sounds better.
maybe a bit of acoustic treatment is required in your mixing room,or you might be working too long on the mix at one time(ears tire easily)

sometimes its better to do a rough demo of the song first see how it all goes together where the problems lie and go back fix them in the proper project.

but you do have to remember you do not have a 100k studio enviroment and gear and not forgetting 40 years in the trade.
 
Aly said:
Hello everyone..
Up till now, I record everything direct into the pc. I got two Hoontech (StAudio nowadays) ADC DAC 2000 C-ports and this gives me 16 inputs (32 bit) simultaneously, direct to hard disc that is.

Aly
Click to expand...

man....those Hoontechs (Crap-ports) are unbalanced pieces of rubbish....sell them, regardless of whether you decide to go 'desk' or not.
I know the multi I/O is something we can get excited about....but...
(These are pretty much your 'front-end'?? and as stated prior, the front end is really important)
I could not get mine (nor my friends) to record anything nicely, or interface well with the PC.
I'm sorry, I don't normally bags equipment here, it's it's it's...just that I loathe those particular units!!!:o

Please, if you've got yours working nicely together, let me know how on earth you did it?:confused:...And post the sounds you get out of those things too...

.....hopefully I'm totally wrong!!...and you're getting great results from those devices!!:)
 
superspit said:
man....those Hoontechs (Crap-ports) are unbalanced pieces of rubbish....sell them, regardless of whether you decide to go 'desk' or not.
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about those particular pieces of gear, but I hope you aren't implying that unbalanced connections inherently mean that gear can't produce good output. I'm guessing you meant that its SNR, THD, frequency response, stability, and/or functionality is crap.

Just in case you were implying that unbalanced devices are inherently unusable, however, I thought it was worth stirring up a debate on the subject. :)

IMHO, balanced I/O is critical for long microphone cable runs. For short microphone runs, it is not a bad idea. For short line-level runs, it is almost a marketing gimmick. When people ask what the difference is between a balanced and an unbalanced connection, my pat answer is "about 6 dB".

Outside of some horrible place like the sound booth next to the bank of dimmers in a theater, the amount of noise you'll pick up in a couple of feet of properly shielded line-level cable is so vanishingly small that it verges on comedy.... Heck, for that matter, even when you are in a sound booth next to the dimmer room, if your gear isn't balanced, I generally find that I'm a million times more likely to have problems with induced noise picked up by balun transformers than in the unbalanced lines that I otherwise would have used. YMMV. :)

In any case, unbalanced gear is perfectly reasonable for a home environment. I might be wary of using it in an unknown environment for hum reasons, but in a home environment, the issue of balanced versus unbalanced line-level audio interconnects ranks somewhere just below clock jitter and dithering methodology on my scale of importance.... :D

Just my $0.02.
 
sound sample

I'm not that experienced of course, but hey superspit, I've got some good stuff out of those puppies.. And true, in the early days they were acting up and it was a lot of work to get them working properly.. Once that was done, and with the new drivers I got no more issues.

But like you all ask, I'm putting up some stuff.. for you to listen to..
Have a look here :

http://www.myspace.com/whoistrapped

Don't be afraid to tell me what to do, I can take some criticism.. It's just that I allways thought that by going analog things would be better..
 
Last edited:
Thanks to Farview and Pipelineaudio for their enlightening posts here on this matter.. I learn big time from both of you.. Interesting opinions that I can easily believe in.

Thanks
 
dgatwood said:
I don't know anything about those particular pieces of gear, but I hope you aren't implying that unbalanced connections inherently mean that gear can't produce good output. I'm guessing you meant that its SNR, THD, frequency response, stability, and/or functionality is crap........................
Click to expand...

No sir!...I was merely making a point that the bluish hue that these units are painted in are awefully unbalanced and unsettling....very undesireable in my view.:)
Cheers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top