KVR Audio

Hovmod · Post by **Hovmod** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 5:22 pm

You haven't tried carrying a mixer console until you've had the pleasure of hauling a Midas...

original flipper · Post by **original flipper** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 6:02 pm

HI

A software mixer don't need maintenance either (well not a lot) - my ghost started crackling and generally getting noisey - soundcrafts cure was for me to spend several hundered pounds replacing ALL the f...... insert jacks with gold plated ones (this is after 14 months) did I -, did I f... it got sold very quickly.

Flipper.

BONES · Post by **BONES** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:25 pm

What a load of bollocks! Mixers are headed the way of the dodo and I say good riddance. All they do is add noise to your signal path, their EQ is nowhere near the quality of ORION's [not any mixer I could ever afford], and as for the "predictability" of mixes in software, bollocks to that as well. I can leave the record button on and tweak over and over again, building up more happy accidents in software than I could manage in a week of moving hardware sliders. If you want your mixes to sound more analogue, there's always plugins like Vintage Warmer, where you actually get to control how it colours the sounds, not that I can believe anyone would want a mixer that wasn't completely transparent.
I have a Passac Unity 8, 1 unit rack mixer - its quiet [because it has almost no internal circuitry], its basic and you wouldn't know it was there in a live mix. Perfect for my needs - K-Station, Micron, KAOSS Pad and PC output.

MickGael · Post by **MickGael** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:32 pm

BONES wrote:What a load of bollocks! Mixers are headed the way of the dodo and I say good riddance. All they do is add noise to your signal path, their EQ is nowhere near the quality of ORION's [not any mixer I could ever afford]

All due respect, if you have ever had the pleasure of working with an API board (for instance), you would realize that is nonsense.

But then again, as you note, there is the little matter of the cost. A mid-sized API console will set you back over 125k. Ka-ching!

Even so, there is nothing in the world that sounds quite like it. When I get rich I will be buying one, an Otari Radar, and chucking all this PC stuff.

Well, maybe I'll keep it for editing and VSTi.

mbell · Post by **mbell** » Sun Apr 17, 2005 11:55 pm

MickGael wrote:A mid-sized API console will set you back over 125k. Ka-ching!

If I spent 125k on a console, I would probably convince myself it was way better than software too.

Churchy · Post by **Churchy** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 12:04 am

having a desk would be cool, but i dont really know what i would do with it. maybe i would hang it on the wall! or plug my juno in so i could sweep the mids , not sure if i would ever get sick of that

seriously though i dont see the point these days really..

713 TSB · Post by **713 TSB** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 12:16 am

So, I need to ask this question. and please bear with me as it might seem silly billy.
You guys with the hardware mixers are sending your signal audio out and recieving it back into that same source or say another source right like a dat recorder or whatever. Am I to assume you are looping the sound out and using the device as a mastering type effect, kinda like like if I had the most fabulous reverb or the most kick ass mixer even in the world and then ran the signal back through again to the souce re recording it right?

Churchy · Post by **Churchy** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 12:45 am

you record it onto DAT/computer/whatever at the final stage yes (mixdown), and the signal would of course go through the desk

but you wouldn't use the desk itself as a mastering effect as such.. the desk is a transparent thing, it merely routs the signal where you want it

edit : what do you mean RErecording? that would imply that you've already recorded it once. if you were using a kick ass reverb, you'd only record it once..

tee boy · Post by **tee boy** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 12:50 am

First up, sorry if Im repeating anything aready said!

Hardware mixing has several advantage:

- First up, theres the whole working thing. Some people are born and raised on consoles and can only work that way.

- Intergrating hardware into a setup requires a mixer. If you use loads of live synths and particular outboard processing then it would pay to get a desk.

- Probably the most important reasno for investing in a desk would be the preference to mix in analog rather than digital. Expensive desks do have amazing sounds, and mixes produced using them definately have a quality. Often, this 'quality' is reproduced during mastering when mixes are completed entirely in the box. But most engineers i speak to say that records need that expensive analog kiss a one point or another. A computer mix might need a fair bit of analog EQ and saturation to sound as good as an SSL mix for example. But this really applies only to high end desks. I dont imagine anyone would use budget mixers for 'the sound'.

Personally, I dont use a desk. Im a mouse mixer, and always have been. For me to work on a desk would be like a bricky performing surgery... a mess!

flugel45 · Post by **flugel45** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:41 am

Coincidentally (or not) the same topic is being discussed at the Sonar forum:

http://www.cakewalk.com/forum/tm.asp?m=434423

JD

kilroy · Post by **kilroy** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 3:57 am

BONES wrote:What a load of bollocks! Mixers are headed the way of the dodo and I say good riddance. All they do is add noise to your signal path...

BONES, mate...the preamps on a good desk can have an equivalent input noise of -129db. I think you will find the ambient noise level in most rooms to be substantially greater than this. I humbly submit therefore, that a much better solution to lower noise in audio recordings is to simply eliminate the rooms in which they are recorded.

I must add, that I find it rather odd that you would be overly concerned about noise elements even a little, BONES. In your music, you could record a constant string of Yak barks, throughout the entire record, at -63db, and never even hear them.

MacQ · Post by **MacQ** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 4:21 am

Though the benefits of hardware mixers are many, one of them that is sonically relevant is (as mentioned above) the summing of the signals. Many people have found analog summing to be much more pleasant sounding than digital summing, and there are several units available for just this purpose. You feed an external summing mixer (that has no gain stage and no extraneous controls) with mix-stems or individual tracks from your DAW (however you want them ... guitars, vocals, bass, drums, etc.), and the summing box sums to a stereo pair for re-recording into your DAW or other medium. This gives the advantage of superior automation in software, and the (apparently) superior summing of the analog audio into a stereo pair. I've personally never used one of these boxes, but I'm curious to hear them in action. Some "name" engineers swear by them.

Related to this, there was a CD available somewhere that I can't seem to remember, that was simply a summing test of a whole bunch of systems (hardware and software), and the resultant recordings. Does anyone know what this CD was called?

~MacQ

C00kie · Post by **C00kie** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:48 am

MacQ wrote:Many people have found analog summing to be much more pleasant sounding than digital summing, and there are several units available for just this purpose. You feed an external summing mixer (that has no gain stage and no extraneous controls) with mix-stems or individual tracks from your DAW (however you want them ... guitars, vocals, bass, drums, etc.), and the summing box sums to a stereo pair

the "analog voodoo sound" box !!

Thats so futile...

Spaceman Sounds · Post by **Spaceman Sounds** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:03 am

Digital summing really is not as nice as running 16 channels into an analog desk, it doesn't sound the same. It's a little bit like recording to dat or recording to tape. The Dat is very accurate, but the tape seems more real.

I've just got myself a cheap little 8 to 2 mixer as I hate using on screen volume controls. A mixing dsesk can be an instrument in it's own right. I feel myself heaing back to analog more and more. Just bought a Yamaha CS 5 which eats all vsti's for sound as ability to shape a sound quickly, and am getting a Sherman Filterbank 2 as vsti filters just don't cut it yet for me.

buckman · Post by **buckman** » Mon Apr 18, 2005 7:06 am

I have this same problem, i have a Ghost 24 that i've lugged around due to a couple of moves and it aint light! Also im finding that i do most thigs inside the Computer, although i have been brought up on desks...

I have been told by some of the Analog faithful that the Protools mixer comes close to that Analog sound, which is why a number of things now have been mastered within that software..

I need to decide as to whether to get rid of my Desk and get a Mac G5/Logic 7 and go "inside the Box"

What advantages do mixers consoles have?