Who still mixes with a console?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott Baxendale
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Scott Baxendale

Scott Baxendale

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I find mixing on a screen with a mouse and the constant going through screens, expanding and contracting while editing, etc exhausting, whereas I find mixing through a mixing console with hardware exhilarating. I’m curious if anyone else has this experience when mixing?
 
Back in my analog days I enjoyed mixing on my Tascam 388 but it was only 8 tracks. I thought I would miss it once I went ITB but I never really did, especially once I developed a process for mixing and editing with the DAW.
 
markmann said:
Back in my analog days I enjoyed mixing on my Tascam 388 but it was only 8 tracks. I thought I would miss it once I went ITB but I never really did, especially once I developed a process for mixing and editing with the DAW.
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It is so boring for me to spend hours with a mouse and a screen. I get exhausted after three hours. On a console I can go for hours and lose track of time.

I’ve tried it.

I do some recording lately with my iPad and a small interface, but I am only using it for 2 minute guitar demo videos. If I tried to produce a band album on it I would probably get too frustrated with the editing and mixing process and just give up.
 
I had a 32x8 DDA for about five years. It sounded good, but I needed something more suitable for my workflow.

I have The Box now, and for my workflow, it's so perfect and sounds insanely grat (same components as the larger consoles) I don't want anything else.
 
I never spent time at big consoles, and never went for cassette portastudios. I pretty much stopped doing music about the time my buddy got rid of his 80-8 and Model 5 mixer. I got back into it with the AW16G, which had volume faders, but EQ/Compressor/Reverb were done from a single set of knobs after you selected the channel.

I don't have any issue with working with a screen. I've spent 3 or 4 hours tweaking, listening, tweaking, listening. I like having 15-18 faders for volume and each channel labeled so I don't have to remember what track is what. (don't have to remove any masking tape residue either.)
 
noah330 said:
I had a 32x8 DDA for about five years. It sounded good, but I needed something more suitable for my workflow.

I have The Box now, and for my workflow, it's so perfect and sounds insanely grat (same components as the larger consoles) I don't want anything else.
Click to expand...
I built a sidecar mixer for my Box which gives me 16i/o
 
Scott Baxendale said:
I find mixing on a screen with a mouse and the constant going through screens, expanding and contracting while editing, etc exhausting, whereas I find mixing through a mixing console with hardware exhilarating. I’m curious if anyone else has this experience when mixing?
Click to expand...
You perfectly described the very reason that I have never used a PC to record to or mix my tracks. It's cumbersome. I like the feel of real faders at my fingertips. I use the computer (Adobe Audition) to tweak and polish my turds.
 
I did have a setup where I could mix through the board. I purposely got 32 channels of I/O for that purpose once I made the jump from tape to the computer.

The number of times I mixed on the board got less and less pretty quickly because of having a commercial studio and having to jump back and forth between different projects was way too much work.

I did leverage templates and those sort of things in the DAW to keep from wasting time needlessly doing the same stuff over and over again.
 
Farview said:
I did have a setup where I could mix through the board. I purposely got 32 channels of I/O for that purpose once I made the jump from tape to the computer.

The number of times I mixed on the board got less and less pretty quickly because of having a commercial studio and having to jump back and forth between different projects was way too much work.

I did leverage templates and those sort of things in the DAW to keep from wasting time needlessly doing the same stuff over and over again.
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Repeatability and tweaking on request is where I get screwed
 
Like it both ways, the two DAW mixers I like are Reaper and Harrison Mixbus. The analog mixer is a Amek M2500.
 
Scott Baxendale said:
It is so boring for me to spend hours with a mouse and a screen. I get exhausted after three hours. On a console I can go for hours and lose track of time.

I’ve tried it.
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Oh I believe every word you're saying. I have no problem with ITB but I would love to ride the facers again since it's been so long.
 
markmann said:
Oh I believe every word you're saying. I have no problem with ITB but I would love to ride the facers again since it's been so long.
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I would recommend an X-Touch. The reason why I still have the M2500 is the EQs are nice sounding and have been thinking about making a card that the upper board of the existing EQ would plug into and all I would have to make is the two filters and buffer amp happen on the bottom board. I don't even use the mic preamps because I have made better ones.
 
I was mixing through a Soundcraft Spirit Digital 328 mixer but I kept running out of channels and it became a bus mixer. I now find the workflow of doing it all, or 95% of it, 'in-the-box' to be easier, especially if I was asked to make adjustments to a completed mix. The core of my system is Windows 10, Cubase 12 and Waves plugins. I still like to take the final stereo output and run it through a couple of Neve pre-amp clones and an SSL clone compressor as my final processing and glue stage. Recall of the 'in-the-box' mixes are so easy.
I do use a Mackie Universal Control to provide a hands on feel.
 
Scott Baxendale said:
I find mixing on a screen with a mouse and the constant going through screens, expanding and contracting while editing, etc exhausting, whereas I find mixing through a mixing console with hardware exhilarating. I’m curious if anyone else has this experience when mixing?
Click to expand...
In my cross from the mixer into the DAW I found quite quickly how 'simplifying staying -and doing everything in the danged Track View was (is' :>)
Still had the mixer, but wouldn't have wanted going back. Still served for tracking monitoring (band phones and mine etc. just fine..) The hands on 'utility there well earns its' keep.. yes!
 
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