Thinking about outboard gear

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Elmo89m

Elmo89m

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Well im thinking more and more about getting some outboard gear for my daw...mainly eq, verb and compressor. BUt im still not sure if i want to go through the conversion. So my question is to you people who use computers in your studio and use outboard gear how do you do it? Do you just not worry about having to go through the extra layers?
 
if you have a nice piece of outboard gear, I would say don't worry about the conversion. Unless of course your converters are that bad. PLus, nice outboard gear can be used during tracking as well. In my opinion, quality gear outweighs the negative effects of one extra conversion.
 
What you might want to experiment with is splitting the signal (while tracking) and get one track that's bone dry and another that's heavily affected, and combine the two at mixdown. That way, you don't have to worry about the generational loss. You use the balance between the affected and dry track to determine "how much." And you've always got your safety track.

Only disadvantage with that is that you don't have the luxury of playing with the parameters come mix time. What's there is what's there ... so you'd only want to go that route when you have a very clear idea of the reverb parameters or compression / eq settings you want to use.

Another option is to simply commit early. I do that all the time with compression, and I'm fine with it. I can listen while I track and pretty much know what's going to work. If it's too much, then I'll back off. It's a lot like playing with the controls on a guitar or bass amp. You should know when it sounds right.

But if you're a total control freak and you need to be able to have absolute tonal control come mixdown ... you want to use outboard gear, and you're tracking with a DAW ... then I'm afraid you already know the answer to this one. :D You don't have a whole lot of choice in the matter. Just be sure to use the best converters you can reasonably afford.
 
yeah...well i have a 1010lt...i know its not cream of the crop but lets say i want to use an RNC, a behri 31 band eq (i dont see how any brand can screw up eq but maybe i wrong) and a cheaper lexicon verb. would that be better than using my sonitus and pantheon plug-ins?
 
Elmo89m said:
yeah...well i have a 1010lt...i know its not cream of the crop but lets say i want to use an RNC, a behri 31 band eq (i dont see how any brand can screw up eq but maybe i wrong) and a cheaper lexicon verb. would that be better than using my sonitus and pantheon plug-ins?
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The RNC will likely yield more pleasing results than a typical plugin compressor. Ditto for the lexicon reverb.

Don't see any advantage, though, with the behri EQ. It's actually quite easy to screw up EQ ... and if anyone can do it, I'm sure the mighty B is perfectly capable. :D

Here's what I'd do: Track with the RNC. It's transparent enough so that even if you over-do it, it's probably not going to severely affect your track in a negative way.

Track with your lexicon at 100% wet. But split the signal so you get a dry track at the same time. Use the wet track to give you the desired amount of reverb when you mix down.

And for now, use the plugins for EQ. See if you can get a couple bucks for your Behringer on ebay.
 
do i need to buy a splitter or can i use my D.I. box that has a 1/4 out and a xlr out?
 
Elmo89m said:
do i need to buy a splitter or can i use my D.I. box that has a 1/4 out and a xlr out?
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Some mic pres have multiple outputs. Some reverbs have a "through" feature like a DI that will give you a dry track. You can also set up a patch bay to give you an extra signal.

Short of any of those, you can use a splitter or a simple Y cable. Don't use a DI box unless you're dealing with an unbalanced, instrument level signal like a guitar or bass.
 
EQ's are VERY easy to screw up. Different brand EQ's sound very different. Even graphics.
 
Elmo89m said:
yeah...well i have a 1010lt...i know its not cream of the crop but lets say i want to use an RNC, a behri 31 band eq (i dont see how any brand can screw up eq but maybe i wrong) and a cheaper lexicon verb. would that be better than using my sonitus and pantheon plug-ins?
Click to expand...

Eq is probably one of the toughest things to get right--in hardware or software. So probably the last thing you want to buy a cheap box for is eq. Especially a graphic eq when in fact you should be considering a parametric. Graphic eq's are for sound systems in clubs, concert halls, churches, large public venues of various sorts, etc. For mixing and recording in a studio, a parametric eq is typcally used.

I use both outboard hardware compressors and eq's, and also plugin eq's. I don't generally like plugin compressors, but I have found plugin eq's to be of use. But I much prefer to mix using outboard boxes. I also prefer to mix analog, although I can do analog mixes or "in the box" mixes, or what is becoming known as "hybrid" mixing, where a combination of the two is used.

Of course, it takes a while to build up the kind of gear where you can do a real mix using outboard hardware.

However, as has been stated, analog gear can be very useful when tracking. So a compressor might come in handy. Along those lines, I'd say the four essentials are having good: mic, preamp, converter, and possibly compressor if you feel you need it. An eq would be after all of those in my opinion.
 
once you get like the apogee converters, is it a problem at all anymore to go out of your daw into outboard gear?
 
My own feeling is that if you have high quality converters it's no problem to go outside the box to mix.
 
I would argue that even cheap D-A / A-D conversion with "good" outboard gear sounds waaaaaay better than medium quality plugins with no extra conversion.

