|
Post by Mister Chase on Jan 25, 2021 14:28:59 GMT -6
I'm not CLA, but this is exactly how I approach a hybrid mix environment. I only change things when ABSOLUTELY necessary. Otherwise, I leave stuff in the sweet spots I have found over the years, and treat them like "analog presets" - pushing into them with trims out front to get them into their preferred sweet spot. Best of both worlds. Recalls are virtually as easy as with plugins. I do leave a few pieces that are always up for tweaking, and those do get notated. But I always try to find a way to deal with the recall aspect ITB so I don't have to touch them. I do mostly the same thing, but with templates now. Each session starts with the same template and I just drag and drop tracks to where the best chains for them are and tweak a little from there. I need to try templates. Have a vocal chain, snare, kick, bass etc. Using eq like my bt50 makes recall pretty breezy.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Jan 25, 2021 15:13:17 GMT -6
The X2 was a great board. Best of the medium format mixers by far, but an unneeded article in today's workflow. It'll always hold a place in my fond memories. I only heard the early X2's when they showed them at NAMM. They weren't passing above 20k or so. That's my only experience with them. I'm curious how you tested their frequency response on the NAMM floor?
|
|
|
Post by brenta on Jan 25, 2021 15:16:57 GMT -6
Back in the day you had assistants that took all the notes on all the gear's settings for recall.. Unless you're CLA and all the gear is set the same between sessions. But he still has assistants do all the busywork. CLA I ain't. One thing that I do enjoy is my Wes Audio Prometheus. It just snaps back to each instance and recalls every time. How do you like the Prometheus? Have you compared it to other Pultec eqs (hardware or plugin)? I've got the Wesaudio Dione and Hyperion. The automatic recall is glorious. I could get back into mixing with hardware when it recalls like a plugin.
|
|
|
Post by EmRR on Jan 25, 2021 16:43:14 GMT -6
Good luck!
I think i do recall some first gen X2 debacle that was ironed out pretty fast.
It’s hard to know what to think about path, there are so many niche approaches. I see a couple guys who are all tube only to mono tube tape machines, and they all have steady work. I could do that, but I also do more, so I’m not considered part of that market. Hard to imagine keeping the sandbox so small.
I’m too big and expensive for a lot of clients.
I’m too small an operation for a lot of others.
I’m too old for many. I’m too young for many others.
Etc etc
Everything is increasingly polarized and niche oriented.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jan 25, 2021 16:54:15 GMT -6
I only heard the early X2's when they showed them at NAMM. They weren't passing above 20k or so. That's my only experience with them. I'm curious how you tested their frequency response on the NAMM floor? Doubting Ragan?? . Pre-show being open to public - during the setup couple of days : I was in another manufacturers booth with a high end console and monitoring system demoing a piece of music to show off the console. The music was produced and pre-recorded at my studio and last minute transferred to ADAT for demo-ing at the show. For the first time we borrowed a pair of those high Rez ADAT's instead of using DA88's. Yeah, remember those? . The new High Res ADATS. MKII or whatever they called em.... At the console manufacturers booth, the entire system had a high end clock-ish type digital whine in it. We tried all tried and tru tricks, swapped cables, lifted grounds, changed pretty much everything except the adats and - nothing. Whine wouldn't go away. Ultimately, we unplugged the ADAT's and whine gone. Old ADATs - fine IIRC. DA88's - fine. Took tapes to Alesis booth. No whine on their new ADATs. Took our borrowed ADATs that we were using to Alesis booth thinking they were faulty - no whine. Took our monitoring to Alesis booth - no whine. Jerry rigged ADATS to their monitoring in their booth - whine. On both the borrowed and their ADATS. Back and forth, back and forth narrowing the parameters one by one. It should be noted - this was the FIRST TIME THEY HAD EVER HEARD this issue with their boxes. DOH! Because during development, they were always monitoring the ADATS thru the X2 and their monitors. Conclusion by all involved : the X2 was not passing this extreme HF clocking noise through to their monitors. Pretty simple. And the last time we ever used ADAT's. We ended up using either the DA88's or normal ADATs for that show. I can't remember. To their credit, after we pointed this out to them, they did get their #@!$ together and fixed the issues. In both their consoles and ADATs. Insider info - one of my best friends was their Western Region sales manager at the time, and I did get the after the fact details. They were clueless when it happened. They couldn't believe it, but back and forth between monitoring systems, console, their ADATS, the ADATS we had borrowed, etc. proved the point to them. Aaaaaand...that's the story. Feel free to continue in disbelief!!
