Is Digital Mixing a Reality?

C

CharlesThomas

New member
Software-based Mixing a Reality?

I have a Fostex D-160, 16-track, hard-disk recorder.

I've done mixing for years with a traditional analog console. After mixing our latest CD 5 times, it kind of occurred to me that resetting a board and remixing from scratch each time is a really inefficient way to go.

When you listen to a mix two weeks later and say "gosh, if that just had a LITTLE less kick drum...", basically you're SOL. You have to start over, and with over 300 knobs to twist, you're never going to get back exactly where you started. So to get a little less kick drum, you may end up with a totally different guitar tone, or too much lead vocal, or whatever. It's like chasing your tail.

But if you had a digtal mixer or mixing software, theoretically you could save your settings and go from there.

Problem is that I'd need like 24 tracks of mixing power, so that rules out something like the Yamaha 01V or whatever it is.

I'm wondering if there is such a thing as software that could either accept WAV files or digital output from my Fostex, and allow me to do mixing on the computer?

Any significant downsides to this way of doing things (besides the fact that I'd have to get rid of all my rack-mount effects stuff)? Obviously, I'd have to use a standard mixer or some mic preamps to do the actual recording of tracks, but I'm very interested in finding a better solution for mixing down.

Thanks for any recommendations.

Charles Thomas
http://www.hotterthankarl.com/CharlesThomas

[Edited by CharlesThomas on 11-15-2000 at 11:12]
 
Sure....

If saving your mix is a priority, then some type of digital mixer would be needed. Software mixing might work for you too. But mixing with a mouse with your music might not be too fun...:( Also with software mixing, automation is more of a deal of tell it what to do, then listen back. Real time automation is not too much of a reality with software mixing right now.

Is there such a thing as too much kick drum? :)

The O2R may be a better solution for you, or, two O1V's synced together (which would be cheaper I beleive then a 02R). But you should try out the digital consoles on a mix first before you buy one. Really. You may not like the sound much. Or course, you may find it is very suitable for your needs too.

To really take advantage of digital mixing, you would need of course to use any digital outputs on your Fostex. Doesn't it use the Alesis lightpipe digital I/O? With any of the digital mixers, you would need to buy a card to put in them to interface digitally between the two units. Actually, these cards only work for 8 tracks each, so you would need two. If the Fostex doesn't have digital I/O for all 16 tracks, then you would have to run the recorders outputs to the mixers line inputs, which would mean a D/A conversion, and another A/D conversion. You are certainly banking a lot on a $1000 mixer offering even 8 quality A/D converters, as well as all the on board DSP, etc.....I tried running the analog outs of some ADAT's to a O2R's A/D converters and found that it sounded rather bad. Just too many A/D/A conversions happening.

If you are going to go the software route, you will need a soundcard that has digital I/O that is the same as the Fostex's I/O. If it is the Alesis lightpipe I/O on the Fostex, then you will need a soundcard with that digital I/O on it. Now you have some other issues to deal with. If the soundcard only has one lightpipe I/O on it, and it doesn't do "sample accurate" transfers between the card and the recorder, then when you go to try to transfer the second group of 8 tracks to the computer, those 8 tracks will have to be physically aligned with the first group of 8 tracks that you transferred in. The Alesis PCI card offers sample accurate transfers, but that card has some serious problems when it comes to transferring 8 tracks at a time for any longer then a minute or two. I still haven't got mine to work well on my system. It basically comes down to you will need A/V rated harddrives, or LVD harddrive, which are SCSI drives. Very expensive for LVD, and the A/V rated IDE drives are quite a bit more then regular IDE drives. Blah blah blah....

The point is that you will have SOME pain in the ass issues with trying to transfer 16 tracks to the computer. I suppose you could get the MOTU 2408. Drop $800 right there for that card! Then you have the expense of software that works well, and all the DirectX and/or VST plug in's for processing (although, software and plugin's that don't cost anything are out there, if you know where to look, and don't have scrupples with "high seas" versions of software....:)).

In the old days or pre automation on analog consoles, the second engineer was responsible for writing down EVERY board setting. I suppose in some studios this is still done. Every board setting for every mix. This included all settings on every processor used too! Can you imagine the time spent doing this on a 48 channel console?!?!?!?!

