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Post by indiehouse on Sept 23, 2021 18:22:22 GMT -6
It’s personal and subjective. I love turning knobs, hearing transformers, and tubes, and analog components. I love the tactile feel, and the imperfections. I love how electricity interacts with acoustically captured sound. I just love it. It’s more expensive, imperfect, adds a small amount of noise, and takes time to recall, and just generally takes more time overall. I just love it. Did I mention, I LOVE it  And that’s where I’m at. Many others aren’t in that place and it’s all good. Great music can be made either way. So why go fully ITB rather than Hybrid? I wouldn’t completely. Hybrid gives me the best of both worlds IMO. But maybe someday I will. And if I had to record and mix fully ITB, I could. And maybe someday I will. But not today Me too! |
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Post by Hudsonic on Sept 26, 2021 9:51:35 GMT -6
I went from using a fancy analog stack and analog mixer before sending into the daw to using only Sequoia daw now. I do have outboard Quantec and Lexicon reverbs integrated into the daw via aux. sends and AES in / out.
Reason for the change is that I selected new a/d converter (Acousence) for recording and I want to not convert anything out and away from the digital capture. (often 24/192)
Requested edit and mix revisions also made this way of working a must for my work.
Sequoia sounds better to me than any other daw, so I am doing EQ, compression, and tweaks inside the Sequoia program. Super clean sound with the expensive sound from the fancy front end preserved.
Quite happy with it.
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Post by chessparov on Sept 26, 2021 10:41:57 GMT -6
What do you guys, think of the Harrison Mixbus DAW?
Thanks, Chris
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Post by mrholmes on Sept 26, 2021 11:52:22 GMT -6
What do you guys, think of the Harrison Mixbus DAW? Thanks, Chris
For over a decade, I want to try it, but it constantly crashes on my Mac even with a clean installation. A friend of mine uses it regular, and he swears that it sounds like the H. desks he knows from working in the film business.
But there was the user named smallbutfine knowing HMB very well.
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Post by Guitar on Sept 26, 2021 13:15:57 GMT -6
I have "heard" that the Harrison Mix Bus DAW is some sort of saturation on the busses, and that it nulls to -110 dB with Studio One or something like that. After the big Harrison fiasco with their "analog" plugins I'd be a little skeptical that the DAW is doing a whole lot. Maybe someone will make a BuStEd video about it like they did with the channel strip?
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Post by Mister Chase on Sept 26, 2021 15:55:24 GMT -6
Idk but for me, a little outboard helps me gain another significant step towards sounding great on a mix. 8 or 9 times out of 10 my Audioscape bus comp wins vs a plugin except where I want that 33609/2254 kind of thing. Same with EQ. Love pultecs in the box but something about the Wes Audio Prometheus just sounds different. Turning the highs up just sounds different.
I could live in the box but with these two pieces I really don't have such a thing as recall...
I doubt I'll be going as far as full on hybrid channels though.
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Post by OtisGreying on Sept 26, 2021 16:23:25 GMT -6
Idk but for me, a little outboard helps me gain another significant step towards sounding great on a mix. 8 or 9 times out of 10 my Audioscape bus comp wins vs a plugin except where I want that 33609/2254 kind of thing. Same with EQ. Love pultecs in the box but something about the Wes Audio Prometheus just sounds different. Turning the highs up just sounds different. I could live in the box but with these two pieces I really don't have such a thing as recall... I doubt I'll be going as far as full on hybrid channels though. A little outboard goes a LONG way especially if you’re producing and not just mixing at least IME |
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Post by OtisGreying on Sept 26, 2021 16:28:49 GMT -6
The biggest thing I hear analog doing that I haven’t been able to do nearly as well with digital is making dry flat sounds come alive, while tapering off the resonant low end in a musical way. Almost everything I record NEEDS excitement and the low end blooms way too far ahead for it to fit inside a mix, you need HPF on everything basically. But even with a HPF the top end feels dry, and if you go too far it’s way too thin especially ITB. I’ve found If I run a source through enough analog sources the resonant lows tuck in place and compress themselves ( I don’t mean by a compressor just xmfers) and it’s more musical than just chopping off the low end and it sounding thin. It starts so sound much more controlled in the low end and more present on top
I’ve tried to replicate this by throwing soothe on the low end of stuff, ITB hpf’s, which tend to work but they make the source sound thin pretty fast. Still I don’t have a choice for 90% of my tracks but to go that route and it doesn’t sound bad at all. But the important stuff gets the analog chains
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Post by chessparov on Sept 26, 2021 16:35:20 GMT -6
"excitement"? That's what my Aphex Type C Exciter is for!   Chris |
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Sept 26, 2021 18:43:21 GMT -6
"excitement"? That's what my Aphex Type C Exciter is for! Chris You need to maximize that sonic excitement with a BBE. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 26, 2021 21:06:43 GMT -6
There's a lot more good outboard non linear gear. Most ITB dynamics plugins feel like they are a total disrespect to the recorded audio with side chains doing god knows what. The big exception are the Tokyo Dawn plugs. Almost everything else on fast attack feels like it has some aliased sidechain where the fast attack physically can't work or the peaks are missing from it. It's super gross. Some other exceptions are some of the Fuse plugs but honestly, most digital dynamics are terrible and dysfunctional. I own a ton of them. Almost all bad or they barely do anything and sound bad or forced if you try to make them do something.
