|
Post by Guitar on Jun 16, 2022 12:30:09 GMT -6
I'm glad Shadow found his way, making cool music, putting in the hours and finding what works for him. A lot of that was finding out what doesn't work for him, and he has freedom from that, through lived experience. This thread "was" about "summing mixers" but has apparently broadened to the entire workflow. I'm glad Greg found his way as well, and everyone else who has commented on their way. I'm glad Svart is still working, despite witnessing someone with an easy gift, being humble enough to continue and deepen the practice, in a selfless way. It's all really wonderful, except for when it's not, and there's really no difference between the two. Ah, the oneness in duality. I often feel that the greatest meaningfulness in living is reconciling opposites. Well it certainly keeps you from attaching to one extreme view or the other! All things are equally valid or invalid, they just "are." They are no things. But some nothing is aware of them.
|
|
|
Post by thehightenor on Jun 16, 2022 13:28:38 GMT -6
One small unexciting point.
The songs I’ve produced that sounded the biggest, most full, dynamic and all round awesome …. where the songs not necessarily made with the best gear but the songs that had the best arrangements.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on Jun 16, 2022 13:56:08 GMT -6
One small unexciting point. The songs I’ve produced that sounded the biggest, most full, dynamic and all round awesome …. where the songs not necessarily made with the best gear but the songs that had the best arrangements. ^^^^^^^^^ ALWAYS!!!! Gear is no substitute for great music and arrangements.
|
|
|
Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 16, 2022 15:30:14 GMT -6
As much as I really want a few choice pieces to attain a certain feeling through sound recording, I had a funny thought yesterday. I need to dismantle my system for a week or two, (long story). I may have to finish a few mixes during that time. I wasn't worried at all because I thought to myself, I can mix on the headphone out of a mac. I surprised myself when I had the thought because it wasn't an ego thing at all. Certainly there are multitudes of better mixers than me, but it was just the benefit of a lot of experience. I have so much more to learn, but I'm grateful all the time I've put in to learning helped me feel that way.
So, is a summing mixer worth it, or not?
|
|
|
Post by gwlee7 on Jun 16, 2022 16:31:13 GMT -6
One small unexciting point. The songs I’ve produced that sounded the biggest, most full, dynamic and all round awesome …. where the songs not necessarily made with the best gear but the songs that had the best arrangements. Can’t like this post but once so it has also been quoted for truth.
|
|
|
Post by smashlord on Jun 17, 2022 10:35:19 GMT -6
One small unexciting point. The songs I’ve produced that sounded the biggest, most full, dynamic and all round awesome …. where the songs not necessarily made with the best gear but the songs that had the best arrangements. I tell artists all the time, "A great mix starts with the arrangement."
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2022 12:28:42 GMT -6
I tell artists all the time, "A great mix starts with the arrangement." Sounds a bit lazy to me , try that in metal where every single track has pretty much the same arrangement. That's when you need engineering skill..
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on Jun 17, 2022 13:33:53 GMT -6
I tell artists all the time, "A great mix starts with the arrangement." Sounds a bit lazy to me , try that in metal where every single track has pretty much the same arrangement. That's when you need engineering skill.. Maybe a good idea would be to think of a better, more original metal arrangement? Unless it's the good old thing that always seems to satisfy, I guess. Mixing punk and metal is very challenging (in my experience!)
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jun 17, 2022 14:53:38 GMT -6
As much as I really want a few choice pieces to attain a certain feeling through sound recording, I had a funny thought yesterday. I need to dismantle my system for a week or two, (long story). I may have to finish a few mixes during that time. I wasn't worried at all because I thought to myself, I can mix on the headphone out of a mac. I surprised myself when I had the thought because it wasn't an ego thing at all. Certainly there are multitudes of better mixers than me, but it was just the benefit of a lot of experience. I have so much more to learn, but I'm grateful all the time I've put in to learning helped me feel that way. So, is a summing mixer worth it, or not? Hmm.. I think if a summing mixer is 5% or less of your entire studio budget, I’d say definitely yes, but only if you really don’t want a mixer. Because you’d probably already put 100k in, might as well go all the way. Plenty will say it didn’t help or wasn’t needed, but I’ve never seen anyone say the sound quality suffered. (I’m sure they are out there).. however there’s tons of people who say it helped. A mixer could be a lot better, but that’s like buying a used car unless you go brand new, a much bigger investment
|
|
|
Post by mrholmes on Jun 17, 2022 15:15:52 GMT -6
Bill you chiming in on every thread on here hyping something you profit from is just a bit over the line. Sorry. It's my honest opinion. I should have put that I'm biased. I normally do. And of course I am. Still...I've done the above tests, and that's my honest opinion. Worth stating IMO. We don't need to sell any more mk2's. We're backordered from here to beyond the foreseeable future. Cheers, bp Bill forced me to try that with any hardware I used, my 2-1073 and Bill was not wrong.
Today, I also say we are spoiled to death. Using the right ITB 2 bus chain, you can knock out nice mixes.
