I'm running in to an enormous bottleneck in my production method.
Right now i make my tracks with hardware mix it on a console.
WHen i laid down the right ingredients for a good track, i record all the individual tracks with the apogee ensemble in logic.
this would look like:
hihat track
percussion track
bassline
synth1
synth2
synth3
vocals
kickdrum track
The problem i have is this:
I get the track with its ingredients to sound nice on the console, but when i record it in logic and mix it there, it sounds so grainy, dull and lifeless. Its like all the magic is gone. I know it cant be the apogee, it should sound great.
What is the best process to do this, am i missing something?
What is the best protocol to track hardware in logic with remaining most of the mojo in tact? Should i chunk up the sounds and record in groups?
Input would be appreciated a lot since this is the one thing that is holding me back.
How do you record the synths, through the console or directly from the synth into the converter? Take a look at the manual for the proper wiring, this might be the issue. Apart from that - all converters suck to varying degrees, and the good ones are pricy, unfortunately.
OTB mixing sounds like the only way for you. Perhaps re-routing the recorded material back though the console and mixing it there would solve this problem, or perhaps some subtle (analog) saturation or compression on the master channel.
A: Your not working with a good enough I/O box(D/A converter).
B: Your not recording and playing back at a high enough resolution. Try setting everything, including logic and your I/O box to record and playback at 32bit, 96khz.
C: If your like me, working with hardware is inspiring while staring at a computer monitor for too long, isn't. If your computer monitor is sitting between your speakers, move it off to the side somewhere so your not always staring at it while you're listening to your mixes.
D. If you really want to make the mixes fun and magical, buy a nice hardware compressor that you can route to the master bus in logic. But then again, you may need to look in to getting a better D/A first.
How do you record the synths, through the console or directly from the synth into the converter? Take a look at the manual for the proper wiring, this might be the issue. Apart from that - all converters suck to varying degrees, and the good ones are pricy, unfortunately.
I record it from the console in to the converters
So apogee ensemble is still not good enough?
It should be adequate. When i record the daw mix true the apogee, it translates quite well.
A: Your not working with a good enough I/O box(D/A converter).
If an Apogee Ensemble is not good enough, what is?
@ gizeh12: if you record the entire mix as a stereo track, does this happen as well?
Are you recording your separate tracks in stereo or dual mono or just single mono?
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I record it from the console in to the converters
So apogee ensemble is still not good enough?
It should be adequate. When i record the daw mix true the apogee, it translates quite well.
Do you record directly from the stereo out, the same as the whole mix? Sub busses don't necessarily sound as good as the master bus.
But the this could be the easily be the converters, recording single tracks and processing and mixing them is more revealing of flaws than recording the mix.
A: Your not working with a good enough I/O box(D/A converter).
B: Your not recording and playing back at a high enough resolution. Try setting everything, including logic and your I/O box to record and playback at 32bit, 96khz.
C: If your like me, working with hardware is inspiring while staring at a computer monitor for too long, isn't. If your computer monitor is sitting between your speakers, move it off to the side somewhere so your not always staring at it while you're listening to your mixes.
D. If you really want to make the mixes fun and magical, buy a nice hardware compressor that you can route to the master bus in logic. But then again, you may need to look in to getting a better D/A first.
A: apogee ensemble should be adequate right?
B:I'm at 96khz already, going down to 48khz even makes it worse indeed.
C:Its not so much the monitor thats bothering me, its really the sound that is hurting me the most.
D:My hardware mixes sound much better than the daw ones, even without compression!
The only downside on mixing OTB is that you can do much less complex things, which makes it harder to add some extra dimensions to the music.
Do you record directly from the stereo out, the same as the whole mix? Sub busses don't necessarily sound as good as the master bus.
But the this could be the easily be the converters, recording single tracks and processing and mixing them is more revealing of flaws than recording the mix.
Could be that it is a cummulative effect of all the tracks going true the converters. But damn, i cant cough up a nother 6k to move up a notch on converters :(.
I indeed record from the main output and not the bus.
Everything beyond clipping is not correct, try to stay at -18 dbfs. Your converters are not designed to record at -2 dbfs for example, they are designed for -18 dbfs.
My guess would be it's inharmonic distortion and other analog impurities which are being added to all the channels during mixdown through the board. You could some tape-saturation effect plugins and see if that gets you any closer. For the truly crazy, you can crank up a bunch of channels on your board until audible noise/hiss is present, record that from your master bus and mix it in subtly as another track in your song.
or what you can do is record as you were doing, but then bounce back to the desk for summing. ensemble is 8 channels right? so you should group everything into 4 stereo buses in daw, bounce them out to the desk, set levels on the 4 buses and record the result from the main mix. if 4 stereo buses is not enough, you need more AD.. ensemble IS good enough IMO.
i would guess it's got nothing to do with levels, or clipping and everything to do with analogue summing.
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Have you checked the track phasing? It is possible that one or more of your tracks have the phase flipped which would make the mix sound very dull. Also check for stereo vs mono interleaving. You are going to have to check both the DAW and your interface to verify this.
I am not a Logic user so I can't give you an exact thing to look for. I don't think you have a converter issue personally.
Look at the prices of high quality stereo converters, getting conversion right doesn't come cheap.
I wouldn't call a 2000$ audio interface "cheap". Well, I'm sure there is some audiophile mumbo jumbo out there for double the price, but I doubt that anyone besides the people who actually paid that kind of money for a converter would hear any difference to the 2000$ class...
I don't think it's the converters. The OP should be more specific about is routing, some people already asked the right questions.
Got it!
Yes, tracking it into the daw, and than mix 8 channels on the console makes all the difference.
I still prefer an all hardware mix, but sending the busses to the console mix it, and than record it bypasses all aliasing and sound reducing elements in the daw.
Im afraid not pearl. There is clearly some loss of transients and aliasing going on in logic. The console even sounds better with all eq's constant and its not the best console:
Zed 32-8.
This console is considered medium/pro-sumer grade at best.
Did you try recording into logic at -18db? It made all the difference for me.
-18 db is unpractical..you dont see the waveforms anymore and a normalized file will blow your speakers when accidently pulled up..
-12 is fine or -9 in the max leaves enough headroom for analog gear to cope with and the converters are in the range they can handle well too..
my opinion.. -9dbFS is the german broadcast norm actually
i personally do -12
And than you need to mix over the analog desk and not itb to get close to the sound you have with the original sound sources.. just use the daw as a tape machine..
that should get you pretty close... as better the converters and clocking as closer..
sometimes a bad wordclock cable screws with your recordings and its hard to realize because it subtile but adds up...
When you want to keep the mojo and have to do it with an analog tape multitracker.. but thats unpractical and expensive too..
i set my levels at the point where the level meters go from green to yellow in Pro Tools. i don't actually know how loud that is but I'm guessing it's between -10db and -20db.
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