R
Rubo4
New member
Anybody here compared the Dangerous 2 Bus to analog mixer summing?
Cyrokk
Farce of Nature
I have a question.
Let's say I record 16 tracks into the pc, and since my soundcard only allows 8 out, I decide to send 2 tracks to each out into an analog mixer. Am I still digitally "mixing" and thus not enjoying the benefits of a full analog mix?
Cy
Let's say I record 16 tracks into the pc, and since my soundcard only allows 8 out, I decide to send 2 tracks to each out into an analog mixer. Am I still digitally "mixing" and thus not enjoying the benefits of a full analog mix?
Cy
L
littledog
New member
Rubo4 said:
If I recall, I think Julian Standen over at www.gearslutz.com has been working with it for a while now. He'd be a good one to ask.
M
mixsit
Well-known member
Just got done reading this whole thread. (again)
Got a question for opinions on the 'moderate level' analog board mix (mackies, Ghosts, ect.), vs the DAW/plugins.
Assuming you like the the 'multi-chanel out from the DAW to the analog board' route, what about eq?
The reason I ask, is I can not begin to imagine not using my plugs vs going back to the Mackie's (8 buss) or my Symetrix or Rane's eqs.
Wayne
Got a question for opinions on the 'moderate level' analog board mix (mackies, Ghosts, ect.), vs the DAW/plugins.
Assuming you like the the 'multi-chanel out from the DAW to the analog board' route, what about eq?
The reason I ask, is I can not begin to imagine not using my plugs vs going back to the Mackie's (8 buss) or my Symetrix or Rane's eqs.
Wayne
TexRoadkill
Audio Bum
Cyrokk said:
You are still digitally mixing. I believe it was Sjoko who said that most DAWs seem to handle sub mixing of up to 6 tracks pretty well but when you go beyond that is when the errors start to pile on. If you are submixing in groups of less than 6 you should theoretically be okay.
Chris Shaeffer
Peavey ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I had to bite.
I hooked up the outs of my Digi002 and played one of my friend's songs (which I have been fooling around with learning the 002) and piped each channel out to my old Alesis Studio 24. Ran 'em into the channel monitor to bypass any preamp irrularities. I set all the PT faders to unity and pressed play.
Whoa! That's hot! Oh, yeah, the outs on the 002 are +4- a little toasty for the ol' Alesis. Oh, well. On with the experiment since I can't do anything about it.
I don't have ANY quailty outboard effects, so I still used some of the plugs in Pro Tools, and I had to route my verb and delay returns into the same channels, but each of the audio channels had their own mixer strip. I mixed away and ran the output back to 2 tracks on the 002 when I thought the mix was as close as I could get it, and dropping the mixer output 14dB. Man, it was hot.
Then I spent almost an hour soloing the original digital mix against the analog "mix." It isn't a complete test because I used almost all the same digital effects and just used the mixer for paning and moving faders around.
I almost hate to say it, but the analog mix sounds noticeably thicker somehow. Its all the same EQ, but the analog mix sounds fuller. The high end isn't as present and it seems a little less clear, but it sounds good.
So...
1) I'm sure the +4/-10dB thing screws it up a bit and I may have been overdriving my highs right out of the mix, or
2) The cheap, old Alesis might not be reproducing the highs as well as the digital mix, thus making the lows and low mids more apparent.
3) Or the analog signal path has a decided effect on the sound.
Fun experiment. Felt good using the old board again, though I cringe at the thought of giving up my RVerb for the Digitech guitar processor that I used to use for reverb.
Take care,
Chris
I hooked up the outs of my Digi002 and played one of my friend's songs (which I have been fooling around with learning the 002) and piped each channel out to my old Alesis Studio 24. Ran 'em into the channel monitor to bypass any preamp irrularities. I set all the PT faders to unity and pressed play.
Whoa! That's hot! Oh, yeah, the outs on the 002 are +4- a little toasty for the ol' Alesis. Oh, well. On with the experiment since I can't do anything about it.
I don't have ANY quailty outboard effects, so I still used some of the plugs in Pro Tools, and I had to route my verb and delay returns into the same channels, but each of the audio channels had their own mixer strip. I mixed away and ran the output back to 2 tracks on the 002 when I thought the mix was as close as I could get it, and dropping the mixer output 14dB. Man, it was hot.
Then I spent almost an hour soloing the original digital mix against the analog "mix." It isn't a complete test because I used almost all the same digital effects and just used the mixer for paning and moving faders around.
I almost hate to say it, but the analog mix sounds noticeably thicker somehow. Its all the same EQ, but the analog mix sounds fuller. The high end isn't as present and it seems a little less clear, but it sounds good.
So...
1) I'm sure the +4/-10dB thing screws it up a bit and I may have been overdriving my highs right out of the mix, or
2) The cheap, old Alesis might not be reproducing the highs as well as the digital mix, thus making the lows and low mids more apparent.