|
|
|
Post by Mister Chase on Jan 25, 2021 16:56:26 GMT -6
CLA I ain't. One thing that I do enjoy is my Wes Audio Prometheus. It just snaps back to each instance and recalls every time. How do you like the Prometheus? Have you compared it to other Pultec eqs (hardware or plugin)? I've got the Wesaudio Dione and Hyperion. The automatic recall is glorious. I could get back into mixing with hardware when it recalls like a plugin. Agreed. I wish I could give you comparisons but I haven't done any except between plugins that are tube modeled. It does the job really well and it's recallable so I'm satisfied. There ain't nothing that can do what a real pulse tech does though. There's a big sweetwater comparison page. The real deal is amazing.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Jan 25, 2021 17:31:13 GMT -6
I'm curious how you tested their frequency response on the NAMM floor? Doubting Ragan?? . Pre-show being open to public - during the setup couple of days : I was in another manufacturers booth with a high end console and monitoring system demoing a piece of music to show off the console. The music was produced and pre-recorded at my studio and last minute transferred to ADAT for demo-ing at the show. For the first time we borrowed a pair of those high Rez ADAT's instead of using DA88's. Yeah, remember those? . The new High Res ADATS. MKII or whatever they called em.... At the console manufacturers booth, the entire system had a high end clock-ish type digital whine in it. We tried all tried and tru tricks, swapped cables, lifted grounds, changed pretty much everything except the adats and - nothing. Whine wouldn't go away. Ultimately, we unplugged the ADAT's and whine gone. Old ADATs - fine IIRC. DA88's - fine. Took tapes to Alesis booth. No whine on their new ADATs. Took our borrowed ADATs that we were using to Alesis booth thinking they were faulty - no whine. Took our monitoring to Alesis booth - no whine. Jerry rigged ADATS to their monitoring in their booth - whine. On both the borrowed and their ADATS. Back and forth, back and forth narrowing the parameters one by one. It should be noted - this was the FIRST TIME THEY HAD EVER HEARD this issue with their boxes. DOH! Because during development, they were always monitoring the ADATS thru the X2 and their monitors. Conclusion by all involved : the X2 was not passing this extreme HF clocking noise through to their monitors. Pretty simple. And the last time we ever used ADAT's. We ended up using either the DA88's or normal ADATs for that show. I can't remember. To their credit, after we pointed this out to them, they did get their #@!$ together and fixed the issues. In both their consoles and ADATs. Insider info - one of my best friends was their Western Region sales manager at the time, and I did get the after the fact details. They were clueless when it happened. They couldn't believe it, but back and forth between monitoring systems, console, their ADATS, the ADATS we had borrowed, etc. proved the point to them. Aaaaaand...that's the story. Feel free to continue in disbelief!! Heheh. Well I was just thinking there had to be something behind that very specific claim re: frequency response. And is it turns out, there was!
