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Originally Posted by John Suitcase There's good digital and bad digital, good analogue and bad analogue.
Personally, I think the analogue summing fans are just working around a headroom issue in most DAWs. Mix with more headroom, and suddenly ITB sounds damn good.
Does anyone make a Wow and Flutter plug-in?
In the end, you're moving diaphragms, both at the mic and the speaker. Digital resolution is very good, and able to move speakers very well.
Analogue does it well, too, though with more distortion and noise (much of it pleasant, of course). Fun stuff! |
You make an interesting point about headroom and summing. I want to share an experience I had recently with these two. Earlier this year I mixed an album OTB using a DIY summing box and API preamps. I determined early on in the process of mixing after comparing ITB and OTB mixes for this project that the OTB results were head and shoulders better than was was happening ITB. In comparison, the mixes had all that stuff people generally attribute to OTB mixing: wider, deeper, more engaging, etc. Recently I upgraded my converters to some brand new Mytek. I did a project last week using the new coverters and decided to do the same comparison of ITB versus OTB. I tried my summing box and the API's again. I also tried just running my 2-channel mix (summed in the computer) into the API by way of a custom transformer box. The weird thing was that the OTB mixes now sounded slightly smaller and flatter in comparison to my ITB mix. I was dumbfounded. How could that be? I was even using nicer D/A this time around. What had happened? The project I did earlier in the year had much more agressive levels and less headroom throughout all channels. The second project had much more conservative recording levels and proper headroom was maintained at every step of the mix.
I think the lesson I learned is that it really just comes down to running gear in the sweet spot. Different gear has different sweet spots. And that every project is different. No one solution is going to be perfect every time.
Brad