It comes down to what works for each one. I can see why people like the SB - btw. I don't own one....
But the summing topic is from my desk forever. It always comes down to a great song/arrangement, the rest is DETAILS.....
Most often it lacks early in my chain because I was too lazy.... etc.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jun 17, 2022 17:12:06 GMT -6
Some of those AT mics are dark like an old vintage mic. Any of us could put out a decent project with them. Limiters often add highs so just slamming the limiter brings life and sounds good. There is a limit to how good you’re gonna get though, and that’s why that guy probably gave up He gave up because it wasn't challenging for him. He went off and did video for a while and now he's flipping houses. And it wasn't ever about just the tones and fidelity, it was everything. Songwriting, arrangements, everything. It was effortless for him so he just never really seemed like it mattered. He was never one of us tryhards that have to listen to every tiny little detail. He just made changes and moved on. Like I said, effortless. If there’s one thing I’ve picked up from the idiot savant newbies it’s fix it before the mics. They don’t know how to fix anything after it’s recorded, so they re-record it until it sounds right. One guy I knew didn’t know what plugin EQ was so he just kept adjusting the amp and re-record, came out incredible of course. Instead of pulling out the 15 year bag of tricks, they have one trick: Record it again. And if the talent says they don’t want to? They can’t say “ok well I’ll see if I can fix it”.. they say “well I can’t fix it.” I try to work this way now. It’s not easy because I know 100 different things to try.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2022 21:12:16 GMT -6
Sounds a bit lazy to me , try that in metal where every single track has pretty much the same arrangement. That's when you need engineering skill.. Maybe a good idea would be to think of a better, more original metal arrangement? Unless it's the good old thing that always seems to satisfy, I guess. Mixing punk and metal is very challenging (in my experience!) Yeah, you can't really dictate your clients music to them. If I personally fancy doing a bit of hard rock / metal, I'll avoid 8 string guitars, 5 string basses, constant double kicks and use a small technique known as contrast. What makes it interesting is some OTT metal songs have great production values, not many but some and it's almost like they defy physics somewhat..
IME a busy arrangement makes an engineers life very difficult but it's not a hard stop to sonic quality, some of the best or should I say most dynamic or large sounding songs I've ever heard came from classical recordings. Another genre that's not easy to record or mix.. Don't get me a wrong a sparse yet dynamic / contrasty arrangement in a key made to take advantage of the mid range with less agressive instruments is so much easier to get good results with. Although as engineers never sell yourself short either, in terms of sonic quality you matter as much as anything else (if you're any good that is )..
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 18, 2022 0:00:04 GMT -6
I tell artists all the time, "A great mix starts with the arrangement." Sounds a bit lazy to me , try that in metal where every single track has pretty much the same arrangement. That's when you need engineering skill.. Engineering skill and rewriting the entire song for the band. The band better have a sick rhythm section…
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on Jun 18, 2022 6:02:30 GMT -6
Sounds a bit lazy to me , try that in metal where every single track has pretty much the same arrangement. That's when you need engineering skill.. Engineering skill and rewriting the entire song for the band. The band better have a sick rhythm section… These days, the whole band (other than the vocal,) more often than not, IS a rhythm section. In uh, popular, modern guitar/bass/drum music. Less and less lead lines, and even less than that, improvisation of any kind. Smooth Jazz is what killed Free Jazz. I just watched this cool doc. FIRE MUSIC and the old players were lamenting on this. One of them was describing some typical modern music and said it was "washing machine music," because it just goes round, round, and round and that's about it.
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on Jun 22, 2022 0:45:43 GMT -6
....interesting..
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jun 22, 2022 9:29:33 GMT -6
The null wasn’t a null, but he thinks it is
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on Jun 22, 2022 9:33:00 GMT -6
The null wasn’t a null, but he thinks it is curious as to why you think it didn't null? *disclaimer, I don't have a horse in this race and haven't been following this thread. But thought it was an interesting video. And I still plan on getting a sumbuss no matter what as it's what I want *
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on Jun 22, 2022 9:48:50 GMT -6
The null wasn’t a null, but he thinks it is
I haven't watched the video, but I know what you're saying.
A 100% null, absolute bit perfect silience, is a "null."
Anything less than that is a difference. A subltle difference, maybe? but nonetheless, not "THE SAME," in the definitive meaning.
I couldn't even get Weiss MP and Weiss DS1 to null completely.
The devil is in the details; sometimes really, really far down in the analyzer. In Voxengo Span you can set the lower limit to like -180 dB or something to really peer into the void.
There's a lot of pseudo scientists in this world. Telling pseudo intellectuals what they think they know. Or people that just haven't learned yet.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jun 22, 2022 10:02:48 GMT -6
Yeah I mean, I’m all for science, and by that I mean truly examining differences without bias. Too often a quick judgment is made in this field. Often there is an emotional attachment to a result, or worse, a manipulative underlying. He only mentioned briefly that he uses Behringer converters, but it was said in enough of a defensive manner that it stuck with me. Makes the viewer consider, maybe I should get Behringer? How do I know he’s not part of a massive multi-million dollar company’s desire to move their product? I’ll just take his word that his only gain from being a little on edge and argumentative is to create likes and subscribers. It’s effective tool at marketing though.
