Mixing Boards... Digital vs. Analog

  • Thread starter Thread starter onesfallingsoul
  • Start date Start date
O

onesfallingsoul

New member
Hey everyone!

I am looking to start a small business for recording local rock bands in my area. I am stumped what sort of mixer i should get.
I'm getting the mackie $4000 rack multitrack recorder. I was wondering what the differences would be between a digital mixer such as the yamaha 01V and an analog mixer such as a mackie mixer w/ equal channels as the yamaha. i wanna stay away frmo PC recording, thats why i chose the rack multitrack.

Thanx,
ShortFuse
 
You're talking about either the HDR-24/96 or MDR-24/96 right? These are both essentially "PC recording" units, so you're really not steering clear of computers at all.

For comparable quality, digital mixers are still more expensive than analog. The 01V appears from it's specs (the A/D specs are very obscure) to be a low end mixer. You're already paying for the A/D converters in the Mackie recorder, so it makes a lot more sense to get the analog mixer.

barefoot
 
Plus, an analog mixer will help keep your recording sounding somewhat warm and interesting. I cannot explain it much better than that. Digital mixing just doesn't have an interesting sound, nor is it nearly as pleasing to the ear. It certainly offers a greater degree of "control" over the mix, but until you get into VERY expensive digital mixers, they don't generally sound all that hot.

I tell ya, I would pretty much rather mix on a crappy Mackie console than on most digital consoles.

Ed
 
just a few notes in case it's helpful for ya...

i've heard (during a conversation with a sweetwater salesperson, hahaha) that digital mixers are good when you deal with many different bands/settings/venues since you may save 'snapshots' of your settings.

have you seen the new alesis hd model? it has removable drives i believe. why not get that and use the savings for studio monitors?

i can't see how one may compete without the pc/daw aspect in their system. when integrating my current core system back in march 2001 the athlon 1.2 tbird looked very promising but we didn't know for sure. though i don't use digidesign hardware i watched their user conference for about 2 weeks waiting for them to approve at least 2 machines using it. i decided enough and went intel. currently, digidesign indeed supports the athlon 1.2 tbird with some restrictions on motherboards. so the even the athlon route is available for you.

my $0.02, good luck,
jeff
 
Thanx very much for your ideas.
when i said steering clear of PC recording i meant on a home computer level. I understand that the mackie DMT recorders are harddrive based and all that I just dont wanna mess with windows and all of that. I think I am going to go w/ the mackie 24/8 studio console. this way i can record 8 tracks at a time onto the recorderand when all 24 are complete each track out on the recorder will go to a channel in on the mixer and Ill be able to mix after everything is recorded and plug a left and right out of the mixer into a cd recorder. mostly i need the mackie 24/8 console, the mackie DMT recorder, a cd recorder, a bunch of mics, cords, some studio moniters, and some little stuff....roughly $10,000 and that dosent include renovation of the recording space. reply to this if you have any ideas anyone....

ShortFuse
 
I would personally forego the Mackie in favor of a used Soundcraft. Actually, you can probably find a new 24/8 Soundcraft Ghost LE for around $4000. No sense in tinty low headroom console when another 40% in money will get you something that you will want to keep for years to come, and will actually work well in years to come. The EQ's alone make the Ghost totally worth the higher cost. I would forego external mic pre's to help make up the difference too.

The Mackie unit for recording makes more sense than like the ADAT HD recorder. At least it has a GUI. Rumor has it that they cases that the hard drives go in to mount in the unit are "off the shelf" and can be had for pretty cheap, so really, the Alesis unit's ONLY advantage over the Mackie unit can easily be negated. Since the Alesis has NO GUI!!! I wouldn't consider it as a choice.

With the Mackie unit, you pretty much have all the same editing capabilities that a computer would, except the plug in's. But many are not looking at heavy plugin use when editing.

Good luck.