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Post by mrholmes on Sept 27, 2021 5:43:32 GMT -6
There's a lot more good outboard non linear gear. Most ITB dynamics plugins feel like they are a total disrespect to the recorded audio with side chains doing god knows what. The big exception are the Tokyo Dawn plugs. Almost everything else on fast attack feels like it has some aliased sidechain where the fast attack physically can't work or the peaks are missing from it. It's super gross. Some other exceptions are some of the Fuse plugs but honestly, most digital dynamics are terrible and dysfunctional. I own a ton of them. Almost all bad or they barely do anything and sound bad or forced if you try to make them do something.
Klanghelm and Black Rooster are worth to mention too. I bet there are others we don't see on our radar.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 27, 2021 6:05:53 GMT -6
There's a lot more good outboard non linear gear. Most ITB dynamics plugins feel like they are a total disrespect to the recorded audio with side chains doing god knows what. The big exception are the Tokyo Dawn plugs. Almost everything else on fast attack feels like it has some aliased sidechain where the fast attack physically can't work or the peaks are missing from it. It's super gross. Some other exceptions are some of the Fuse plugs but honestly, most digital dynamics are terrible and dysfunctional. I own a ton of them. Almost all bad or they barely do anything and sound bad or forced if you try to make them do something.
Klanghelm and Black Rooster are worth to mention too. I bet there are others we don't see on our radar.
Uhe Presswerk, DDMF Magic Death Eye are very good too. Sound Radix stuff is cool too but imposes it’s own dynamics on the performance like Oxford Dynamics digging in but it’s more controlled. |
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Post by mrholmes on Sept 27, 2021 7:02:40 GMT -6
Klanghelm and Black Rooster are worth to mention too. I bet there are others we don't see on our radar.
Uhe Presswerk, DDMF Magic Death Eye are very good too. Sound Radix stuff is cool too but imposes its own dynamics on the performance like Oxford Dynamics digging in, but it’s more controlled.
Yes remember Oxford Dynamics from the past liking it a lot, but they were extremely expensive back in the days, missed the sell right now, but is on my list. The waves SSL strip compressors sounded a lot like the real thing, but then came WUP, and they stopped to work.
The SSL 4k EQ and the Oxford EQ are based on the same idea... Right?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 27, 2021 12:06:33 GMT -6
Uhe Presswerk, DDMF Magic Death Eye are very good too. Sound Radix stuff is cool too but imposes its own dynamics on the performance like Oxford Dynamics digging in, but it’s more controlled.
Yes remember Oxford Dynamics from the past liking it a lot, but they were extremely expensive back in the days, missed the sell right now, but is on my list. The waves SSL strip compressors sounded a lot like the real thing, but then came WUP, and they stopped to work.
The SSL 4k EQ and the Oxford EQ are based on the same idea... Right?
