Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Split Mixing: Avoiding digital gain stages

Tim Glasgow · 5th November 2002

OK, i'll bite.

After reading the excellent thread about delay compensation (credit to C.Lambrechts) i thought i'd go out on a limb with another some-might-and-some-won't idea. Many of you will already be familiar with the concepts here, and i don't mean to be condescending or to beat a dead horse, but i'll spell it all out as best i can for those who haven't run across this before.

A common complaint with Pro Tools is the "sound" of the mix bus. i've mixed on many different things, and i gotta admit - even though the vast majority of my mixes are done in PT, PT ain't my favourite. i've stumbled into some excellent mixes on PT, but i don't credit them to me - i think i got lucky. When i do a good mix on an analog console, i feel like i really can take responsibility :-).

One theory about digital mixing is that the actual summing of the tracks has no "sound". You're just adding the values of each sample together and that's the output. Not much math there. The "sound" comes from stage after stage of multiplication and division you induce by going through multiple gain stages of faders and panners.

The assumption is that you can eliminate the "sound" of the Pro Tools mixer by forcing it to do only straight addition, and by using other plug-in gain controls to fade and pan. This means panning or bussing every track hard left or right, and setting up a pair of auxes panned hard left and right that are both fed from the same mono bus for tracks that are panned centre. Easier done than said :-) but now you are stuck with three pan positions (L, C, R) so any in-between tracks have to be duplicated or bussed so the mixer has a separate input for the left and the right.

When you're done, all faders in Pro Tools are at unity, and all pans are panned either hard left or right, or gone altogether 'cuz you're going straight to a bus. Takes forever to set up, makes panning a colossal pain 'cuz you don't have any panners, and eats tons of DSP, but sometimes - with certain types of material - i'll do it on a little mix of 8 tracks or less and i think it makes a difference. A while ago a bunch of mastering guys had it out over which digital gain controls sounded best, and the control in a Daniel Weiss outboard box was considered by far the best, with the Waves Ren EQ significantly down in second place, Sonic Solutions and a bunch of other software... then the Pro Tools mixer faders way down at the bottom of the list. i'll use the Waves Ren EQ 2 gain control (with both bands bypassed unless i need the EQ) and automate it for mixing, so the only math anywhere in the mixer is in those Waves faders. Everything just sounds a tiny bit 'clearer' to me. Maybe i'm nuts.

This is so anal-ridiculous, though. Where this seems to make way more sense is if i have a track that i want to emphasize the detail in, like a lead vocal or a snare drum that's panned centre anyway, i'll "pull it out of the mixer" by zeroing the fader and assigning it to say, Bus 1. Then i'll make two mono auxes assigned to Master Left and Master Right - both fed from Bus 1 and zero those faders (and hide them - you don't need to see them). Then use the Ren Comp or Ren EQ output fader (since i'll undoubtedly be using one of them on the track anyway) to control the level. i've now reduced the number of "digital gain stages" from three or four down to one really good one.

Try it in a dense mix and see if that track seems to move forward and "sparkle" a little more. Let me know if i'm totally on crack.

--t
[london, canada and echo cañon, nyc]

p.s. acknowledgements to Monte and the daw-mac crew for some of the ideas above and to Jules for ruling and pointing us to this forum!

5th November 2002	#1
Tim Glasgow Gear interested Joined: Jun 2002 Location: London, Ontario, Canada Posts: 20 Thread Starter	Split Mixing: Avoiding digital gain stages OK, i'll bite. After reading the excellent thread about delay compensation (credit to C.Lambrechts) i thought i'd go out on a limb with another some-might-and-some-won't idea. Many of you will already be familiar with the concepts here, and i don't mean to be condescending or to beat a dead horse, but i'll spell it all out as best i can for those who haven't run across this before. A common complaint with Pro Tools is the "sound" of the mix bus. i've mixed on many different things, and i gotta admit - even though the vast majority of my mixes are done in PT, PT ain't my favourite. i've stumbled into some excellent mixes on PT, but i don't credit them to me - i think i got lucky. When i do a good mix on an analog console, i feel like i really can take responsibility :-). One theory about digital mixing is that the actual summing of the tracks has no "sound". You're just adding the values of each sample together and that's the output. Not much math there. The "sound" comes from stage after stage of multiplication and division you induce by going through multiple gain stages of faders and panners. The assumption is that you can eliminate the "sound" of the Pro Tools mixer by forcing it to do only straight addition, and by using other plug-in gain controls to fade and pan. This means panning or bussing every track hard left or right, and setting up a pair of auxes panned hard left and right that are both fed from the same mono bus for tracks that are panned centre. Easier done than said :-) but now you are stuck with three pan positions (L, C, R) so any in-between tracks have to be duplicated or bussed so the mixer has a separate input for the left and the right. When you're done, all faders in Pro Tools are at unity, and all pans are panned either hard left or right, or gone altogether 'cuz you're going straight to a bus. Takes forever to set up, makes panning a colossal pain 'cuz you don't have any panners, and eats tons of DSP, but sometimes - with certain types of material - i'll do it on a little mix of 8 tracks or less and i think it makes a difference. A while ago a bunch of mastering guys had it out over which digital gain controls sounded best, and the control in a Daniel Weiss outboard box was considered by far the best, with the Waves Ren EQ significantly down in second place, Sonic Solutions and a bunch of other software... then the Pro Tools mixer faders way down at the bottom of the list. i'll use the Waves Ren EQ 2 gain control (with both bands bypassed unless i need the EQ) and automate it for mixing, so the only math anywhere in the mixer is in those Waves faders. Everything just sounds a tiny bit 'clearer' to me. Maybe i'm nuts. This is so anal-ridiculous, though. Where this seems to make way more sense is if i have a track that i want to emphasize the detail in, like a lead vocal or a snare drum that's panned centre anyway, i'll "pull it out of the mixer" by zeroing the fader and assigning it to say, Bus 1. Then i'll make two mono auxes assigned to Master Left and Master Right - both fed from Bus 1 and zero those faders (and hide them - you don't need to see them). Then use the Ren Comp or Ren EQ output fader (since i'll undoubtedly be using one of them on the track anyway) to control the level. i've now reduced the number of "digital gain stages" from three or four down to one really good one. Try it in a dense mix and see if that track seems to move forward and "sparkle" a little more. Let me know if i'm totally on crack. --t [london, canada and echo cañon, nyc] p.s. acknowledgements to Monte and the daw-mac crew for some of the ideas above and to Jules for ruling and pointing us to this forum!