Ed
 
Sonusman wrote :
-----------------------------
'Digital mixing just doesn't have an interesting sound, nor is it nearly as pleasing to the ear. It certainly offers a greater degree of "control" over the mix, but until you get into VERY expensive digital mixers, they don't generally sound all that hot

I tell ya, I would pretty much rather mix on a crappy Mackie console than on most digital consoles. '
-----------------------------

Well Somusman, I agree a Yamaha 01V isn't a great digital console, but it rocks most analog consoles in the price-range. Your preference for a crappy Mackie console is your choice. I own both the Tascam TMD8000 and a Yamaha 02R and they sound good. I used to own several Yamaha and Soundtracs analog consoles, they sounded ok, but the digital consoles sound better. I don't want to get in an argument over analog/digital and taste-issue, but mixing 24 track on a crappy analog console will result in a very bad s/n ratio, even without using eq. (+5 dB high shelving on 10 channels will give you a free noise-generator.)

Digital consoles sound clean. I understand you translate this into 'not hot.' I don't . I think the mics and source should be hot. My mixes have gained very much transparancy and definition using digital. I like analog too, that's why I use tupe-preamps for recording. But they costs $750 each. They really sound hot.

You can't compare a $1000 digital console to a $1000 dollar analog console. Consider the FX and dynamics that come with the digital. You will have to buy them seperatly with the analog console.
 
Digital vs. Analog

<<Posting Disclaimer>> Before posting I carefully read Ed's post! (inside joke from another thread in here somewhere...lol)

I sort of agree with Downside on the 01V. I have one and have been very pleased with it. For my set up here at home it's proved itself time and time again. I know Ed you're a Soundcraft man but don't be knock'n my Yammy! lol :D

I see a few guys running comparisons on software and hardware and it's times like these that it can't be so black and white. I think first you have to look at your applications. Are you doing mostly music? Tracking and mixing? Then maybe a strait up analog 24x8 will be fine. If you're in a situation like me where there's ongoing music projects, radio production and web audio production going on...some times a few different sessions per day...then a digital mixer with snapshot recall is needed. Look at what you'll be doing...and see if the console will so those things.

Now you can compare important things like mic pres (one of the most important things) and issues like that. Ease of control and converters and stuff like that. There's universal components that must be up to snuff.

Wanna know what I think is THE make or break of any set up?...the dude behind the console.

Cheers!
 
Downside, I have no confusion over "hot" and "clean". One of the many charms of analog consoles is the distortion they provide to the signal, that WARM distortion, not the edgy bitey crap the Yammies provide......

If you do a little studying on DSP, you will find that your little DSP hacker is FAR from clean. Check out http://www.digido.com and read up on this stuff a bit.

Let's not go into the unstable word clocks that produce jitter. Nor the limited internal bit depth the DSP provides.

Oh, tell me, when was the last time you were able to run a gate AND a compressor on a kick drum at the same time on it?

If it was just me saying bad things about low end digital mixers, well, I could accept being the weirdo here. But, when asked for the truth, most any self respecting engineer would take a Soundcraft Ghost over cheap digital consoles. I personally would rather mix on a Mackie than a cheap digital console (those that know me know how hard it is to say I prefer a stupid Mackie over ANYTHING....:)).

But, do have a good time with yours. You are going to need all those internal do dad's to make up for the lack of warmth, color, headroom, that the console doesn't have naturally.

Vance! Get off my back!!! ;) You will haunt me till the day I die with that cutesy little wannabe console of yours....:D I really DID try to get that ugly O2R out of that studio and on the truck to you....Alas! Bad sound in favor of "automation" wins again!!! Oh well........

A side note. The O2R cost $4000 MORE than my Ghost, for LESS inputs, LESS Aux Sends, LESS master section routing. What did I gain? Some fader automation that I hardly used. The Ghost has built in Mute automation, so that was a wash.

My theory has almost always been this. Track it right! If you track it right, you won't be grabbing for that eq knob, so recall is basically a mute point. Yes, setting up Aux sends on an analog console will take a few minutes to bring back up if a client wants to pick up at a later date, but it don't take THAT long, what, a minute or so? Faders just get pulled back up to unity again usually, and most of the eq will be with the low shelf filter, if any at all. I never had a problem running a few different projects at a time in the old mobile rig with an analog console.