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jan 25, 2021 17:42:03 GMT -6
Doubting Ragan?? . Pre-show being open to public - during the setup couple of days : I was in another manufacturers booth with a high end console and monitoring system demoing a piece of music to show off the console. The music was produced and pre-recorded at my studio and last minute transferred to ADAT for demo-ing at the show. For the first time we borrowed a pair of those high Rez ADAT's instead of using DA88's. Yeah, remember those? . The new High Res ADATS. MKII or whatever they called em.... At the console manufacturers booth, the entire system had a high end clock-ish type digital whine in it. We tried all tried and tru tricks, swapped cables, lifted grounds, changed pretty much everything except the adats and - nothing. Whine wouldn't go away. Ultimately, we unplugged the ADAT's and whine gone. Old ADATs - fine IIRC. DA88's - fine. Took tapes to Alesis booth. No whine on their new ADATs. Took our borrowed ADATs that we were using to Alesis booth thinking they were faulty - no whine. Took our monitoring to Alesis booth - no whine. Jerry rigged ADATS to their monitoring in their booth - whine. On both the borrowed and their ADATS. Back and forth, back and forth narrowing the parameters one by one. It should be noted - this was the FIRST TIME THEY HAD EVER HEARD this issue with their boxes. DOH! Because during development, they were always monitoring the ADATS thru the X2 and their monitors. Conclusion by all involved : the X2 was not passing this extreme HF clocking noise through to their monitors. Pretty simple. And the last time we ever used ADAT's. We ended up using either the DA88's or normal ADATs for that show. I can't remember. To their credit, after we pointed this out to them, they did get their #@!$ together and fixed the issues. In both their consoles and ADATs. Insider info - one of my best friends was their Western Region sales manager at the time, and I did get the after the fact details. They were clueless when it happened. They couldn't believe it, but back and forth between monitoring systems, console, their ADATS, the ADATS we had borrowed, etc. proved the point to them. Aaaaaand...that's the story. Feel free to continue in disbelief!! Heheh. Well I was just thinking there had to be something behind that very specific claim re: frequency response. And is it turns out, there was! Again, to be fair, both those units were hot off the presses - just up FS. I'm sure if we hadn't pointed out the problems, their clients would have.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Jan 25, 2021 17:44:12 GMT -6
I only worry when doubting Thomas posts !
|
|
|
Post by drumsound on Jan 25, 2021 18:19:29 GMT -6
I'm curious how you tested their frequency response on the NAMM floor? Doubting Ragan?? . Pre-show being open to public - during the setup couple of days : I was in another manufacturers booth with a high end console and monitoring system demoing a piece of music to show off the console. The music was produced and pre-recorded at my studio and last minute transferred to ADAT for demo-ing at the show. For the first time we borrowed a pair of those high Rez ADAT's instead of using DA88's. Yeah, remember those? . The new High Res ADATS. MKII or whatever they called em.... At the console manufacturers booth, the entire system had a high end clock-ish type digital whine in it. We tried all tried and tru tricks, swapped cables, lifted grounds, changed pretty much everything except the adats and - nothing. Whine wouldn't go away. Ultimately, we unplugged the ADAT's and whine gone. Old ADATs - fine IIRC. DA88's - fine. Took tapes to Alesis booth. No whine on their new ADATs. Took our borrowed ADATs that we were using to Alesis booth thinking they were faulty - no whine. Took our monitoring to Alesis booth - no whine. Jerry rigged ADATS to their monitoring in their booth - whine. On both the borrowed and their ADATS. Back and forth, back and forth narrowing the parameters one by one. It should be noted - this was the FIRST TIME THEY HAD EVER HEARD this issue with their boxes. DOH! Because during development, they were always monitoring the ADATS thru the X2 and their monitors. Conclusion by all involved : the X2 was not passing this extreme HF clocking noise through to their monitors. Pretty simple. And the last time we ever used ADAT's. We ended up using either the DA88's or normal ADATs for that show. I can't remember. To their credit, after we pointed this out to them, they did get their #@!$ together and fixed the issues. In both their consoles and ADATs. Insider info - one of my best friends was their Western Region sales manager at the time, and I did get the after the fact details. They were clueless when it happened. They couldn't believe it, but back and forth between monitoring systems, console, their ADATS, the ADATS we had borrowed, etc. proved the point to them. Aaaaaand...that's the story. Feel free to continue in disbelief!! Christ, I can imagine what a stressful pain in the ass that must have been! I think my heart rate went up just reading it.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jan 26, 2021 8:49:15 GMT -6
