digital mix bus vs. outboard

troven wrote on 4/23/2002, 3:57 PM

i've read a lot of opinions about external mixing consoles and how many engineers still find that mixing outboard just sounds plain better than the 'render as' solution from within software (as in all software - PT, vegas, etc.) Is there any truth to this or is it just easier to do it outboard and with effort you can do the same in software.

I understand vegas 3's master bus allows you to put a limiter on it to maximize bits in the final mix but is there anything else? what is actually happening to audio that is mixed through analog circuitry and back to the digital domain and audio that is mixed or rendered purely in software?

go ahead, get technical with me - i dare ya.

t

Comments

PipelineAudio wrote on 4/23/2002, 7:21 PM

"is it just easier to do it outboard and with effort you can do the same in software.
"

that IS the million dollar question.
How different would things sound if it was as easy to push faders in software with a mouse as it is in hardware?
BUT
with Alsihad you can use control 24 and still people perfer to mix outside the box

As far as my possibly unscientific experiments can tell, there IS a sound to each app. The same mix rendered in vegas vs cubendo vs logic all come out different, and though they get real phasey when you play them on top of each other, they dont completely cancel out.

bgc wrote on 4/24/2002, 12:44 PM

I'm not sure why or if they sound so completely different. Could be the noise in the external boards. Could be how analog amps in boards saturate/go non-linear.

Regardless of all these issues I won't EVER go back to mixing on an external board for one reason: the ability to completely save a mix down to every parameter of every effect internally. There have been soooo many times that I wished I could just go back a day and fix something in a mix with no chance - even with automation - cause all the effects are torn down.
I think my mixes sound better mixed internally if only because I was able to go back to a mix and tweak it over time. I'm a firm believer that, while sound quality is important, it's the artistic stuff (of which I include editing/mixing) that matters. A great song recorded on an answering machine is still a great song.
Just my 2cents.
bgc

PipelineAudio wrote on 4/24/2002, 2:44 PM

"the ability to completely save a mix down to every parameter of every effect internally."

this is near reason #1 for me also

ramallo wrote on 4/24/2002, 6:51 PM

Hello,

I believe that with 24 bit mix, is better the DAW internal mix. Less noise (A lot of channels of a real mixer = a lot of noise), less unnecessary AD/DA convertions (More noise), in other word, you lost dinamic range.

In other times, with 16 bit AD/DA, I prefered the real mixer mix.

Regards

MacMoney wrote on 4/24/2002, 7:39 PM

>"the ability to completely save a mix down to every parameter of every effect >internally."

>this is near reason #1 for me also.

Add me to that list

George Ware

Rednroll wrote on 4/25/2002, 10:56 PM

I'm able to save every parameter and every mix with my external digital mixing board also. Digital mixing boards have midi ports on them, and allow you to do a midi dump and save every EQ,all automation,Scene memories,and FX parameters to a floppy drive or your PC's sequencer if you choose. I guess this would give someone the option of having automatible effects, real hardware faders, automatible EQ's, Snapshot mixing and flying fader automation, Grouping of faders, and a master fader with a pre/post-fader insert, all of which not using any additional resources on your P.C. Don't forget I can sync and combine tracks from other tape sources like DA-88,Adat and 2inch tape, giving me the option to record to ANALOG tape if a rock and roll client prefers the sound of their guitars and snare drum with some of that famous analog tape saturation and I can mix those tracks along with the tracks coming from Vegas. I also have the option to run a guitar direct signal out to a Marshall amplier and insert that back into a channel and route directly to the Mix buss. If a client brings in a drum machine, I don't even have to record those tracks to tape or hard disk. I just feed the drum machine smpte time code from Vegas and send the outputs into my mixing board along with the tracks from Vegas. This saves on time having to record the tracks to Vegas and also saves on a generation loss of recording to another media. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, my external digital mixer also has joystick type of pan controls so I can chose to do a 5.1 surround sound mix if I choose also. With all those options and versatility, I'll have to put myself in the external mixer category.

