Mix "in the box" vs DA to mixer?

[Booda]

I just had a conversation with a friend who's a engineer and bills himself as a Producer... He likes "industry" talk.

Anyway I've been working on some recording projects the past few years (me as a musician) and I run questions and ideas by him about recording and such. He also tends to have a lot of Hardware & Software problems...

Tonight I was asking him if he's heard of the lynx Two card and that they (from what I've been reading) have great converters. He went into this whole thing about... He's come to the conclusion that only PT is good enough because that set up takes the load off the PC and if your running a setup w/ a Card like a Delta1010 (that's what he has x2) or Aardvark, that a PC just can't handle it. That if you want to track 16 tracks 24/96 at a time (he thinks 96 kHz is a must) only PT will handle it. He then went on to say that there is too much Latency w/ the PC and software when your running a large number of tracks.... so what he does now is runs it back out to a analoge mixer and does his mixes n the real world. He thinks w/ a large number of tracks you start to deveop distortion from the latency and then it gets worse when you add Plug Ins and that's why it gets muddy.

Does this sound right? that is if I explained it well enough. I think it gets muddy because of the Converters aND Preamps and such. I tried to tell him that w/ my Aardvark there is Zero latency monitoring, and Latency only matters in the relationship between MIDI and Audio and that 96 Khz is a waste anyway... & I'd like to tell him that I think he just doesn't know hoe to set up his PC right and that it needs tweeking to run Audio. I might be wrong and thats ok... But what ever I tell him and tell him about info I get from this forum and others he acts like I'm getting my info from High school kids w/ a 4 Track.

Please shed some light,
B.

 

[tmix]

Talking in circles

I f what you said is truly what your friend said his talking in circles.
He has heard some of the most recent gibberish and is recycling it.

There are differences in converters, no doubt. The better ones have better imaging primarily due to better clocking mechanisms. The better converters may also have better analogue sections as well on out put.
I can regularly run 20-30 tracks without a hiccup on my modest 700 mhz P3 so PCs can handle track count just fine.

The real issue lies with how a certain software handles the digital (internal) summing of data files when "mixing in the box".
Some are just plain lousy at it. When I moved from Cakewalk to Samplitude, I noticed the same exact songs transferred from one program to the other sounded very different. The sofware mix sounded clearer particularly on high track count mixes.
With a decent analogue board you will often get a cleaner/punchier sound because the analogue summing of that console can possibly be better than your software summing. But the opposite can be true if you are mixing on a crappy mixer.

Mixing in the Box is getting better. I would venture to say on small track counts, there may not be any difference. It all depends on you software.

My observation anyway.

 

[Booda]

I love it! Talking in Circles is what he does best. One week he'll say this and the next he'll say that... To give him the BOTD he is extreemly busy and I think he does just what you said... hears something from a "Pro" and takes it for what it's worth w/out researching or testing.

Anyway... to be more clear, He thinks...
1. The PC can handle playback from Many tracks... they just start getting distorted and muddy because of (what he says) Latency.

2. The PC Can not handle recording 16 Tracks at 96 kHz 24 bit at One time.

I wanted to originaly ask about Latency... but I thought I'd get no responses... "Oh Geez another Latency question" . ya know?

Thanks
B.

 

[jake-owa]

Your friend is spewing garbage. It all depends on the interface my friend.

 

[TexRoadkill]

I love it! Talking in Circles is what he does best. One week he'll say this and the next he'll say that... To give him the BOTD he is extreemly busy and I think he does just what you said... hears something from a "Pro" and takes it for what it's worth w/out researching or testing.

Anyway... to be more clear, He thinks...
1. The PC can handle playback from Many tracks... they just start getting distorted and muddy because of (what he says) Latency.

2. The PC Can not handle recording 16 Tracks at 96 kHz 24 bit at One time.

I wanted to originaly ask about Latency... but I thought I'd get no responses... "Oh Geez another Latency question" . ya know?

Thanks
B.

Either your friend or you are getting a little confused on a few things. Using plugins will definately introduce latency to specific tracks. Latency over all the tracks isn't a big deal because it is usally the same amount over all of them and a 100ms delay latency (worst case) would not be a big deal for mixing. Latency will not affect the sound quality in any way. It is simplay a fancy word for delay.

The main problem with DAW's is the summing buss and that is a big reason to do analog mixes. This is a pretty hotly debated topic but generally PT is not considered to handle this issue much better than any other DAW's. The summing buss can definately cause distortion or slightly dull sounding tracks.

The second comment could be true but it just depends on the computer. Having dedicated DSP cards can definately help take the load off of the CPU. In this case PT would have an advantage but also an immense cost.

FWIW I use a HDR and analog mixer. I think DAW's are best for editing but not mixing or tracking.

 

[pipelineaudio]

Get yourself a copy of Lynn Fuston's DAWSumm CD sampler and put your platform vs platform and DAW vs Analog summing fears to rest. Understand the difference and you will no longer be loosing sleep over this ( I sure did for a while!)

Depending on the app you are using latency can be a NON issue. The DX spec calls for ZERO latency, just not all companies implement it correctly. VST can have "plugin delay compensation" which is nowhere near as good, but can work

 

[Teacher]

i think if you tried Samplitude 7 that might change your mind about mixing analog(of course i mean cheap analog like mackie etc. not ssl, neve etc.) vs in the box. just like someone said before i transferred the same track recorded in the sonar to samplitude and it sounded way clearer for some strange reason...

 

[bassix]

Hmmmz

There's some nice articles over here. http://digido.com/index/pmodule_id=11/pmdmode=fullscreen/pageadder_page_id=18/

Enjoy.