Dynamics is not worth it except for the gate/expander/built in hifi dbx 160 type compression. It’s like a super dbx160 with insane, gunshot slam. The limiter in it sucks unless you’re gonna use it to envelope shape with slow attack, slowish release. To get it to limit, you have to dig in too much because the sidechain can’t see the true peaks of the signal. Molot GE is MUCH better at both dbx 160 type slamming soft knee compression, limiting, and saturation but of course higher cpu. No, the Oxford EQ can be more aggressive. It has 4 modes: 1) Eish with wider range of q 2) Gish proportional boost with a narrower unchanging q cut 3) Neve/G type proportional q boost/cut 4) wide q mastering/bus eq. Slick EQ M is less aggressive. So is German mode in Slick GE. I prefer slick eq Ge Japanese mode and mdw eq and psp master q2 for cutting but of course they all use much more resources. Time marches on. TDR Molot GE > DBX 160 hardware > Oxford Dynamics and the Waves DBX 160 > UAD DBX 160 |
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Post by subspace on Sept 27, 2021 13:02:53 GMT -6
I bought a little battery operated DAC and Sennheisers for when ITB on the go is the only option.
Just fitted out a hybrid rack for when I have a bit more space and time, but am still not working in my room. Up to now, working hybrid/OTB meant working in my room exclusively, but that's not really the way my paid work has been trending. Started by switching to a Carbon interface and carrying it in a 6U rack, so I had space to add a couple Stam 1073EQs, A-Designs Nail and an Equalux. Makes a nice little tracking rig/mix bus chain.
I'm completing the transition by adding a Mac mini that stays in the room with the MOTU 16A/Trident/outboard racks, so I can leave "live-in" projects set-up in the room. Those are fewer and further between, but are still my preferred way to produce/mix a record.
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Post by jmoose on Sept 27, 2021 13:13:53 GMT -6
This is my thing. The analog gets me the right sound WAY faster than plugins. But everyone’s bar for “the right sound” is different. I’m constantly referencing 70s records, records I know we’re done with great engineers and equipment, as my benchmarks. So that bar may definitely be lower for someone hired to work at a minimum rate. But I do think the great sonics come out of analog gear much faster with less margin for error, IME, so I feel mixes come together much simpler and faster so I can focus on the music. Which is why it puzzles me as to someone in the same room mixing wouldn’t at least incorporate some static mix buss chain if it sounds better? The answer was given way early. Recall. I'd be interested to know how many people here are working only on their own music vs being "for hire" cats that deal with outside factors and expectations. As a for hire guy myself... I do love my outboard. And I do use it. But if I have a project that for whatever reasons needs to be mixed ITB I'm going to stay 100% ITB. The slight benefit is simply NOT worth the additional headaches. Even something that on paper is as simple as patching a compressor across the 2-mix and printing back? One or two pieces of gear? Can easily fuck things up at the intersection of mix recall and client expectations. Catastrophic potential for damage. By example... Last November/December I had three projects hit at the same time with identical deadlines on top of other things already in the pipeline. EP's... singles... label work... indie artists... hard deadlines on release dates etc. I'd wake up in the morning not knowing what I'd be working on. Was really a case of checking email & seeing who got back to me first and had their shit together. In a situation like that where I'm moving from one project to another in vastly different genres with vastly different requirements I have to be able to nail the mix changes. Adding some analog to the process? Even just swapping out, say the UAD SSL bus comp for the real one? Impossible unless I set it up once and then never touched the knobs again for like, 3 weeks or a month. And that sounds incredibly stupid and impossible right?? 2 mix is critical especially with regardless to the all mighty "level" - Once we're a couple 3 revisions deep any changes in level are going to skew everyone's perception. If the mix comes over 1dB hotter then its the winner yes? But if I come back 1dB lower then the new mix sounds wimpy and Mr Moose sucks. Now I do love my outboard and have an SSL X desk. Often two dozen boxes patched about on a given mix but that's more "album/EP" kinda stuff where I can dig into a single project for a few days or weeks and do something rad. In a case like that, when I deal with recalls its not one song here and another several weeks later. I'm pulling the whole project back and making changes in one shot... and with a few dozen pieces of outboard scattered across 4-12 songs? There's so much else going on that being 1dB off on the print level is simply not a big deal. But if I'm ITB and the mix is 1dB off? Higher or lower... which overall is +/- 2dB? That's massive. Everyone notices. Plus. Just like, my opinion man but having experimented endlessly... my thought is that if I'm mixing ITB and doing everything there... at the end of the line, swapping the plug for the real hardware on just one point? Yeah maybe it sounds a little better half the time but overall that additional juice ain't worth the squeeze. |