Rednroll wrote on 4/25/2002, 11:03 PM

Oh yeah. I can also send the kick drum to the sidechain of the compressor on my bass guitar with my external mixer. Did I mention I can save all this to a floppy disk too or a sequencer, which can all be recalled instantly?

bgc wrote on 4/26/2002, 5:15 PM

So you save all the settings for all your external gear too?
And save those with all your automation data?
Is it this easy?: Ctrl-S
I doubt it ;)

It's not only the settings and automation that I'm praising. It's the fact that all my "gear" is virtual and I don't have to worry that someone is using my external reverb on another mix. I open the file and it's all there.

Some people paint in oil. Some people paint in acrylics. They're both pretty.
bgc

bgc wrote on 4/26/2002, 5:18 PM

I can also tweak/edit/play with a mix on a plane on my laptop.
That's hard to do with an O2R. :)
bgc

Rednroll wrote on 4/26/2002, 5:40 PM

Well if you want to go there....well yes I can. Most external FX's units have midi IN/OUTS also. So I can load dump them as well to the same sequence I saved all my external mixer information to. So alls, I have to do is open up my sequencer and hit play from a saved sequence and EVERYTHING get's instantly recalled, no matter if anyone has been playing with the gear or not. BTW, I can take my laptop on a plane and edit audio there too.....but I would never do a MIX, through my laptop computer speaker, which I believe is what the original topic was discussing.

So how do you do surround sound type of mixing on your laptop in a plane? Do you have virtual speakers too or do you use those special surround sound headphones they provide in the plane pocket seat in front of you? :-)

drbam wrote on 4/26/2002, 7:33 PM

I certainly can see the advantages noted in this thread for eliminating an external mixer. It makes sense. However, I can also see the advantages of using one (as noted here as well) and that makes sense to me too. So, when considering both sides, the obvious question that comes up for me is why do ALL of the high end studios spend enormous amounts of money (often more than $300K + per unit) for external consoles?? I can't imagine its just to enhance the visual impression of the studio ("eye candy").

drbam

Rednroll wrote on 4/27/2002, 11:03 PM

That's exactly one good reason. I worked at one studio where they edited strictly on Neve AMS audiophile systems. They where nothing more, than an 8 track digital editor, which cost $40,000. At the time the Neve editors came out they where ahead of the curve of everything currently out. Soon though with all the software editors built on PC's and MAC's and third party plugins becoming very popular, Neve audiophiles fell far behind in technology. I was pushing for the studio, to adopt a P.C. audio editor because I could do 10 times as much on a $2000 P.C. as I could on one of those $40K Neve's. Their response was, "We don't want to work on computers, because then our clients will see they can do this type of work themselves, with an inexpensive computer set-up, and we won't be able to charge our $200-$350/hr rates."
That was over 3 years ago, and I heard they're finally getting in Pro-Tools systems and running them along with the Audiophile. I benefited by educating their clientel and showing them I could do more for them in my studio with Vegas and a digital mixing board, that cost nowhere near the cost of their $200,000 Neve logic 2's.

The other thing that you can do with an external mixer is set up seperate mixes very easily while recording. Most of the time when doing a session, I'll work with a producer who wants to hear mostly the singer being recorded to ensure they're in key, while the singer likes to hear more of the music and have more reverb in their heaphone mix. Or in radio commercials, the voice over wants to hear the music louder in their headphones, so they can assure their timing is paced quick enough, while the producer doesn't want to hear any music, because they want to insure everything is pronounced correctly and the inflection is correct. It seems like doing this type of thing in Vegas would take a lot more time to set up than on an external mixer. Also, in a studio you need to offer many different types of formats, so if someone can't get into another studio, they can easily come to your studio. Therefore, the more formats you can support, then the more business you can get. Just being able to patch in a DA-88,Adat, or 2 inch machine to your mixer is a quick solution, rather than having to transfer everthing into Vegas first, and then lay everything back to their original format. You'll find clients not very happy to pay for all that transfer cost and will look for another studio that will accommadate them more effeciently.

You'll find in studio's perception is 80% of drawing in clients, while good engineering only accounts for about 20%. Sad, but so true.