I'm curious how you tested their frequency response on the NAMM floor? Doubting Ragan?? . Pre-show being open to public - during the setup couple of days : I was in another manufacturers booth with a high end console and monitoring system demoing a piece of music to show off the console. The music was produced and pre-recorded at my studio and last minute transferred to ADAT for demo-ing at the show. For the first time we borrowed a pair of those high Rez ADAT's instead of using DA88's. Yeah, remember those? . The new High Res ADATS. MKII or whatever they called em.... At the console manufacturers booth, the entire system had a high end clock-ish type digital whine in it. We tried all tried and tru tricks, swapped cables, lifted grounds, changed pretty much everything except the adats and - nothing. Whine wouldn't go away. Ultimately, we unplugged the ADAT's and whine gone. Old ADATs - fine IIRC. DA88's - fine. Took tapes to Alesis booth. No whine on their new ADATs. Took our borrowed ADATs that we were using to Alesis booth thinking they were faulty - no whine. Took our monitoring to Alesis booth - no whine. Jerry rigged ADATS to their monitoring in their booth - whine. On both the borrowed and their ADATS. Back and forth, back and forth narrowing the parameters one by one. It should be noted - this was the FIRST TIME THEY HAD EVER HEARD this issue with their boxes. DOH! Because during development, they were always monitoring the ADATS thru the X2 and their monitors. Conclusion by all involved : the X2 was not passing this extreme HF clocking noise through to their monitors. Pretty simple. And the last time we ever used ADAT's. We ended up using either the DA88's or normal ADATs for that show. I can't remember. To their credit, after we pointed this out to them, they did get their #@!$ together and fixed the issues. In both their consoles and ADATs. Insider info - one of my best friends was their Western Region sales manager at the time, and I did get the after the fact details. They were clueless when it happened. They couldn't believe it, but back and forth between monitoring systems, console, their ADATS, the ADATS we had borrowed, etc. proved the point to them. Aaaaaand...that's the story. Feel free to continue in disbelief!! Just going to reply since you brought it up.. Just because something whines, or doesn't, doesn't mean that it's passing through the audio or not. It was still most likely a grounding issue since removing/lifting ground is the exact opposite of what you should do. The mixer was designed to be used with their ADAT devices, almost a loss leader. The ELCO inputs have a 2 pole RC filter with roughly 100KHz bandwidth. I spoke with one of the designers of the original X2 concept and have some of their prototype schematics given to me by them. I also have some of their hand worked rev A boards as well and there's no bandwidth difference between those boards and the later production rev B boards. Pretty sure whatever problem you had, it was with the ADAT machines not interfacing well with your gear, and not the X2 mixer.
|
|
|
Post by jcoutu1 on Jan 26, 2021 9:03:16 GMT -6
The X2 was a great board. Best of the medium format mixers by far, but an unneeded article in today's workflow. It'll always hold a place in my fond memories. You're doing all your headphone mixes with the MOTU software? How are you liking that? Bump. 😬😬
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jan 26, 2021 9:25:16 GMT -6
You're doing all your headphone mixes with the MOTU software? How are you liking that? Bump. 😬😬 Shit, sorry. I meant to reply to you. Yes, all the headphone mixes through MOTU, but not the way I had envisioned. I lightly covered it in the MOTU routing rant thread.. I had intended to run all the 24ai inputs through the hardware mixer on the 24ai and then mix them to 8 channels on a single AVB stream over to the 828es where they would be combined in the 828es mixer with the streams coming from the DAW to form the full headphone mix routed out of the 828es analog outputs to the headphone pods and avoiding the DAW altogether on live takes. I got all the pieces in place but I never used it like that. As I was trying to figure out the crazy MOTU routing mess, I was monitoring the DAW (reaper) outputs on tracks I already had. From that point I just enabled Reaper's record monitor option and found that monitoring through Reaper didn't add any perceptible latency so I never even used the MOTU mixer stuff for anything. The only thing I can't do like this is have a ton of reverbs in Reaper while tracking. Even though they aren't taking a ton of resources, Valhalla and ReaVerb seem to cause some kind of latency thing. I just grouped the reverb channel mutes and mute them when tracking live.
