Inboard vs Outboard Mixing/Mastering

[chimmy]

New thread started so I don't continue to highjack the "Bashing Mackie" thread by FENder6.

Fender brought up the idea of outboard processing.

One of my replies was "I am able to do things when monitoring through my outboard gear to get exactly the sound I want, then I struggle unsuccessfully to duplicate that sound with plug-ins."

It never dawned on me to route the audio out, process it, then send it back in. Sometimes my pea brain can't connect the dots.

Not breaking the digital chain has been mentioned, yet In other forums I read that are frequented by people who make their living mixing and mastering, they almost always state emphatically that you can't get the pro commercial sound out of a computer with a bunch of plug-ins. From what I gather, processing in many, if not most, mix/master studios is done external.

Anyone with hints, tips, tricks, or suggestions for rack gear they use? Methods anyone would like to share? Suggestions for the order if gear in the exterior chain? Anything else?

chimmy

[rpc9943]

Do with what you have and do it in any way you want to that sounds good, be creative



RonC

[whyterabbyt]

I agree with Ron.

[SuitcaseOfLizards]

I've been unable to find a distortion plugin that sounds as good as my cheap-o Behringer V-Amp Pro, so I just route my sample player out to the V-Amp and take the output from it into another channel on my Delta 44 and record that. Works a treat! I also do this with my Bass V-Amp Pro, to use the cabinet sims and the effects. It rocks!

I guess I could get a card with more I/O and do the same kind of thing during the mastering process, and grab an expensive rackmount mastering unit.. I'm pretty happy with the Voxengo plugins I use for that, though, and Final Mix isn't too shabby either.

[haydxn]

i often send stuff out to a different output on my delta44 and thru my PODv2, or perhaps some other thing lying around that i've butchered, and then back into the delta44 to be recorded 'processed'. it's just another thing you can do, and it's always great to just do different things.

there's no reason to stick to one way of working. sure, everyone has their favourite techniques and whatnot, but you'd never advance if you just stick to the same old routines.

the important thing is; if you think of something to try out, and you're curious, just get on and try it.

[IIRs]

One of my favorite tricks is to route inapropriate signals out to my guitar amp to be mic'ed.. it gives things an organic character that I've never achieved with digital processing.

I don't think it's just "valve magic" either, I reckon the air in the room, and the character of the mic itself, play a large part in the sound..

I'm lucky to have a rack-mounted guitar rig, with the pre-amp feeding the power amp at line level: this means I can simply plug a spare out from my Delta 66 into the back of the pwr amp with no impedance mis-matches.

However, even if you have a conventional amp with a high z imput, you can get tranformers from Maplins for a few quid that will convert for you..

[bk]

I agree with Ron.

Wow! That's a first!

(I'm not trying to start stuff here... really.)

[rpc9943]

Once I was dreaming about someone inventing a computer-driven "non-linear" tape-based audio editing console. Like it would make precise cuts and splices, limited by things here or there... And it'd be able to tape parts together, and use extra tape for copied instances... Hahha wouldnt that be crazy? Anyways I also was thinking people could, for analog effect, somehow wire up a multi-out soundcard to a multi-in tape deck and just record everything when you're all done on to the tape then back into the computer. You could try it right

RonC

[Lunch Money]

Lots of people have done what you're describing Ron. The latter part, mind, not the auto-cut and auto-splice part.

Quickie tip if you really want to go to tape:

Try VHS. Obviously not for individual tracks, unless you want to spend a lot of time going back and forth. I haven't tried this myself, but it's an old 4-track secret. Though, ironically, the idea when using a 4-track used to be that a VHS tape is hi-fi, so you'd have LESS signal loss than trying to bounce within the 4-track machine.

Greg

[AD80]

I got a tape question for you LunchMoney. What does a clipped tape signal look like through a wave editor? A clipped digital signal looks like a flatline, but what does it look like when you clip something on tape, then digitize it and bring it in a wave editor.

[Lunch Money]

Beats me. Any time I've brought anything in from tape, it's just looked like a plain old wave file to me. On the other hand, I wasn't looking for any specific patterns.

Any of my 'tape' experience was on a Tascam 4-track, and I fought like the dickens to NOT clip. Clipped consumer-grade cassette tape is not pretty, and in most cases I wasn't even driving the tape I was just driving the transistors in the machine, so I was getting nasty horrible distortion from clipping.

I avoided it at all costs, and so anything I've transferred to digital from the tape is stuff that's not clipped already. And as mentioned, the VHS thing was to give BETTER fidelity, so it wasn't ideal to drive that kind of tape either.

I've never used a "proper" multi-track tape setup and have no real knowledge about it beyond what I've seen here at KvR.

Greg

[valley]

my understanding is that tape gives a non-linear kind of soft limiting.

[AD80]

Thanks guys. I'm curious to see what that looks like in a wave editor. I'm gonna be mixing some stuff on tape in march www.510studios.com. So maybe I'll clip some stuff on purpose just to see what it looks like. If the engineer lets me.

[valley]

if you get a chance, I'd be real greatful if you could send some sine waves though the tape at different saturation levels, and send me the files.

I'd like to have a play around with writing some saturation DSP code.

[Lunch Money]

Hey valley, have I ever mentioned that Betabugs is always actively recruiting programmers for either continued contributions or simple one-offs?

Seriously, though.