As to null.. no gear ever adds any musical notes. So if you subtract the music notes 100% completely, it should always be near the noise floor, there’s not much else going on
|
|
|
Post by craigmorris74 on Jun 22, 2022 10:30:46 GMT -6
The only thing left in the video was the noise floor. There was no musical content left.
Worral’s argument was the actual act of summing doesn’t color the sound. The inputs and output stages of the mixer and hardware used on tracks and busses affect the sound. But the combining of the signals into the stereo mix doesn’t.
Basically if you use your hardware on inserts and your 2 bus, a summing mixer isn’t necessary. It could, of course, enhance your workflow. That’s what it does for me personally, so I use one.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jun 22, 2022 10:36:06 GMT -6
Right, did you see what you said? No MUSIC was left The gear we use doesn’t add any music. Subtract the music, the difference is there. If it nulls to infinity, ok that’s a null. Otherwise it tells us not much at all. Maybe we are left with some distortions of types we don’t understand in the noise floor? If the noise of no signal vs post-null look different, well then I guess it isn’t a perfect null either. Ok I know I’m a lone wolf on this one so I’ll stop Someday I’ll make a YouTube channel and get some groupies and fan club 🤣
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on Jun 22, 2022 10:48:10 GMT -6
Right, did you see what you said? No MUSIC was left The gear we use doesn’t add any music. Subtract the music, the difference is there. If it nulls to infinity, ok that’s a null. (even then there’s still room to rule more out unfortunately) Otherwise it tells us not much at all. Maybe we are left with some distortions of types we don’t understand in the noise floor? If the noise of no signal vs post-null look different, well then I guess it isn’t a perfect null either. Ok I know I’m a lone wolf on this one so I’ll stop Someday I’ll make a YouTube channel and get some groupies and fan club 🤣
Someday I'll get so "technically precise" that literally no one will speak to me, and no one will be able to understand what I'm saying. If that's what you mean by groupies and fan club, LOL!!! Either that or a bunch of sweaty, unshaved men X-D What a time to be alive, what a hobby.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on Jun 22, 2022 11:18:12 GMT -6
Hahahaha that’s hilarious, yeah I’ll be sponsored by craft breweries
|
|
|
Post by craigmorris74 on Jun 22, 2022 14:04:15 GMT -6
Right, did you see what you said? No MUSIC was left The gear we use doesn’t add any music. Subtract the music, the difference is there. If it nulls to infinity, ok that’s a null. Otherwise it tells us not much at all. Maybe we are left with some distortions of types we don’t understand in the noise floor? If the noise of no signal vs post-null look different, well then I guess it isn’t a perfect null either. Ok I know I’m a lone wolf on this one so I’ll stop Someday I’ll make a YouTube channel and get some groupies and fan club 🤣 It certainly adds a lot of information related to the music (at least the gear I use does), and it changes the music. The act of summing signals to stereo doesn’t, unless it’s done improperly, like in older versions of Pro Tools. And a piece like the Sumbus adds a hells of a lot to the music. But it’s not the part where the signals are summed that makes a difference. Again, I use a summing mixer.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on Jun 22, 2022 14:38:18 GMT -6
Right, did you see what you said? No MUSIC was left The gear we use doesn’t add any music. Subtract the music, the difference is there. If it nulls to infinity, ok that’s a null. Otherwise it tells us not much at all. Maybe we are left with some distortions of types we don’t understand in the noise floor? If the noise of no signal vs post-null look different, well then I guess it isn’t a perfect null either. Ok I know I’m a lone wolf on this one so I’ll stop Someday I’ll make a YouTube channel and get some groupies and fan club 🤣 It certainly adds a lot of information related to the music (at least the gear I use does), and it changes the music. The act of summing signals to stereo doesn’t, unless it’s done improperly, like in older versions of Pro Tools. And a piece like the Sumbus adds a hells of a lot to the music. But it’s not the part where the signals are summed that makes a difference. Again, I use a summing mixer.
Most analog componentry has "tolerances," in other words, individual variances from the "ideal." You will know this if you've ever measured a bunch of 1K resistors. The stated value is an ideal. Individual components, due to variances in manufacturing, physical reality, will have slight, measurable differences. There really is no "1K resistor" if you get what I mean. This could easily result in, for example, channel 9 being a little louder than channel 2. And so on.
In the practice of "analog summing," yes there will be some difference, some might call it "imperfection." That will make it deviate from a perfect, ideal sum, such as a digital sum. As well as defects such as signal crosstalk between channels, Johnson-Nyquist noise, other electrical noise, and etc. This is unavoidable in the "analog realm." It's a non-issue in digital.
So yes, there will be "sum" difference, haha, get it? LOL!
|
|