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Jan 26, 2021 9:53:11 GMT -6
I just did my first client mix with 6 inserts. I wrote down my recall notes but I didn't want to touch anything while this mix was happening which was for the last two weeks(revisions and emails back and forth etc). It's just not as congruent with how people work these days. Between clients, recalls between songs every 20 mins... tough.The dream is you mix it down with the client present(or not) in one fell swoop and move on. The double edged sword of being able to be so accurate with digital is that the client knows that you can do something, or they *think* you can do ANYTHING. So you get revisions for "the lip click sound at 2:13" etc and will be recalling mixes for small things. This ^^ I definitely prefer hardware in the tracking stage - but I don’t really do a ton of tracking. Like, I still think there’s a big enough difference in tracking vocals through a hardware chain and not to keep mic pres and compressors. But like Mister Chase says, it’s impossible to make a living as a working mixer with the amount of recall that’s demanded in 2021. Now, if I were getting $1000 a mix, things would be different. But I’m not spending 30 minutes recalling what i did on Mix2 for a $200 client that may or may not change their minds in an hour. This compounds because I’m usually juggling 6-7 clients at a time. That being said, I can’t get the same bottom end on a drumbus with a software comp as I can with the AS D-Comp. so right now I’m trying to discern where I need to put my money. Do I keep a 2 bus comp when I only use it for my own stuff and a few other projects? I don’t know.
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Jan 26, 2021 9:58:09 GMT -6
I only worry when doubting Thomas posts ! We should hold each other accountable for claims on this forum. Reduces the bullshit here on Real whores I mean Realgear.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jan 26, 2021 10:20:48 GMT -6
Doubting Ragan?? . Pre-show being open to public - during the setup couple of days : I was in another manufacturers booth with a high end console and monitoring system demoing a piece of music to show off the console. The music was produced and pre-recorded at my studio and last minute transferred to ADAT for demo-ing at the show. For the first time we borrowed a pair of those high Rez ADAT's instead of using DA88's. Yeah, remember those? . The new High Res ADATS. MKII or whatever they called em.... At the console manufacturers booth, the entire system had a high end clock-ish type digital whine in it. We tried all tried and tru tricks, swapped cables, lifted grounds, changed pretty much everything except the adats and - nothing. Whine wouldn't go away. Ultimately, we unplugged the ADAT's and whine gone. Old ADATs - fine IIRC. DA88's - fine. Took tapes to Alesis booth. No whine on their new ADATs. Took our borrowed ADATs that we were using to Alesis booth thinking they were faulty - no whine. Took our monitoring to Alesis booth - no whine. Jerry rigged ADATS to their monitoring in their booth - whine. On both the borrowed and their ADATS. Back and forth, back and forth narrowing the parameters one by one. It should be noted - this was the FIRST TIME THEY HAD EVER HEARD this issue with their boxes. DOH! Because during development, they were always monitoring the ADATS thru the X2 and their monitors. Conclusion by all involved : the X2 was not passing this extreme HF clocking noise through to their monitors. Pretty simple. And the last time we ever used ADAT's. We ended up using either the DA88's or normal ADATs for that show. I can't remember. To their credit, after we pointed this out to them, they did get their #@!$ together and fixed the issues. In both their consoles and ADATs. Insider info - one of my best friends was their Western Region sales manager at the time, and I did get the after the fact details. They were clueless when it happened. They couldn't believe it, but back and forth between monitoring systems, console, their ADATS, the ADATS we had borrowed, etc. proved the point to them. Aaaaaand...that's the story. Feel free to continue in disbelief!! Just going to reply since you brought it up.. Just because something whines, or doesn't, doesn't mean that it's passing through the audio or not. It was still most likely a grounding issue since removing/lifting ground is the exact opposite of what you should do. The mixer was designed to be used with their ADAT devices, almost a loss leader. The ELCO inputs have a 2 pole RC filter with roughly 100KHz bandwidth. I spoke with one of the designers of the original X2 concept and have some of their prototype schematics given to me by them. I also have some of their hand worked rev A boards as well and there's no bandwidth difference between those boards and the later production rev B boards. Pretty sure whatever problem you had, it was with the ADAT machines not interfacing well with your gear, and not the X2 mixer. Nice if it was so simple. It wasn't. They brought in their "real engineers" to deal with the problem, and they acknowledged it as well, so no, not a simple problem. The conclusion that two very experienced studio installation guys, several audio engineers, and a couple of their tech staff was that there was indeed a problem. Again, feel free to ignore the evidence. No skin off my back - I was just a bystander trying to help. Way above my pay grade.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Jan 26, 2021 10:27:25 GMT -6
Just going to reply since you brought it up.. Just because something whines, or doesn't, doesn't mean that it's passing through the audio or not. It was still most likely a grounding issue since removing/lifting ground is the exact opposite of what you should do. The mixer was designed to be used with their ADAT devices, almost a loss leader. The ELCO inputs have a 2 pole RC filter with roughly 100KHz bandwidth. I spoke with one of the designers of the original X2 concept and have some of their prototype schematics given to me by them. I also have some of their hand worked rev A boards as well and there's no bandwidth difference between those boards and the later production rev B boards. Pretty sure whatever problem you had, it was with the ADAT machines not interfacing well with your gear, and not the X2 mixer. Nice if it was so simple. It wasn't. They brought in their "real engineers" to deal with the problem, and they acknowledged it as well, so no, not a simple problem. The conclusion that two very experienced studio installation guys, several audio engineers, and a couple of their tech staff was that there was indeed a problem. Again, feel free to ignore the evidence. No skin off my back - I was just a bystander trying to help. Way above my pay grade. Bill, he's not "ignoring the evidence", he's just saying the problem definitely wasn't that the engineers who designed it couldn't figure out where the poles of a couple RC filters are supposed to go.
