ITB vs. Summing Mixer

Dbox summing is pretty sutle ?

Doesn't seem to be a big enough difference to leave the box over. What converters are you using for Dbox summing? That's likely the sound of any difference. I think I like A better, if I had to choose. Joel in great form!

Using the Apollo. It certainly would be a lot easier not to sum. I usually route 4 stereo channels to the d box then out into a pair of VP28s and print. Then go back and add plugs to the print and out through a stereo channel through the dbox and and vp28 again. I'm just bored and probably should leave well-enough alone. If I sold my Apollo and all of my plugs, I could upgrade to a Symphony...honestly, these days the only plug I would really, really miss would be the BX20. I know @BradM had mentioned that he and drbill thought the difference summing made wasn't very evident. More about the coloration with transformers.

If for nothing else, I think I want to keep the dbox for the DA.

For fun I feed your ITB mix into my 1073 and it made a difference.
Special in the low end which glued nicely together, overall transients where rounder and the HF roll off felt natural.

When a mix owns nice depth and dimension the 1073 usually opens the mix up in a nice way.

I just got 90% in the ABxer. The summing seems a touch louder, causing it to punch a little harder. I think that's the real difference.

Edit: Looks like @superwack beat me to it.

I know BradM had mentioned that he and drbill thought the difference summing made wasn't very evident. More about the coloration with transformers.





John - Brad and I are on the same page - although I'll let him speak for himself.  We both ended up on that page before we designed the Silver Bullet, and since summing boxes were (are) all the rage, we considered adding OTB summing when we were designing it to make sure we were making the right decision - and at that point made the conscious decision to NOT add summing to the Silver Bullet.  
We chose to do that for a lot of reasons, but mainly because we could get the SB to do the same thing by just dropping it on the Mix bus while mixing into it.  Honestly, I could get better mixes with the pre-prototype SB on my DAW 2 Bus than I could off my $80k D&R Mixer - and the production SB's are a world better still.  (Eventually, the D&R got a SB on it's mix inserts, so I got it all back, but I can achieve virtually the same thing by putting the SB on the 2 bus of my DAW if you take out the esthetic benefits of a console and it's EQ's.)  

If you take your productions one step further and actually put into practice the re-amping work flows that I mention in manual, you can get mixes that sound astonishingly close to what the mix would sound like on a vintage API/Neve console.  All with no summing box or mixer.  

Honestly, with a couple of D-Subs, summing could be added into the SB with very minimal cost - but Brad and I both view it as an "Emperor's got no clothes on" solution. Even so, we implemented an internally switchable "Fulcrom" mode for passive summing, cause we know some people dig that.  And we're not opposed to it on an esthetic level if that's what people want to do.

I think where the dissension and heated arguments "For" vs. "Against" OTB summing happen are in semantics, and how "summing" is defined.  There is no clear definition in real studio life at this point, although on the technical side of things, it's obvious. "Summing" is the combining of signals.  That's the beginning and end of it really.  It's not transformers or tubes or mega expensive.  How you do that, and how you gain stage, and how you do makeup gain (if needed) is where the joy comes from.  Some people define summing as  going thru huge $$$ summing devices with discrete electronics and/or tubes on every input ($$$).  While others consider summing a $49 passive DIY box WITH makeup gain from a pair of Coil pre's after it (there's the magic).  Still others call summing an uber clean OTB box, others call it a combination of all with their other hardware patched in.  So when you have these conversations, it's kind of confusing, cause if you hear a industry guru say "OTB SUMMING is life changing" and you choose a $49 DIY summer and use the pre's in your converter for make up gain......  Um, then you're not going to be listening to that guru much longer.

So, just saying "OTB summing" is about a defining as saying "I use a car".  It could be a 4X4 Diesel truck, a Ferrarri, a Mini Van, a Range Rover (my choice ) or a 60's VW Bug.  Without defining what OTB summing is, and then making an attempt to compare apples to apples, there will never be any agreement.

Also, it should be noted that if you're using an 8 channel summing box, then you'd better only have 8 channels recorded - otherwise you're summing partially - or in many cases MOSTLY - ITB.  To have an 80 channel summing system (and lots of mixes go over 80 channels these days) is going to cost you upwards of $10k in conversion, another $5-15k in summing boxes, and several thousand for wiring.  And how many guys who advocate "summing OTB" are taking it that far?