3) Or the analog signal path has a decided effect on the sound.
Fun experiment. Felt good using the old board again, though I cringe at the thought of giving up my RVerb for the Digitech guitar processor that I used to use for reverb.
Take care,
Chris
Track Rat
Just Your Average Sized Member
Chris, this is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. My mixes just sound fatter, rounder through an analog console. The way I'm set up, I can use hardware and software compressors and effects simultainiously if I need to. The best of both worlds.
M
mjbee
New member
foreverain4 said:
I downloaded these, decompressed them (Exact Audio Copy) and the put them back to back in CoolEdit (in multittrack view), so I could A/B them.
The first thing I noticed is that one of the two mixes is polarity reversed. Would this account for any of the differences people note?
Secondly, doing some fiddling with the files, track "B" seems to have more pronounced bass, so I sliced off just the below 200Hz area to listen to alone -- listening to just what's going on below 200Hz there is a large difference in definition between A and B. A has all the right notes, but less punch. B has each note clearly defined. It's an odd effect.
Looking at the waveforms, up close and personal, there are whole chunks of wave-waggling that are present in B, but missing in A. That's not so good ... that might be down to the mp3 compression "differently" handling the 2 clips, but I'm not entirely sold on blaming mp3 for this one.
I'd love to see the experiments continue
Mike.
Chris Shaeffer
Peavey ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, my. Maybe I won't be selling my ART Eq's and the dbx 166a after all.
Chris has happy ears.
I just started playing with one of my tunes by piping the digi tracks out the 002's 8 outs to my mixer. Good lord, does that sound good. I can't be just imagining things.
The stereo field is wider and more natura. I kid you not, though I have no idea why. Its not that the digital mix sounds bad, its just that the analog mixer definately has a good effect on the sound.
Nothing quite like the sound of a high quality digital vocal track through...
...an RNC. Yes! This is heaven!
Combine that with the highly articulate digital reproduction of an acoustic guitar recorded in stereo. And the stereo drum bus run through an ART dual MP. This is fun! The days of creative equiptment rigging are back!!
Another thing I noticed. Is it possible that the stereo channels on the Alesis don't have a good a stereo field as 2 mono channels panned hard?
Well, then! This is the most exciting rediscovery of old equipment I've ever had. This is cool! I see exactly what you are talking about, Track Rat. Its totally the best of both worlds.
Take care,
Chris
Chris has happy ears.
I just started playing with one of my tunes by piping the digi tracks out the 002's 8 outs to my mixer. Good lord, does that sound good. I can't be just imagining things.
The stereo field is wider and more natura. I kid you not, though I have no idea why. Its not that the digital mix sounds bad, its just that the analog mixer definately has a good effect on the sound.
Nothing quite like the sound of a high quality digital vocal track through...
...an RNC. Yes! This is heaven!
Combine that with the highly articulate digital reproduction of an acoustic guitar recorded in stereo. And the stereo drum bus run through an ART dual MP. This is fun! The days of creative equiptment rigging are back!!
Another thing I noticed. Is it possible that the stereo channels on the Alesis don't have a good a stereo field as 2 mono channels panned hard?
Well, then! This is the most exciting rediscovery of old equipment I've ever had. This is cool! I see exactly what you are talking about, Track Rat. Its totally the best of both worlds.
Take care,
Chris
Track Rat
Just Your Average Sized Member
M
mixsit
Well-known member
Not trying to poo-poo this idea any one way or the other...
But I recall not to many years ago when pros were informing us that if we thought we were going to keep the quality of our signals up, it wasn't goin to happen if we ran it through a bunch of 'cheap' analog pieces -Arts, 166s, mackies (especially the eqs), ect.
Please don't jump on me for this. I have a stack of this 'midrange' stuff that I bought and worked with over the years, some of it obviouslly better than others. My recolection was, the level of clarity and detail, certinly the power and flexibillity in the mixing details, and eq, went up in Sonar. (Kind of like what happened when I went from a Tascam 312B to the Mackie-8. )
There's still the 'digi-flat, harsh' issues which must be valid, but sometimes I wonder if the overriding thing is, we like it better a little soft'n fuzzy.
Around and around we go.
Wayne
But I recall not to many years ago when pros were informing us that if we thought we were going to keep the quality of our signals up, it wasn't goin to happen if we ran it through a bunch of 'cheap' analog pieces -Arts, 166s, mackies (especially the eqs), ect.
Please don't jump on me for this. I have a stack of this 'midrange' stuff that I bought and worked with over the years, some of it obviouslly better than others. My recolection was, the level of clarity and detail, certinly the power and flexibillity in the mixing details, and eq, went up in Sonar. (Kind of like what happened when I went from a Tascam 312B to the Mackie-8.
)There's still the 'digi-flat, harsh' issues which must be valid, but sometimes I wonder if the overriding thing is, we like it better a little soft'n fuzzy.
Around and around we go.