The sound benefits though were astounding! People forget how good a decent analog console sounds when they have been working with DSP for a while. But when they hear it again, they are shocked! With a recent band I mixed, the bass player was in the studio the first day of mixing (I always try to have a band member there you know....:) ). We worked on a mix for about two hours with the Yammie. He ask's me "Why does it sound so flat?". I asked him what he meant. He said "It doesn't sound natural at all. It sounds like it is coming out of a arcade machine or something". I suggested we try the Ghost. We had to stop the session and go get the Ghost from storage and install it. I brought the faders up, NO eq, NO compression, NO effects. His eyes lit up immediately (as mine did...) and he said "That is the sound I am looking for!". I am not making these words up! Immediately, the sound was much more open, warmer, and each instrument had "space" around it. Hitting the same levels on the soundcards A/D converters, the mix sounded louder! I didn't do a damn thing except turn up faders.

I don't know about you people that think digital consoles sound better than even lower end analog consoles. I would REALLY like for a cheaper digital console to sound as good. Really I would. It would take a lot of pressure off to make the mix right that day, or the next morning before we start another mix because I could just recall stuff at a later time. But, they just don't sound that good to justify using when the mix needs to sound good. For a demo, sure. But for something even remotely serious in music, I just can't see subjecting music to bad DSP! I have heard DSP that used in excess of 54 bit internal processing with very high dollar converters and good word clocks. If that is what I had to work with, I could live with it! But these little wannabe's are not in that league by a long shot, and certainly, code written for the PC programs are about as bad.

I think the world has got a little too used to edgy, sterile, cold digital mixing. Thank you ProTools!!!

Ed
 
Saying that the HDR-24/96 is essentially a PC recorder would be stretching things a bit. I seriously doubt it runs Windows, that would be very stupid of Mackie, and since it all comes with a certain hardware setup, you don't have to worry about soundcard incompatabilities and stuff. You also get nice big leds on the front. :)

It is true that the border between hardware and software is getting more and more blurred, and any Radar type recorder is definitely right on the border. That does on the other hand, mean that you get benefits from both worlds. You get more stability, no hardware incompatabilites and such. You have bothe the dedicated control while you still get access to a big display and a keyboard-mouse interface.

So I don't think it it really is justified to call Radar-type recorders for "essentially PC recorders".

Just my $0.02.

Anyone know how the O2R compares with the O1V?
 
regebro,

They try to give you the impression that it's not a "PC". I mean PC in the generic sense - i.e. a computer running a high level operating like Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.

You said: "I seriously doubt it runs Windows, that would be very stupid of Mackie"

I think just the opposite. Running anything other than one of the standard operating systems would be very stupid. First of all, where are you going to find these programmers? Then what about plugins? You're certainly not going to find 3rd partly vendors interested in developing very specialized applications for your one of a kind OS or firmware based system.

Look at one of Mackie's FAQ's regardng the HDR-24/96:

4. What type of hard drive does the HDR24/96 use?
The HDR24/96 uses IDE Ultra DMA hard drives. The drives are 7200rpm and 2x file transfer rate. You can record to and play back from either the internal and removable drives. Ultra DMA drives use FAT32, which can boot up on Windows-based PCs or compatible Mac platforms.

This is definitely just a stripped down, very specialized DAW.

Besides trying to market to the computer phobic, this FAQ gives another reason why they wan't you to think this isn't really a PC:

2. What kind of backup options do I have?
You can back your files up to either the MackieMedia M90, MackieMedia Project 2.2 GB removable cartridge, or FTP through an ethernet hub to an external computer or network. In Version 1.0, the HDR24/96 must be idle (not recording or playing back) to transfer files between drives.

They want you to buy THEIR media. I'm very familiar with this tactic from my job in the semiconductor industry. For several years this sort of thing, "special" file formats and media, was the norm in semiconductor manufacturing tools. Then we wised up and forced our vendors to make things straightforward with whatever OS they were running. It saves us a lot of money and hassle from ordering their 3x or even 10x priced "special" media and drives.

barefoot
 
I'm not going to get into the digital vs. analog thing, someone like Ed is 500 times more qualified than me to debate the merits of the 47 different brands & types of mixers out there. However I notice no one has mentioned what to me seems the most important question, namely WHAT is going to be your primary use with your gear.

Ones mentioned that he wanted to record some of the local rock bands. To me, this suggests two things. First, you are going to be using a lot of mics, as opposed to a guy who is doing sound spots with a bunch of keyboards or something like that. Second, "perfect" digital clarity may not be the most important objective in your work.