It is a bit of a pain to set up though. Hybrid mixing may require latency compensation, depending on how you mix. If your 2 bus mix is going through RNC / EQ / effects, then you're fine. But if you have, say, a single track or a bus that is going to outboard "plugouts" and then back into the system, and you want to sum that together with "ITB tracks" -- then the "ITB" tracks will need some delay on them. Otherwise you might as well just put the whole mix through a guitar phaser pedal.

Incidentally just to agree with and summarize the above posts, I would argue for using plugouts in order of importance:

1) outboard dynamics (compressors, limiters -- plugins rarely (if ever?) have the EQing effects of outboard compressors)

2) outboard effects (there are some pretty good plugin effects)

3) outboard EQ (but that's partly because I almost never use EQ of any kind)

Cheers,

Johann
 
i've never really seen latency as a problem during mixing. All i need to do is zoom in on the clip and see when it starts exactly and sync it up to wear it should.
 
Yeah but doing that every time you mix a song gets very tedious. I did it once, the first time I set up my "hybrid mixing" configuration, and then left delay plugins in place so that I would never have to do it again. :)
 
Elmo89m said:
i've never really seen latency as a problem during mixing. All i need to do is zoom in on the clip and see when it starts exactly and sync it up to wear it should.
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I've done this, but I *really* hate it. Slows things down and makes mixing much less spontaneous and much more technical. More eyes less ears is the path it leads you down. Latency also makes double bussing nearly impossible in real time.

I feed DAW tracks to my DM-24, and from there I buss the tracks to my Speck Xtramix's. Once in the Xtramix's they get combined with any live synth tracks I have and bussed out to any processing from there. So the actual mixing occurs in analog. The nice thing about this type setup is that I can add plugins if want to the DAW tracks, then also effect and process them with outboard. It sounds more complicated than it is, and in use this system has proven to be very quick and natural.
 
SonicAlbert said:
Latency also makes double bussing nearly impossible in real time.
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Is "double bussing" the same as parallel bussing? If so, what's hard about adding a delay plugin to compensate each parallel track / bus / etc?

Not trying to convince you to change your setup or anything SonicAlbert -- I would probably mix outboard if I had Speck mixers too! :) But in my setup the advantages of total recall and automation make hybrid mixing totally worthwhile. And although it was a PITA to calculate the latency delay times once, I never have to do it again -- so no difficulty, no impossibility... Right? :cool:

Cheers,

Johann
 
The UAD-1 effects card is going to net you a whole lot more useful effects and closer to an "analog" sound than buying a few budget pieces. Just about every plug in that comes with it, whether it's EQ or compression / limiting is top notch and all have a real vibe to them and sound great.

But, it's hard to screw up a good song. You can buss stuff from Rome to Texas and send it long ways around Antartica...but if you've got a good song on your hands it should shine through.

Regarding conversion for home studios, I'm of the opinion that having 2 great channels of conversion in and out is a huge help in the end, especially if you're processing outside. I mainly mix in the box, but it's nice to have some good channels to reach for so things don't start getting all fuzzy. I keep a budget minded 16 channel i/o converter set around here for drum work that sounds surprisingly good, but then I keep 2 killer AD/DA channels around for all other work because after drums, it's usually all one or two channels at a time.

War
 
Yes, I mean parallel bussing. Isn't that and the term double bussing pretty much interchangeable? I'm actually curious to know if they are different in any way.

When you say you calculate the latency once and then you don't have to again, I don't really get that. You have to calculate the latency for the entire signal path to analog, including the interface and any digital mixer and then the DA converters. Then also calculate the various plugin latencies. Each plugin has different latency. And then what if you change the buffer for some reason? That's going to change all the calculations. If you are popping many different plugins in and out on various tracks that's a lot of delay calculations.

My goal is to *totally* eliminate that kind of mathematics from the process. Mixing should be ears, listening, taste and judgement. Speaking purely for myself, I've found that simplifying the process in certain ways makes it go a lot more naturally and better.

I used to have my studio setup with all digital routing and processing. I used the same outboard, but patched digitally. It was amazing the routing I could do, everything being recalled and all that. I could put any signal anywhere, it was great in a theoretical sort of way. However, I got nothing done. It seemed like all I did was troubleshoot and deal with getting the signal from here to there, and deal with latency issues with bussing.

I tore that setup out, bought my Speck XtraMix's and severly limited my routing options. I'm back to analog patchbays, analog mixers, analog outboard, fx processing outboard is routed analog now not digitally. It is actually faster to work with, much more productive. It also sounds better in the sense that mixes gel a lot easier. When mixing in the box it is so easy to just get wrapped up in tweaking this plugin and that plugin, trying to get it to gel or sound right.

Those issues just go away for the most part in analog. Maybe I'm not just a good enough mixer, which is highly likely. I'm strictly a good demo mixer, I hire pros to do my "real" mixes. Although my recording engineer does seem to "borrow" my ideas from time to time.

Anyway, I've dealt with latency and I just can't stand it. I don't trust the process, and I think that even with all the calculations for latency, if you were to double buss some tracks you'd probably still get phasing when putting them together in analog.
 
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