Would getting a cheap mixer REALLY warm up ITB mixes??

[Ged]

It's a question I've been wondering lately.

After seeing Alan Braxes vid, Im wondering if getting a simple mixer would glue or help add some warmth/mojo to my ultra clean itb mixes.

It's something I've always debated with myself - but most of the House stuff I love have been done with a Mackie 1202 or something similar.

opinions welcome!!

[api2500]

It's the well designed ones that add a good character and they are the ones that cost a lot more. The cheaper ones are designed to be clean, and the cheap crap ones are designed to be clean but don't do it very well.

More likely then not, you'd be looking at getting a summing box to fulfill that role.

[subby33]

Cheap? No.

[pinkerton]

iis that kefka in your avatar?

[Ged]

summing is a bit of an enigma for me - too many people spending crazy cash and reporting not too much of a difference.

I know a House producer here in the UK who on his first time using a mixer / desk commented on how easy the track was to mix.

[Dubtek71]

Originally Posted by pinkerton

iis that kefka in your avatar?

It's Patrick Mcgoohan of The Prisoner. The one of the greatest tv shows of all times imho. only 13 episodes. You really should see it if you haven't.

[Ged]

17 eps !!

although Mcgoohan originally wanted less I believe.

[pinkerton]

0oh yeah i know.

sorry i wasnt asking you i was asking subby.

the prisoner was very trippy though. one of the most original shows ive ever seen.

the remake for AMC sucked balls, however.

[subby33]

Originally Posted by pinkerton

iis that kefka in your avatar?

Yes its Kefka.

FF6 > FF7

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!!!

[api2500]

Originally Posted by Ged

summing is a bit of an enigma for me - too many people spending crazy cash and reporting not too much of a difference.

I know a House producer here in the UK who on his first time using a mixer / desk commented on how easy the track was to mix.

I find mixing on hardware a lot more rewarding and immediate. But that's taste. You can still do a mix ITB as a cheap mixer will do nothing sonically for you. Just mix it well.

[pinkerton]

Originally Posted by subby33

FF6 > FF7

agree 100%. its the best of the series. to be fair though, i was never a big fan of final fantasy, but that particular one sucked me right in.

[subby33]

Originally Posted by pinkerton

agree 100%. its the best of the series. to be fair though, i was never a big fan of final fantasy, but that particular one sucked me right in.

To be honest, I like their old composer more than the games. Nobuo uematsu. He's written like 1000 songs and can't read music and can't even play piano that well. I find it funny because orchestras now play his music lol.

Yes. This thread was hijacked!

[ignatius]

Originally Posted by Ged

It's a question I've been wondering lately.

After seeing Alan Braxes vid, Im wondering if getting a simple mixer would glue or help add some warmth/mojo to my ultra clean itb mixes.

It's something I've always debated with myself - but most of the House stuff I love have been done with a Mackie 1202 or something similar.

opinions welcome!!

short answer is NO.

but that's not to say it wouldn't sound different than mixing in the box.

you'd be better off running your two mix out to a decent compressor/eq and back in.. like an API2500 or something.. but that's not cheap.. you should just experiment and see what happens though.. you never know.. you might find a sound you like regardless of if it's "warm" or not.

[alexvdbroek]

Originally Posted by subby33

To be honest, I like their old composer more than the games. Nobuo uematsu. He's written like 1000 songs and can't read music and can't even play piano that well. I find it funny because orchestras now play his music lol.

Yes. This thread was hijacked!

Yes, and his music is average and pastiche

[pinkerton]

Originally Posted by subby33

To be honest, I like their old composer more than the games. Nobuo uematsu. He's written like 1000 songs and can't read music and can't even play piano that well. I find it funny because orchestras now play his music lol.

Yes. This thread was hijacked!

slam shuffle ftw

[api2500]

Originally Posted by pinkerton

slam shuffle ftw

Easily the most random thread theft I've ever seen. .

[gizeh12]

Define cheap i would say.

A tapco or Behringer wouldnt help at all.

A 2nd hand Soundtracs or Tascam m3500 would ad some nice flavor if you have decent converters. I even hear improvement by just blending without touching the eq's ( is use the M3500).

An Allen and Heath or Mackie grade console is not worth the money and energy of bouncing it around.

[pinkerton]

Originally Posted by api2500

Easily the most random thread theft I've ever seen. .

[subby33]

Originally Posted by alexvdbroek

Yes, and his music is average and pastiche

It may seem so at first . . .but its far from average. He can write music in pretty much any musical style.

Guess I just flat out disagree.

His songs have reached a wide audience and influenced a lot of people. People may slag him off because basically, he's a pop writer. He writes simple songs that get stuck in your head, but thats not an easy thing to do. And listen to his battle themes. Sorry . . .not just anybody can come up with that stuff. Its very well written. And if thats not enough, listen to his 4 part piece called Dancing Mad. Its very Bach influenced . . .but he mixes it with prog rock.

Sorry son. Nobuo is king.

[in a blue field]

Originally Posted by subby33

Yes its Kefka.

FF6 > FF7

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!!!

he was the bad guy in 6 too?? i only played up to 3, he was the villain in that (that game was awesome)

[pinkerton]

3 is 6

i know its confusing.

i always call it 3 too because thats what it was when i played it back in 94 or 95

[subby33]

Originally Posted by in a blue field

he was the bad guy in 6 too?? i only played up to 3, he was the villain in that (that game was awesome)

It was called 3 in the US because they skipped a few japanese releases in the states. So when we were playing FF3 they were actually on FF6. Once they released FF7 . . . they just stopped changing the numbers and numbered them correctly for the US.

They have since then released all the older ones from japan that didnt get released here. IMO . . . we didnt really miss much at all.