Have you ever noticed that on the truely fine analog consoles of old that they used fixed step potentiometers? This made things very simple to set back up. Neve EQ's have fixed EQ points that you select, and I recall, .5db incrimental volume pot's. This made the seconds job very easy to write down console settings. And when the console needed to be set up for that mix again, you had an amazing degree of accuracy. These console were maticously maintained, and the circuitry was top shelf! The specs were amazing from channel to channel, and when you wanted to turn down the volume 2 db, it turned it down 2db, not 2.4 or 1.8! So basically, the mix could be recreated with a degree of accuracy that cheaper consoles can not even come close to recreating.

Another issue is getting the sound you want on tape (or hard disk) so that minimal eq is needed.

Anyway. You are doing the right thing with running multiple mixes. One CD I mixed, we had at least 10 versions of every mix! Later when we went back to decide which mix to use for mastering, well, we had a lot of subjective listening to do. But it was worth the effort.

Ed
 
sonusman said:
Is there such a thing as too much kick drum? :)
Click to expand...

You may soon find out, my friend, with the new mixes you should receive today!

The point is that you will have SOME pain in the ass issues with trying to transfer 16 tracks to the computer.
Click to expand...

What about my options if I tranfer the recorded tracks as WAV files from the Fostex via Jaz drive, then do all the mixing on computer?

CT
 
Ahhhhhh...

No problem there! That would be the way to do it. In that case, just get yourself a high quality soundcard, like the Lynx One, http://www.lynxstudio.com , to use as monitoring.

But be aware! You will need some decent hard drives, and at least a PIII 550 to be able to run enough tracks with processing.

If you went this route, you of course would have unlimited tracks you could record (only limited by the throughput of your hard drives).

There are many things about mixing you will miss in software mixing. It is truely a lot slower then having everything laid out in front of you. The sound is not nearly the same. I just haven't dug digital mixing with digital tracks, because it just seems to be too much digital.

But, at least you could save your mixes and change little things later with software mixing. At least it has one plus....:)

Kick was fine on the mixes.....:)

Ed
 
I gotta say I love software mixing. Having been through the "if only I had more kick" sequence many times I was delighted when automation arrived and I could not work without it now. But now I've realised the incredible control you have with software mixing and I doubt I'll ever be able to do without it.

Like recording a vocal flat with no EQ or compression and then with software raising and lowering words, "T"s EQing out pops, and getting a vocal at the right level yet without compression. And then lightly compressing that. Having endless number of EQs, Comps, Gates, Delays, Reverbs etc....Software mixing is the way to go.

You don't raise and lower a fader anymore - you draw a volume curve. You don't wiggle a fader left/right to pan, - you draw a pan curve. You ride a reverb send and then trim it to what you want. If you need a harmony you copy it to another track and pitch change each note to create a harmony.

When you save it - it remains and can be recalled. You can change it and keep the first one. You can burn it directly to a $2 blank CD and go and play it in the car.

The programmers are constantly writing new reverb units, better EQs, virtual synths, virtual samplers.. I'm waiting for someone to write the virtual control room viewed on 3d virtual reality glasses where all your pluggins are floating in space with your tracks scrolling in front of you and your best friend looks like a virtual John and you look like Paul.

From one old bugger to another..come on in .. the water's fine.

Cheers
John :D
 
is the water fine?

i see this is an old thread, so maybe you all have moved on, but when john sayers mentioned water i had to reply - i started a string on newbies about getting back in the water after being out of the game for like 6 years - seems i should have been a little more specific, but hey...theres a lot to learn.

i have the basic dilema of old skool vs all software - im leaning towards the software cuz it seems to be the way of the future and it seems that u should get better sound if the "stuff" never leaves the digital realm (ie, direct to cd, rather than from tape to cd).

anyway, john - if yer still out there -maybe u can gimme some pointers. i'm pretty sure the main thing i need is a great computer (and see, i figure i need one of these even if i stay in the tape world) - im not sure if a stand-alone system like a roland 808 would be better/cheaper - one guy said he sold his cuz the software approach could do it all.

the other big question i have at the moment is whether to go software with the sampler - i would mainly be sampling old vinyl records, but i need a lot of variety and a drum machine and the ability to precisely edit and loop the samples.

i can give more specifics on what i've been looking at if this thread picks up - not sure if this one is too old to get a response back. well - cheers!
 
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