When I went out and looked for a mixer about a year ago in the $700-$1200 range my purpose was recording MY rock band. I quickly noticed that all the low-end digital mixers (like the Tascam 1000) were sadly lacking in analog inputs, especialy mic pre-amps. I also noticed that the overall design just seemed more oriented to the guys who were doing computer based looping & whatnot rather than working with drum kits and loud electric guitars.

I agree digital is the wave of the future, but it may not be the best way to go for your use, at your budget. Just an observation...
 
Those are good points RWhite.

I tend to focus on the overall sound potential of gear. Indeed though, I need gear that is versatile too! Working with high track counts, large numbers of inputs, etc....means I need products that offer sufficient and intelligent I/O. Limitations take time to overcome!!!

Another thing people forget about most low end digital gear is that it mostly works in a linear fashion, meaning that you can usually only work on one channel and one function at a time. Faders are an exception of course.

But lets say you want to do a midrange sweep of a stereo track to find a frequency to cut/boost. On just about every digital console I know of, you cannot do this. It is hard in this case to make a subjective decision about a tweek because the sound is stereo and you only have control over one channel at a time with the eq.

Another thing.....You can generally only view a function on one channel at a time. This means that if you are wanting to look for possibly places where you are boosting eq on a few different channels, you have to select these channels one at a time to view them. I cannot count how many times, while working in a hurry that I have forgotten the settings on one channel while viewing another. While the time spent to go back and forth may not SEEM like a long time, say 2 seconds, think of how this adds up over time, and the confusion it can cause!!! Okay, maybe I am just a dummy and get confused easily, but it is really a pain in the ass to work this way, menu driver views....Analog consoles DO NOT suffer from this. Analog consoles tend to be much faster to work on because you don't have to access menus on channels to make a tweek. All that selecting means thinking about it, and thinking about selecting stuff means another thing to think about, and probably means after a while you will not be thinking about certain things, perhaps the RIGHT things!!! :)

Even before starting to record as a professional, I always valued gear that is well laid out. This kind of gear helps keep the flow of creativity going. Engineering done well IS creativity!!! I don't like it taken away from me. There comes a burnout point from working with audio in a day. I have found that working with digital gear that is menu driven tends to burn me out a whole lot faster. The pain in the ass factor is high on most of this gear, and that means I am less apt to do those minor tweeks that make all the difference. Sometimes, it is just intuition that makes me do a tweek. Or a passing thought. I like the ability to reach right for the knob and turn it instead of having to select a channel, then select a function to edit.

So, as to the original question here, what kind of console this guy would need for recording band demos, a well laid out versatile, lot's of I/O analog console really makes sense. This guy is going to charge by the hour, and working fast is a must in this type of environment. My experiences with digital console has been that they slow me down. Their few benefits, mainly in on board processing and automation to me get outweight by the need to have the best sound in the price range, and being able to route stuff effectively, and to do it all fast with as little confusion as possible.

All should actually sit down and run original tracks of music through a cheap digital console and a cheap analog console and hear what the fader and eq differences are, and to make a "mix" too. Few are going to think that the digital console has a better sound. I keep falling back on this. My peers, and more importantly, my CLIENTS agree that the analog console has a more ear friendly sound. But if you haven't sat their with both in front of you, with the same tracks running to each, it is hard to compare.

Ed
 
Couple of things

Mackie, Tascam, Radar recorders, Mackie D8B consoles etc are all based on a PC motherboard. The difference between your standard home PC's and these products is that they have their own operating system, as they only have to perform specific tasks.

Regarding Yammer' 01 and 02 - digital technology is moving fast and improving substantially every year. Both these products are based on outdated technology, contain very poor quality A/D and D/A converters and very poor processor designs. Today there are consoles much cheaper and much better available. Even a little Tascam DM24 would outperform them comfortably in every aspect, and you can buy one for just over 2 grand. Go up in price a bit and a console like the Panasonic DA7 is a pretty amazing tool for well under 5 grand. Given everything available on the market, analogue or digital, in my opinion a combination of a DA7 and a Mackie 24/96 is just about the highest quality, most economic method of recording available under 10k.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top