ITB mixing hate and love realtionship!

It seems I have to try it I hear it from everywhere use it,  its easy you will love it etc….
So credit card out....

I would too but there are things now that force me to do it ITB.
If Mixbus makes live easier.

Why gOing crazy with all the other cascades of plugs.
If it miniMIzes the plug window war 80 $ is nothing in this case.

Indeed!! IMO, ITB makes proper gain staging and great front end much more important than ever...

Lots of ITB control is necessary for recall from the other direction too: clients with involved sessions who only work a couple of days at a time with breaks of a month or two between sessions. Seems to be the new norm around here.

I don't mind mixing ITB when my whole front end is RTZ, Edwards, Gates, Ampex and Telefunken preamps and similar caliber/quality stuff for eq and compression on the way in. I do insert hardware and commit to print once I am happy with the tone. I can always go back to the original tracks if I don't like it. I have 9 different records going on right now and ITB recall is a must. Mixing with the Smart AV console has enabled me to still have my hybrid mixing system and my analog gear at fingers touch.

I would not go that far that ITB sounds totally flat, special not with the console slew-rate simulation of Airwindows in Logic.
But Jim is right that its not exactly the same.

But today clients want to have instant total recall.
A day before mastering: "can you pull down the snare a db".
I cant do this with the console because next project is already running.
It pisses me the most that the ITB workflow is unnatural... hybrid is way more fun.

BTW pulled the trigger on Harrison Mixbus.
Lets see if this one sounds different if that brings back all three dimension... I am fine.
If Mixbus is going to work the console will be a nice eye catcher.

As far as ITB vs. OTB sonics :

I think some people embrace ITB and find ways to make it work, and it sounds great. While others pull against it and always are longing for it to be something it is not. Those are the guys who can never seem to make it work and believe it's an inferior platform.

The 3 things that changed ITB experience the most for me:
1. Proper internal formats and mixing engines in all DAWs ~ a decade ago.
Before, not all DAW sounded equal. Due to serious flaws in their digital programming i.e. no floating point formats, dithering errors etc.
2. Proper gainstaging technique used.
3. Harrison Mixbus.

I almost always use the console as summing, pan, some aux sends. Sessions with 2-6 total tracks are the ones that may sound 'better' staying fully ITB, at least to my ears.

My habits are non-typical. I used to do lots of parallel bus manipulation, I haven't done that in a decade. I no longer feel it's worth the effort. I stopped printing analog pass through back, I just do it all upfront on the way in. Make it sound like a record while the band is tracking, makes life easier.

To make a long story short.
There is a reason for this thread.
I went in circles about the Hybrid vs. ITB thing about the wish to have everything in one computer.

Some mixes turn out good ITB but sometimes, like at the moment, I do not get the dimension I want.
Its not the first time, I switch on the console and it sounds much more like a record.

With this Jim is right.

Do what I did a few years ago.
I bought 16 out converter and a Allen and Heath ZED 14.
Plus two Midiverbs and a Yamaha REV 500

I had outboard before which was hardwired to my converter.

So its also worth the thing if you only use the ZED 14 for summing.
It sounds different....


PS:
Airwindows Console is something that helps with the depth and dimension ITB.
But its really nothing against the console.
And the ZED 14 is a cheap console.... I mean why not buying one if it makes you happy....
 

Speaking towards mixing only - not tracking which is a completely different ball game - this has not been my experience.  

I mix on average at least 20 pieces of music a month.  This month I have to fly back east to mix a huge project for Disney.  They are paying all my expenses and a silly daily rate that I couldn't turn down.  They gave me a choice : I've got an HDX rig or a V series Neve to do it on.  I'll be using the HDX rig.

In my own studio, summing out to a console was easy for me.  The DAW was normaled via my patch bay to the console, the console was normaled back into the DAW, I had 32 channels of i/o on the DAW and 48 / 96 channels on the console with 12 stereo returns for FX.  The console was AUTOMATED.  All my outboard was normaled to aux sends/returns or easily patched into inserts.  Super easy to make the decision to go OTB and thru the mixer if I wanted to.  But the mixer was CLEAN.  D&R clean.  And my experience was it wasn't adding enough most of the time to go to the hassle of exiting the DAW.  So I've gone hybrid, with some CHOICE pieces (not all analog is good stuff guys) and I'm happy with that.  Happier and mixing better than when I went OTB.  If I had an older 2488 or 8068, yeah, I'd probably use it for summing OTB SOMETIMES.  But I don't think a console is "the magic answer".  There are other ways to accomplish the same result.  Some of which I've had the pleasure of being involved with during their development.

Don't get me wrong, I love consoles dearly.  But in 2015, there's little time, room or money for them in most peoples business, workflow or lives.  They are mostly a dream way of working that harkens back to an era that's passed, and most likely will never return.  (Although I sadly wish it would.)  And honestly, I don't think they are necessary anymore for "mixing".  As I said earlier, tracking is another story completely.  I'm doing better mixes now that I ever did on the console.

And to make matters even more confusing, this "console / OTB" thing has gotten so out of control that people think think that summing thru ANY crappy console will make their mixes better.  This is crazy.  I'd much rather mix ITB than thru the majority of cheap consoles people are raving about these days.

Actually, SOME people NEED a console to mix.  They are old school to the bone.  I get that and it's cool.  But I don't believe that it is a stock "your mixes will be better" answer to peoples mixes that don't meet their expectation.  

What will get you there?  Learning to mix different and better.  Good luck - that's a lifelong journey.  I'm still trying to get better with every mix.