Digital vs Analog Summing...

drumdrum

hi all,

I just finished reading "Zen and the Art of Mixing" by Mixerman, and in the book he swears by analog mixing. He even goes so far as to say something along the lines that digital summing is broken!

Now, I'm a big believer in the saying "Don't believe everything you read!", but seeing as I sum ITB (ie, digital!) I have no frame of reference to compare the two in person.

I've read threads online about this and listened to "comparisons" but to my ears there has always been very little noticeable difference between the two. Maybe a bit more depth, but I find that you have to take "comparisons" lightly as you never know what differences have been made between the comparison tracks behind the scenes...

So I guess what I'm asking here is, is OTB summing worth the money? Is the real difference as vastly different and dramatic as Mixerman puts in his book?

Dying to know what others here think...
Thanks!

fitz

Have a look at Airwindows stuff. I use his Console plugin, and it's definitely made a difference to my ITB mixes.

PaulBrewer

I think at one stage there was a significant difference - I think now it's hard to argue one is better than the other absolutely.

Alan Parsons on his Teaching DVDs has 2 tracks mixed ITB and OTB (through a Neve as I recall) and in some ways they are quite different - however one couldn't honestly say one was 'better' than the other.

It also depends on your sonic goal - units like Thermionics Fatbustard distort the signal to hell (in a nice way!) which may or may not be what you're after -whereas some thing like the SSL X-rack is designed for purity.

There are many 'right' answers to this question !

if6was9

I think going out the box for summing makes more sense if you're using it with some outboard eq's/comps aswell.

Did some tests on our desk here with a few mixes and while it was nice to use the desk it didn't really make large enough of a difference to warrant going OTB for every mix.

PaulBrewer

if6was9 wrote: »

I think going out the box for summing makes more sense if you're using it with some outboard eq's/comps aswell.

Did some tests on our desk here with a few mixes and while it was nice to use the desk it didn't really make large enough of a difference to warrant going OTB for every mix.

That's also very dependent on what converters and console.

if6was9

PaulBrewer wrote: »

That's also very dependent on what converters and console.

obviously

PaulBrewer

So one could easily have an inferior OTB result - which doesn't necessarily imply that OTB is worse.

madtheory

The summing thing gets into dodgy hifi snake oil very quickly, for example the Shadow Hills box:
"The summing buss is a 30-channel mixer utilizing copper buss bars and esoteric resistors, for simply the finest sounding passive monitor section ever made. "

C'mon people! It's copper. It has very low resistivity. More of it does not make it "better" or lower.

IMO it's the work flow of a desk that really makes the mix "better"- assuming that work flow suits you. Some folk do better with the DAW. mixerman is not in the least bit rigorous in his testing of ITB vs OTB, it's just his opinion. Bear in mind that he seems to only do rock and hip hop, of a particularly American flavour; genres where distortion is desirable.

JuneBug29

SOS article about this from 2004. Interesting read.

Robin Ball

I had a Neve 8816 which I sold a few months ago, there is a difference in the 2, the summing mixer has better width and depth but it isn't massive, it's far more important to get a good sound in the first place.

Remember mixerman is probably working with world class material, here it's a game of percentages (that actually make a differences) It's so much more about what sound you want and what's in your head. Don't get too caught up in the gear, just get the sounds going.

Phil Tan and Charles Dye are both totally in the box, Phil maintains that one of his go to reverb's is the DVerb. They do damn good work without a summing box.

Mixerman's book is pretty good but does need a Pinch of salt.... :-)

Robin Ball

This might help: http://www.avid.com/us/resources/HEAT-Listening-Challenge

madtheory

Robin Ball wrote: »

Mixerman's book is pretty good but does need a Pinch of salt.... :-)

Yes, throw plenty of it over your shoulder...

pavthefiddler

Back in 2002 I worked in a small studio where the main system was Protools TDM with 888 converters. While majority of the stuff was mixed inside Protools, I did notice the difference it made when I mixed using the external desk (nothing fancy, Spirit Studio 32). On some tracks (like vocal, acoustic guitar, flute) it was very obvious when you adjusted the level in protools. Using the fader in protools generated subtle digital artefacts, something like listening to an mp3 file. Especially on some vocals the 'punch' was gone, it sounded lifeless. Fade outs/ins seemed very coarse. If you left protools level at 0 and adjusted the fader on the desk, it was very smooth, very pleasant to listen, and sounded really good at any level. So for a while I started summing everything on the desk, but it has become very inconvenient, especially session recalling, small corrections etc. And to be honest for the majority of the stuff we were recording it wasn't worth it. But for a couple of jazz recordings we did it made a difference.

Bottom line: If you have the comfort of having access to a semi-decent desk try it out yourself, especially for jazz/classical sort of stuff.

--

Pav

www.pavthefiddler.com

Support the new album project by Cuckoo Savante on fundit.ie: http://www.fundit.ie/project/lovely-lily-bright

madtheory

So it's likely that the version of PT you were running was the one where the left out the dither on the mixer. That was a bug fixed long ago, but it was there long enough to kick of this "issue".

pavthefiddler

Very possible, the PT version was the latest 5 at the time. The problem in PT mixer was subtle enough and only obvious in comparison, in my case, with analogue desk, hence I would always encourage to test this stuff first hand if you have access to a decent setup.

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Pav

www.pavthefiddler.com

Support the new album project by Cuckoo Savante on fundit.ie: http://www.fundit.ie/project/lovely-lily-bright