Wayne
D
Dan DA
New member
I use software mixing for two reasons. It's cheaper than acquiring a good hardware mixer, and I like having the midi control over all the nuances of the mix. Also, software plugins bypass all the cable connections that could be a problem. Downside to plugins is you need a lot of processing power in your workstation.
A
alexspetty
Member
awesome thread!!
my $0.02:
i prefer using the pc (Sonar 2.2XL) as a place to store the tracks and route everything back out through my mackie 24x8 (and my outboard gear) for signal processing.
the beauty though, is that this setup allows me to choose to mix on the board or if I choose to mix (with the benenfit of automation) in Sonar.
I think this kind of setup is very versatile and is good for people want the flexibility to use either medium for mixes.
-Alex
my $0.02:
i prefer using the pc (Sonar 2.2XL) as a place to store the tracks and route everything back out through my mackie 24x8 (and my outboard gear) for signal processing.
the beauty though, is that this setup allows me to choose to mix on the board or if I choose to mix (with the benenfit of automation) in Sonar.
I think this kind of setup is very versatile and is good for people want the flexibility to use either medium for mixes.
-Alex
malcolm123
New member
alexspetty said:
YES !!
This thread is pretty awesome !!.. This past weekend a friend of mine who has been mixing / recording for years gave me a day in his Studio to learn his setup for help on future projects. His studio was mainly built around analog,, but a few years ago he purchased a pc and started using Cakewalk like myself. He has a sh@t load of outboards,modules etc, and he now has a pretty decent amount of digital gear. SO I setup the recording chain as simple as possible bypassing all of his analog outboard processors etc. and I tracked some Vox to a inst. track he already had laid. Everything sounded just fine but I had one problem with his setup. The problem was his console. He was running a tascam analog console with 16 channels which is fine and it also sounds pretty good. But the channel limitations through me off. 2 channels from a submixer which he uses to pan, eq, level,etc for his Kork Trinton, 2 channels from the Puter which he ran his sound card stereo outs to, 2 Channels for mic inputs, etc.. So when I tracked my voxs I had to do all of my pans, leveling,etc from Cakewalk's console. This is the way I used to do it. But since I got my digital console I could track vox to cakewalk / Sonar and playback through the Motu and have each vox track on it's own channel in the digital console. I didnt dare doing any EQ in Cake. I am just too used to using the digital console for any type of vox manipulations. So my suggestion for him was either to get a larger analog console with more channels alone with a analog out source from Pc to match or use his Motu2408 and get a digital console to handle the digital outs. BTW, he uses the analog outs from the Motu and runs them to 8 channels on the analog console for some control surface eqing, panning, leveling, etc. But doesn't used the other digital 16 channels for nothing but transferring from ADATS to computer. A waste to me. My overall conclusion is that I just love a control surface whether analog or digital. AS long as I can seperate those recorded tracks and F with them on seperate channels.
Malcolm
M
moley
New member
I went with hardware. But, each to his own of course.
I don't wanna get into an argument, all I'll say is: sonusman - your anti-digital rants make me angry
You seem like a man with an axe to grind.
I don't wanna get into an argument, all I'll say is: sonusman - your anti-digital rants make me angry
You seem like a man with an axe to grind.
LemonTree
Suck 'em and see!
in my infancy as a home recker I used to MITB. When recording grew on me and I realised it was a hobby I wanted to get into I plunged for the big analog desk (A&H SABER 24/16/16/2) with direct outs to a couple of Delta 1010s, recorded to cool edit because the editing features supassed anything I'd seen from cubase. Still liked the cubase effects layout better so I imported all the tracks there and mixed down back through the desk. Instantly I realised how much more dimentional and warm sounding my mixes became. I now use SL3 with a soundtracs Topaz Project 8 and 3 Delta 1010s, not exactly lucid or apogee but the results I get now are 100 times better than I ever got from MITB.
I liked the comments about the comparrison to digital cameras and actual rolling film in a camera. I think personaly it's all a matter of taste. True, for some it's a lot cheaper to go fully digital and keep the signal clean and for others the hands on and overall sound = cohesion is a big factor. I vote for the hybrid mix for best of both worlds.
Digital editing X analog summing / hands on knob twisting = great mix
I liked the comments about the comparrison to digital cameras and actual rolling film in a camera. I think personaly it's all a matter of taste. True, for some it's a lot cheaper to go fully digital and keep the signal clean and for others the hands on and overall sound = cohesion is a big factor. I vote for the hybrid mix for best of both worlds.
Digital editing X analog summing / hands on knob twisting = great mix
EddieRay
#?
foreverain4 said:
How do you only use the computer to edit?
L
LewisWu
New member
my vote is for analog/digital hybrid mixing
HangDawg
bUnGhOlIo
Up from the depths of hell came this thread.
F
faderbug
.
dudes, the difference between soft- and hardware mixing is like the difference between soft- and hardcore porn. much more gets revealed.