What what are summing OTB advocates hearing?  I don't dispute for a second that they are hearing something.  But Brad and I think we know what it is.....    And there's the rub.

So.....for us.....the question is "why do that, and spend that amount of money on gear, AC, heat, added complexity and chance of intermittent problems with added recall issues" if you can get the same affect - or better - by putting something that brings the harmonic distortion, 3D vibe, and widening you're looking for in active stages of amplifier circuits of OTB summing - by simply slapping something (in our case a Silver Bullet) on your 2Bus, mixing into it, and driving it like you would an SSL, API or Neve console if you were mixing and pushing into them?  Why indeed....

Hey, everyone's got to experiment for themselves, and I would never say that the Silver Bullet is the only way or the best way.  But it's a way that is resonating with dozens of high end pro's who demand an analog sound.  And from what they are telling Brad and I - they're getting it.

Brad and I have a uber-monstrous "summing / 2 Bus" shootout planned, but honestly, it's a difficult and timely proposition - multiple boxes, multiple techniques, multiple styles of music", so it may be awhile....but we will certainly post it here or link to it when we dig out of a million and one things we have to get done.   You know....I still have to write my 300 songs a year.  LOL  (I'm afraid I've been falling very short the last few years..... )

Cheers,

I saw that too

I pm'd him

The fun that can be had using an analog gain stage to control volume for the sake of incurring character can't be tossed aside so easily. 

Where I think summing mixers typically fall apart on the passive tip has more to do with how you utilize them than their purpose. Since the only gain you get with a passive summing mixer is the digital fader inside your DAW which is pre DAC (which then feeds each input of the passive summer), that doesn't necessarily offer you much in the way of musical gain. Instead you're bound by whatever your DAC can do before it sounds like poo. This is in turn is the attenuated by the nature of the passive summing network inside the mixer. Then whatever you're left with is what goes to the mic preamp input. Truth is you won't be hitting the input of the preamp all that hot to begin with. You're back in subtle territory and its a matter of splitting hairs. Boo to that. Brad did a test before where he shot out a passive summing mixer with a mic preamp vs the preamp itself hanging off the DAC (I forget if he attenuated it before the mic preamp to offer a similar level of signal or not) but.....I've always held the idea that as signal approaches closer to what we call line level (or exceed it) then you really begin to see the magic factor happen in gear. 

Brad's absolutely correct, right off the DAC is where you get the mojo or where you attach the device that lets you drive the next device into mojo territory. 

DAC to Zulu to ADC is one thing but DAC to mic preamp to Zulu to ADC is a totally different planet.  Even on a real tape machine, I'd never just park signal from my DAC into my Tascam 38 or my Fostex A20. It was always a mic preamp, normally I used a PM700 channel strip or similar (usually line level signal to the transformer coupled mic preamp input, consequences be damned).  It gave me a different overall touch factor to how I gain staged and it sounded better to my ears, plus it had 3 band analog EQ (win win win). 

I think where we got lost on the way was somehow consumer culture bought into the concept of using a summing mixer as a replacement/solution rather than a piece of the solution. Its a great platform for running your DACs into some analog stages that can go into full on overload if you want without worrying about clipping the inputs of your converters (like you do when you make a round trip hardware insert). 

Its like I was mentioning the other day on Facebook. Tape wasn't/isn't solely great unto itself as a way to accomplish vibe.  No...rather its a way to utilize your surrounding equipment differently to make IT (the other equipment) do stuff you normally can't without that frequency comforting security blanket in place to absorb the burrs and rough edges you'll pick up while shaving some transients. A summing mixer or traditional mixer is true in this regard as well. It gives you a platform to work at extreme or hotter than usual operating levels that normally present problems in a digital environment, plus it will sum all your sounds together in a neat little package. Obviously you could do the same thing with in line attenuators and mic preamps too, but that's not quite as fun.

As always turn some damn knobs.

Thanks
-L.

John, did you just run through the dbox on the summing clip or did you go into the CAPI's or more as well?