|
|
|
Post by kcatthedog on Jan 26, 2021 10:32:56 GMT -6
Was only joking about Dr Bill’s play on words ?
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jan 26, 2021 10:45:26 GMT -6
[edit] Never mind. Not worth it....
|
|
|
Post by chessparov on Jan 26, 2021 11:24:22 GMT -6
How about them Dodgers? Chris
|
|
|
Post by chessparov on Jan 26, 2021 11:27:33 GMT -6
I unplugged the mixer from the system today. It hasn't been turned on in months. Started pulling channels out so I can actually move the frame off the desk and replace the desk with a smaller one. I'll be rewiring the patchbay with the rack gear inputs normalled to the DAC outputs, interruptible by plugging in the preamps and the rack gear outputs going to a separate patch bank to patch to ADC inputs. Honestly I don't see using the rack gear much anymore but I can't bring myself to sell most of it. End of an era. I forget what console you were using, Chris? Mackie Onyx. Chris
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Jan 26, 2021 11:33:42 GMT -6
[edit] Never mind. Not worth it.... I can't speak for svart of course, but I just thought he was saying the issue was something other than that they put 20kHz bandwidth filtering on the audio input. Especially given that he's got the original schematics and seeing where the filter poles are at is a trivial calculation. I didn't think he was saying that there wasn't an issue at all. Either way, I haven't meant to be confrontational with any of this. Just curious.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jan 26, 2021 12:01:15 GMT -6
[edit] Never mind. Not worth it.... I can't speak for svart of course, but I just thought he was saying the issue was something other than that they put 20kHz bandwidth filtering on the audio input. Especially given that he's got the original schematics and seeing where the filter poles are at is a trivial calculation. I didn't think he was saying that there wasn't an issue at all. Either way, I haven't meant to be confrontational with any of this. Just curious. I never said they "put" 20kHz filtering on the console. I said it didn't PASS 20kHz. That's a different situation.
|
|
|
Post by plinker on Jan 26, 2021 12:51:26 GMT -6
I only worry when doubting Thomas posts ! We should hold each other accountable for claims on this forum. Reduces the bullshit here on Real whores I mean Realgear. In an effort to not offend the more sensitive, I'm starting an internet petition to have the name of this forum changed from "RealGearOnline" to "RealWhoresOnline".
While it surely will increase donations, I am, however, concerned that it might cause some confusion about the nature of this site.
|
|
|
Post by Johnkenn on Jan 26, 2021 13:31:46 GMT -6
We should hold each other accountable for claims on this forum. Reduces the bullshit here on Real whores I mean Realgear. In an effort to not offend the more sensitive, I'm starting an internet petition to have the name of this forum changed from "RealGearOnline" to "RealWhoresOnline". While it surely will increase donations, I am, however, concerned that it might cause some confusion about the nature of this site.
That was my joke I was going to type in the GS thread but decided not to..."Glad I didn't go with my initial idea: Realxxxxxxonline.com" But I didn't want to offend anyone lol.
|
|