[OurDarkness]

Originally Posted by Ged

It's a question I've been wondering lately.

After seeing Alan Braxes vid, Im wondering if getting a simple mixer would glue or help add some warmth/mojo to my ultra clean itb mixes.

It's something I've always debated with myself - but most of the House stuff I love have been done with a Mackie 1202 or something similar.

opinions welcome!!

I almost always associate clean mixes with sound separation: when two sounds don't fight for the same area of spectrum then that mix is most likely a clean mix. If you use an EQ on two sounds to deliberately make them occupy larger frequency areas, then that might provide some "glue". Overdo it and what was originally "glue" might turn into mud.

I also think that gluing might also be interpreted as "amplitude coherent", thus you can mildly compress a whole mix if there's too much of a dynamic difference between some tracks.

Warmth is usually associated with a mild EQ boost in low frequencies and/or a rich in harmonics signal. Not all harmonics, in all amplitudes will make a signal richer. Try sending individual tracks through some tube compressor with different amount of compression and see if that provides better results instead than sending the whole mix through it.

I don't think you can get away with it just by buying a nice summing mixer. I think it's a little bit of here and there that will give you what you want: some EQ, some compression, some coloring device, some summing mixer and of course your ears. (another pair of ears can help, too.)

[SWAN808]

Its not the cheap mackie mixer that gives braxe his nice sound. Its a combination of his SP1200 and ASR10 samplers, Omega and Xpander analogue synths, SSL Bus compressor and Alesis 3630...and UA 2124 converters...maybe the mackie is a 'small' part of it...but I think you might be disappointed...
I agree get a couple of nice pieces for the master buss...

[mirror symmetry]

FWIW, I have a cheap Makie mixer that I use to do little sub-mixes of elements from my ITB productions, adding some character. In all honesty, the results probably have more to do with work flow than the sound of the desk as I like to add outboard via aux's and do some tweaking as the track plays, maybe doing a few takes till I nail it.
The effect is mostly very subtle but through trial and error I've learned what works to give me a certain sound I like.
I would recommend it as it's cheap and it's fun

[golden beers]

There's little point in a mixer for EM unless you have outboard to go with it.
If you don't, a good control surface for your daw mixer would be a smarter buy

[Ged]

Thanks for all the suggestons guys.

[living sounds]

The mixer will allow you to crank the input and get saturation(distortion). This might be the right thing on some sources, drums especially and also 303ish sounds. But it can also get muddy and harsh quickly by just running stuff through the mixer and using the EQs. The same thing happens ITB with plugins quickly, so it's not necessarily worse. I've got a 1202 I modified thorougly, which is now serving as a submixer and sounding quite good. I wouldn't really want everything run through the stock version though. If you're looking for big, deep, punchy, silky etc. a cheap mixer is not going to do it. The more expensive entry-level professional TL072 based mixers (like all the 'good old' Soundcraft mixers, Toft, Tascam etc.) sound nicer, but they won't give you the big sound in their stock configuration either. There's still some mud in the bass and lack of clarity in the high end. And usually a lack of bass due to too-small caps. So it's either a modded version of those mixers or one of the really expensive desks that will actually be a real advantage over mixerless hybrid ITB + outboard mixing. On the other hand, if you're looking for the slightly blurry 80s/90s sound of countless rap and dance records one of those desks might fit your bill. After all, "warm" is a pretty vague term.

[SDB_12]

While getting a more affordable mixer is probably not going to "warm" up your mixes, it may make them sound better simply because it's funner, easier for some people, and allows you to use your ears more than your eyes. This was the case for me. I mixed ITB for years at home, and only mixed on consoles in school and when in other studios. I loved it, and eventually bought a Mackie Onyx 1640i for the home studio.

This board is not "cheap" but isn't super expensive either. It has a nice clean sound to it, very detailed, and the eq is really pretty nice. It has allowed me to be more musical with my mixes at home, and because it works better for me and the way I work, my mixes are definitely warmer and smoother. But not simply because I run my tracks through them, it's how I use it. The board itself is pretty clean and I'm not noticing much of a color or vibe. It just allows me to work better.

But as some have mentioned, this is all based on personal taste. Simply put, running your mixes through a cheap mixer won't warm them up. They will sound different, but that may or may not be good. It's how you use the board and your plugins/hardware together to start making things gel. For me, mixing on a decent console like the Mackie Onyxi is just a dream compared to a mouse. My mixes are bigger, better, more musical and more fun.

The only way to know if it works for you is to give it a shot.

[api2500]

Originally Posted by SDB_12

While getting a more affordable mixer is probably not going to "warm" up your mixes, it may make them sound better simply because it's funner, easier for some people, and allows you to use your ears more than your eyes. This was the case for me. I mixed ITB for years at home, and only mixed on consoles in school and when in other studios. I loved it, and eventually bought a Mackie Onyx 1640i for the home studio.

This board is not "cheap" but isn't super expensive either. It has a nice clean sound to it, very detailed, and the eq is really pretty nice. It has allowed me to be more musical with my mixes at home, and because it works better for me and the way I work, my mixes are definitely warmer and smoother. But not simply because I run my tracks through them, it's how I use it. The board itself is pretty clean and I'm not noticing much of a color or vibe. It just allows me to work better.

But as some have mentioned, this is all based on personal taste. Simply put, running your mixes through a cheap mixer won't warm them up. They will sound different, but that may or may not be good. It's how you use the board and your plugins/hardware together to start making things gel. For me, mixing on a decent console like the Mackie Onyxi is just a dream compared to a mouse. My mixes are bigger, better, more musical and more fun.

The only way to know if it works for you is to give it a shot.

Same here. I'm looking to get my hands on my own desk, but working through an Audient and Hardware just seems to flow for me.