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Post by Mister Chase on Sept 27, 2021 13:36:31 GMT -6
This is my thing. The analog gets me the right sound WAY faster than plugins. But everyone’s bar for “the right sound” is different. I’m constantly referencing 70s records, records I know we’re done with great engineers and equipment, as my benchmarks. So that bar may definitely be lower for someone hired to work at a minimum rate. But I do think the great sonics come out of analog gear much faster with less margin for error, IME, so I feel mixes come together much simpler and faster so I can focus on the music. Which is why it puzzles me as to someone in the same room mixing wouldn’t at least incorporate some static mix buss chain if it sounds better? The answer was given way early. Recall. I'd be interested to know how many people here are working only on their own music vs being "for hire" cats that deal with outside factors and expectations. As a for hire guy myself... I do love my outboard. And I do use it. But if I have a project that for whatever reasons needs to be mixed ITB I'm going to stay 100% ITB. The slight benefit is simply NOT worth the additional headaches. Even something that on paper is as simple as patching a compressor across the 2-mix and printing back? One or two pieces of gear? Can easily fuck things up at the intersection of mix recall and client expectations. Catastrophic potential for damage. By example... Last November/December I had three projects hit at the same time with identical deadlines on top of other things already in the pipeline. EP's... singles... label work... indie artists... hard deadlines on release dates etc. I'd wake up in the morning not knowing what I'd be working on. Was really a case of checking email & seeing who got back to me first and had their shit together. In a situation like that where I'm moving from one project to another in vastly different genres with vastly different requirements I have to be able to nail the mix changes. Adding some analog to the process? Even just swapping out, say the UAD SSL bus comp for the real one? Impossible unless I set it up once and then never touched the knobs again for like, 3 weeks or a month. And that sounds incredibly stupid and impossible right?? 2 mix is critical especially with regardless to the all mighty "level" - Once we're a couple 3 revisions deep any changes in level are going to skew everyone's perception. If the mix comes over 1dB hotter then its the winner yes? But if I come back 1dB lower then the new mix sounds wimpy and Mr Moose sucks. Now I do love my outboard and have an SSL X desk. Often two dozen boxes patched about on a given mix but that's more "album/EP" kinda stuff where I can dig into a single project for a few days or weeks and do something rad. In a case like that, when I deal with recalls its not one song here and another several weeks later. I'm pulling the whole project back and making changes in one shot... and with a few dozen pieces of outboard scattered across 4-12 songs? There's so much else going on that being 1dB off on the print level is simply not a big deal. But if I'm ITB and the mix is 1dB off? Higher or lower... which overall is +/- 2dB? That's massive. Everyone notices. Plus. Just like, my opinion man but having experimented endlessly... my thought is that if I'm mixing ITB and doing everything there... at the end of the line, swapping the plug for the real hardware on just one point? Yeah maybe it sounds a little better half the time but overall that additional juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Very interesting perspective. I do stay ITB on some mixes for clients songs.
However, the recall thing is somewhat moot with the gear I choose as I get instant recall on the Wes Audio hardware on my 2 buss. That makes it much easier to live with.
This does affect mobility of mixing on the road, however I have to lug a UA Satellite too so... eh. Idk. All ITB has that benefit of mix anywhere, anytime.
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Post by jmoose on Sept 27, 2021 15:26:22 GMT -6
Very interesting perspective. I do stay ITB on some mixes for clients songs.
However, the recall thing is somewhat moot with the gear I choose as I get instant recall on the Wes Audio hardware on my 2 buss. That makes it much easier to live with.
This does affect mobility of mixing on the road, however I have to lug a UA Satellite too so... eh. Idk. All ITB has that benefit of mix anywhere, anytime.
