Mixing with this AS 1178 is making me re-think my approach

If you like the completely resetting everything, that's cool - some dig that.  But if you just want easy recall and are swearing off hardware because of it, in my humble opinion - I'd suggest that you're doing hybrid wrong.  I've mentioned my approach before, and for me, recalling my entire hardware studio is just as easy and just as fast as recalling a plugin mix.  Hardware recall and setup is a non-issue.

I definitely hear you on this, Bill, but most of us can't afford to have as many HW options as you have, much less the I/O. I love my LA-2A on Vox and bass, but I can't afford a second one to have dedicated to each application...

+1

I think I’m in phase with you John on that approach.

I’ve just moved my studio to a bigger room and I’m redoing my patch bay and converters.

I’m going to keep my hardware on my stereo bus.

And then come out of the box for a few key elements.

Drums
Vox
Bass

So probably 4 channels perhaps a couple more.

It seems to be the middle ground and an amount of analog recall I can face on a daily basis.

I’m no pro, but when I downsized my ob and sold my board, it was because I was lazy about the recall and for convenience.

I still think it sounds better, so I use good pres and comps while tracking and a good ssl clone on 2 bus for mixing.

If I was starting over, I’d get a Silver bullet, probably a few other choice comps, 1178, 3a, 609, would love a Stam child and Stam’s current stereo pultec, with the mid band and stepped pots.

My laziness was around board resetting: found with my ob, since I was mostly recording myself , you kinda had sweet spots which didn’t need a lot of tweaking.

Plugs are good, but I find my previous trax with more ob, had more weight and gravitas!

For fux sake, if you are buying a bricasti, get another interface: don’t make me come down there !

Hardware inserts, was something I loved about my 16 channel Symphony and having all I/o on my patchbay and logic’s I/o utility plug in.

It's one aspect of my PC that greatly appeals - a supper efficient PCIe card as a flexible digital interface.

I'm just looking into changing to an RME RayDAT card (£500)

32 I/O over ADAT.

2x AES streams to my HEDD 192 and Avocet.

Then add a Ferrofish A32 Pro for £2,500 and I've got 32 channels I can throw around to cover Cubase HW inserts - zero latency monitoring - FX Loops.
I've heard a demo of the Ferrofish A32 Pro and the ADA are truly excellent - and surprisingly good when you consider the relatively reasonable cost.

I like the idea of having way more channels than I currently need.

I/O is like RAM .... it pays to buy more than you currently need.

I meant buy more io, if you need it, x6 has adat in, so you could add another 8 I/o pretty easily, if you wanted.

Thanks - I had a look - they're cheap (a possible positive) and the specs look reasonable- ish - the dynamic range is very poor though at 112dB and 110dB.

Though to be fair to BLA they off the following explanation about their "year 2004" dynamic performance!

**Dynamic range is affected by our preference to tuning individual stages for tonality. We found that the best sounding parts in the output path weren’t necessarily the lowest noise components but they resulted in an optimal tone and signal purity that is instantly apparent to the listener. Electronic design is a game of compromise and we’re confident your ears will agree with our choices.

The Ferrofish is a lot more expensive (though not Lynx Aurora N kinda money) and the specs reflect that with dynamic range of almost 120dB I/O.

Dynamic range matters to my set-up and gain staging approach.

If I'm heading out of the box into a $7,000 vocal HW chain I want the best ADA's I can realistically afford.

Again, another "with that said" .... worrying about dynamic range into a 1950's design Retro STA Level is a joke .... I get that!

Overall I'm not sure the BLE is quite up to the spec's I'm looking for  - though I'm sure it sounds very good and the price is certainly attractive.

I'd just buy Lynx A N if I had the extra money spare.

What about Access Analog.

I have tried their service before and it works perfectly - I was impressed.

I'ts no different to someone sending out of their DAW into their own rack and then committing it to file.

I've always been surprised the service isn't more popular and talked about more on audio forums.

You try Control Hub? I’ve been pretty impressed…just happened on a Reid Shippen Bass Trace with a sansamp into a CL-1B I think? I’ll have to look again. Anyway - it instantly got me the bass sound I wanted. I kinda played around and can pretty much get there with plugs…but it does seem like the trace is maybe doing a little better job compressing? There’s a certain part on a song I was mixing where when the bass player goes up the neck for an octave kinda part, it obviously loses weight and volume. The plugs can handle it, but when you listen to the whole mix, I swear the Control Hub one just sounds more distinct. The notes seem to pop out more. That kind of sounds like every experience I’ve had with software vs. hardware…close, but there’s something missing with punch/attack/dynamic range. Or to put it more clearly, it just subtly sounds a little better.

But I need to try Access analog again.

One of these places is servo controlled so you actually do make the moves .

For me though, it’s like sub plans, you just pay and own nothing, cept your Songs/work.

You do get access to great gear and price is right, but.