Summing questions - part II

[duvalle]

Originally Posted by Tony Maserati

But among the best, Chandler, Dangerous, Neve, SSL, AND internal bounce, all sounded similar (only subtle differences based on electronic designs ect... But the key seemed to be payiing close attention to internal gain structure as well as outboard (analog) gain structure. This allowed the equipment (digital or analog) to work at it's best, giving the mix fullness, depth and width.

so analog summing is used by you because of your workflow and not because of sound.
that's very nice to hear ... and will piss off some of the folks here ...

[Mike Caffrey]

Where do you set the individual channel vlaume controls on the Mini Mixer - are they all set to wide open/full volume?

Where do you find you end up with the output set?

[AP Productions]

Originally Posted by Tony Maserati

Hey Dirk,
Lets start with summing analog and where it goes from there...
1. I take 'blended' outputs from Tools into the Chandler.

out1/2>Drums, out 3>kik, out 4>snr, out 5/6>Pno/rhodes/wurli, out 7/8>Guitars, out 9>Bass, out 11>LeadVox, out 12>Lead Adlib, out 13/14>BGVs, out 17/18>MoreBGVs, out 19/20>Synths or more Keys, out 21/22>Strings, out 23/24>Extra, out 29/30>Internal FX,

But in this case...do you have 2 Chandlers for 32 channels? And for what is Dangerous then? If I have understood everything correctly, You feel that there is almost no difference between analog and digital summing and You're preffering analog cause of your analog background only?

PS: Sorry for my bad english!

[elcubo]

Originally Posted by Tony Maserati

But among the best, Chandler, Dangerous, Neve, SSL, AND internal bounce, all sounded similar
t

Reading this from you, a real world master, is very interesting and enlighting...after all, internal bounce is among the best...

[D.F.]

This is really helpful Tony. Brilliant.

Originally Posted by Tony Maserati

I take 'blended' outputs from Tools into the Chandler.

out1/2>Drums, out 3>kik, out 4>snr, out 5/6>Pno/rhodes/wurli, out 7/8>Guitars, out 9>Bass, out 11>LeadVox, out 12>Lead Adlib, out 13/14>BGVs, out 17/18>MoreBGVs, out 19/20>Synths or more Keys, out 21/22>Strings, out 23/24>Extra, out 29/30>Internal FX,

...do you mean into the Chandler and Dangerous 2Bus, as Chandler is just 16 channels?

Also, does either the Dangerous or Chandler come up to the patchbay for extra trickery?

cheers.. David.

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by duvalle

so analog summing is used by you because of your workflow and not because of sound.
that's very nice to hear ... and will piss off some of the folks here ...

I'm going to write this in caps okay: cuz it should be understood if yo're gonna take anything i say with seriousness...

DO YOU REALLY THINK I DO ANYTHING, WHERE SOUND ISN'T IMPORTANT TO ME? THERE ARE FEW CHOICES I MAKE THAT DON'T INCLUDE THE LITMUS OF OUR BELOVED WAVE RESPONSES! THAT BEING SAID, BEING THE AQUARIUS (LOVER) THAT I AM, I DON'T NEGATE THE POSSIBILITY OF ANOTHER MAN'S OPINION UNLESS I CAN SUBSTANTIATE IT MYSELF.

THE BIGGEST POINT I WAS TRYING TO GET ACROSS WAS THAT IF YOU PAY ATTENTION TO GAIN STRUCTURE WHEN MIXING*, YOU'LL GET THE JOB DONE BETTER AND BE ABLE TO CREATE GOOD MIXES; WHICH WILL GO A LONG WAY TO SATISFY YOU, YOUR CLIENTS AND THE AUDIENCE.

WILL THEY SOUND BETTER SUMMED IN ANALOG OR DIGITAL? HELL, THAT DEPENDS ON SO MANY FACTORS HAVING ONLY PARTIALLY TO DO WITH EQUIPMENT CHOICES; HOW IT WAS RECORDED, PRODUCED, ARRANGED, PERFORMED, A&R'D, FORMATED AND SENT TO YOU, CREATIVE DIRECTION IMPARTED TO YOU, WHETHER YOU MADE WOOPI THAT DAY, WHETHER YOUR ASSISTANT MADE WOOPI... HELL, WHETHER EVERYONE INVOLVED IS GETTING SEX!! I COULD GO ON FOR SO LONG IN THIS DIRECTION, I HOPE YOU GET THE POINT.

BEING A PROFESSIONAL IS; DOING THE BEST YOU CAN WITH ALL THE ELEMENTS YOU HAVE AT THE TIME. WRITE IT DOWN!

*being an engineer

thanks for letting me get that out,
t

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey

Where do you set the individual channel vlaume controls on the Mini Mixer - are they all set to wide open/full volume?

Where do you find you end up with the output set?

Hey Mike,
I've got the mini mixer volume wide open. The apogee outs are set to -16db just to help witht eh headroom issue.

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by AP Productions

But in this case...do you have 2 Chandlers for 32 channels? And for what is Dangerous then? If I have understood everything correctly, You feel that there is almost no difference between analog and digital summing and You're preffering analog cause of your analog background only?

PS: Sorry for my bad english!

Hey yer English is great...
I have 1 Chandler mixer (16ins x 2outs), 1 Dangerous 2Bus (16ins x 2outs) 1 Neve Melborne console (10ins x 2outs, as well as individual inserts on channels) The Dangerous and Neve are plugged into the Chandler 15/16 and 25/26 respectively...

Regarding the summing question, I've found that the differences are negligible; at the top level (by that I mean, a top engineer, mixing in analog and one mixing in digital with identical tracks, will display only their personal creative difference, not those of their equipment) I believe this because I am competing daily with top engineers working in all varieties of formats and configurations. Clients/audiences are choosing based on what moves them. Audiences, pre-autotune, would rarely have been able to identify an artist with inaccurate pitch. Now it's used incessantly. As professionals, we want to believe our audience hear and understand the details, but really IT'S ABOUT EMOTION AND ENERGY! (of course there are exceptions to this rule, but those are the specific parameters of individual genre's)

yikes,
t