Yeah, that's just the reality of my surroundings. Obviously other people are going to have different experiences. And sure, some analog gear is easier to recall then others. My SSL style comp, probably like many has click stops for everything but threshold and output gain so its not all that hard. But... the threshold & output are both incredibly touchy and a slight bump one way or another makes a massive difference. Couple that with different sample rates on everything, different styles of music etc and sure... I could pull up and print a 1kHz alignment tone to try and get back to within .1dB but IMO its just not worth the time & effort. Close enough is close enough for some things but close enough ain't ever perfect, as in... dead nuts exactly the same. Plus I dunno. My experience is that if I'm stuck mixing ITB swapping the 2-mix over for something analog when I go to print has NEVER been the difference maker. Its never taken a group of songs from "these mixes are great" to "whoa mygawd doood you crushed it!" Again my experience... one mans mountain blah blah blee blee |
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Post by christophert on Sept 27, 2021 19:47:01 GMT -6
I'm hybrid for many decades, and will be forever - I still use great plug ins AND lots of outboard. Win win. Mixing through analog gear is like playing an instrument to me. The difference is very much like playing an electric guitar through an amazing tube amp and how it responds to transients, saturation, intensity, volume etc. Mixing in the box is the equivalent of plugging a guitar into a DAW and using amp sims (sometimes it's really good) But the guitar does not respond in the same musical way compared to a tube amp / electricity / transformers / preamps. I can mix in the box - but I don't really enjoy the process - too much time spent fiddling with plug ins. When I really enjoy the mixing process (OTB through hardware) I do much better work, more immediate results and much faster output, Not having 100% recall does not scare me away from playing my "instruments" - in fact, it keeps me on my toes |
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Post by seawell on Sept 27, 2021 20:10:38 GMT -6
Mixing through analog gear is like playing an instrument to me. That's a great way of putting it! |
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Post by OtisGreying on Sept 28, 2021 1:55:06 GMT -6
Very interesting perspective. I do stay ITB on some mixes for clients songs.
However, the recall thing is somewhat moot with the gear I choose as I get instant recall on the Wes Audio hardware on my 2 buss. That makes it much easier to live with.
This does affect mobility of mixing on the road, however I have to lug a UA Satellite too so... eh. Idk. All ITB has that benefit of mix anywhere, anytime.
Yeah, that's just the reality of my surroundings. Obviously other people are going to have different experiences. And sure, some analog gear is easier to recall then others. My SSL style comp, probably like many has click stops for everything but threshold and output gain so its not all that hard. But... the threshold & output are both incredibly touchy and a slight bump one way or another makes a massive difference. Couple that with different sample rates on everything, different styles of music etc and sure... I could pull up and print a 1kHz alignment tone to try and get back to within .1dB but IMO its just not worth the time & effort. Close enough is close enough for some things but close enough ain't ever perfect, as in... dead nuts exactly the same. Plus I dunno. My experience is that if I'm stuck mixing ITB swapping the 2-mix over for something analog when I go to print has NEVER been the difference maker. Its never taken a group of songs from "these mixes are great" to "whoa mygawd doood you crushed it!" Again my experience... one mans mountain blah blah blee blee Very good points moose under those circumstances I see where you are coming from My situation is quite different, hence my different practices. Dealing with multiple clients in this rapid way definitely makes analog tough... |
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Post by thehightenor on Sept 28, 2021 2:11:08 GMT -6
For me, it's Production line vs Boutique hand made.
If I'm working on a production for money for a client them I'm 100% ITB - efficient, cost effective for the client .... "good enough"
(to be honest I'm semi-retired from studio work - so it's not often these days)
If it's my music, my project then I'm hybrid because I want "hand made" extra mile, extra special, it's more time consuming but .... "best possible"
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Post by drbill on Sept 28, 2021 9:02:08 GMT -6
Even with a large hybrid setup, there are a couple ways to virtually "instant recall" a large amount of hardware. One is to print the tracks when you finish. The other (the one I normally choose as I'm working fast) is to use your outboard in it's sweet spot - and don't touch controls. This seems kind is silly, but it works. And it's instant.
If I need to EQ a vocal a bit brighter (or whatever) than the hardware is accomplishing - I'll do it on a plugin. If I need more or less compression - I'll trim into the compressor via a trim plugin. Etc., etc. It quite literally gets me the best of both worlds with zero recall. Of course, I normally have a few pieces of "wild' gear that gets tweaked and turned - and I do recall notes on those pieces. But it's quick and easy, and I get the benefit of hardware vs software.
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Post by chessparov on Sept 28, 2021 11:14:29 GMT -6
So major=Hardware.
Minor=Plug.
Chris
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And that’s where I’m at. Many others aren’t in that place and it’s all good. Great music can be made either way. So why go fully ITB rather than Hybrid? I wouldn’t completely. Hybrid gives me the best of both worlds IMO. But maybe someday I will. And if I had to record and mix fully ITB, I could. And maybe someday I will. But not today 
