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Post by scumbum on Nov 19, 2013 21:36:40 GMT -6
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Post by svart on Nov 20, 2013 9:39:23 GMT -6
Ha. the first issue I see is that he had a Toft.. No wonder he was underwhelmed.
Second thing is that sites like GS are full of people posturing and pretending they are industry professionals and talking about skills they don't actually possess and gear they don't have.
Because of this, it's stupidly easy to get caught up in hype and hyperbole when you go looking for justification of your own wants and ideas. He brings this up by saying that he "read a Tape OP review" (his first mistake..) and then goes on to say that when he "re-read" the review, it didn't actually say anything about the sound quality.. This means that he read what he WANTED to read, not what it actually said. That's, of course, not saying much. A negative Tape Op review is like a talking tree. It doesn't exist.
I mean, this guy is like two sides of the coin. On one side he got caught up in the hype, but now he's rallying against it in an equally excitedly opposite, but unwarranted way. He goes on to complain about problems with a console that was/is known to have a high amount of problems with reliability. He also complains about things that techs know about, like having to untarnish TRS plugs by plugging and unplugging them a few times, but not knowing that the oils from his skin on the plug are what tarnished them in the first place, etc.
It's a fun read but the guy is just jaded for spending so much money and not getting his *expected* amount of sonic quality increase he expected, mostly because he spent too much time getting his expectations up through "I’d wake up at 8am (3-4 hours of sleep for me) just to pour through the usual bs ruts/rants on the web". he calls them BS rants, but yet he'd still read them and deprive himself of sleep to do so.
He also says nothing about his other gear or how he has anything hooked up. He might route out of a Digi001 into the Toft and somehow expect that the Toft would make up for the horrible Digi001 somehow. He might be using a box that can't properly drive the input impedance of the line-ins on the console, or he might be monitoring through some KRK monitors which define the "shrill-but-listening-through-a-towel" sound and keep any increased quality hidden. Hell, he might just be using a bunch of SM57s and expecting U47 bliss to fill the room full of angel trumpets and the voice of God. Who knows.
I'd say that he has nothing to blame but himself.
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Post by scumbum on Nov 20, 2013 12:34:24 GMT -6
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Post by popmann on Nov 20, 2013 13:56:16 GMT -6
You know, he's actually a good example of what's wrong with internet learned engineers. So, here's a guy who's never USED an analog board before buying a shitty modern Chinese made one...and discovering it's more limited than the limitlessly configurable software mixer he grew up on? This is news? It would be like me writing an article on how tape sucks because I bought a cassette 8 trk, experienced a loss in fidelity and never could get it to record more than 8 at a time....insert something for unreliable new chinese builds... Anyway, so he's put together his own engineering website/destination based on....? Between him and that RecordingRevolution guy...ehh...I need my daily Geritol.  |
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Post by svart on Nov 20, 2013 14:05:44 GMT -6
And? I have a 96 point TT patch bay for the live room to external/internal preamp selection which allows me to route signals from the live room to any preamp in the rack or in the console, and then to the A/D. I also have a 144 point TT patchbay for the inserts and sends/returns on all channels and busses, including the master bus, to the effects and compressors in 3 racks. I also have a patch bay in the live room for the inputs with combo XLR/TRS connectors as well as tie lines for line level and speaker outputs from the amp head rack in the control room to the live room.
I also have 24 channel snakes of ELCO from the console to the rack for the A/D stuff. Every jack in the back of the console has a cable going to the rack for something.
All in all I have probably 2000 solder joints and 300 feet of cable. The wiring harness for all this is about 8" around and the total wiring weighs around 200lbs.
That's what people do when they want consoles. I did and I'll never go back to ITB. I'm glad for every last solder joint I did because the versatility of the system runs circles around ITB mixing. Nothing is more than a couple TT patch cables away from getting the client set up.
Some of the stuff he says to "convince" us (or more realistically,himself) that consoles are the devil, is laughably backwards.
In the first essay (tirade rather) that you posted, he claims that people should only get consoles if they want versatility in routing, then in the "Part 2" he claims that he didn't need all that versatility and that it "gets in the way of super fast and creative sessions". Aside from being almost completely contrary, it's pure bullshit. What he is showing here is that he has a preference and he's being derogatory towards something that isn't his preference. It's like saying that he tried Coca-Cola but didn't like it because he already liked Pepsi. He's already jaded on the whole process so nothing would have made it any better.
I do commend him for giving it a try though.
Now what he said about the EQ is spot on. I went with a console for 4 reasons.
1. EQ. My console uses the best fully parametric EQ topology there is.
2. Analog summing. The stock summing wasn't good. i changed that to the SSL 9k design and it's flawless now.
3. Routing. So much easier than digital routing.
4. Ease of use. Everything at my fingertips. No fumbling through menus and tedious little pixelated knobs that can't be precisely turned without having to open a box and type the damn numbers in.
Anyway, in summary, I also bought all my patchbays and cables as surplus and scrap. Some nice folks gave me snake cable and stuff too. i think I spent probably 200$ on all of the wiring and patchbays all together. Hell, the TT patch cables probably cost me more overall.
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Post by winetree on Nov 20, 2013 20:24:43 GMT -6
What type and guage of cable are you using for amp head to speaker. Looking at 40-60' run.
Will this distance cut down on performance?
Have mogami multi mic cable, headphone lines, cat6 cable, so far, anything else?
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Post by jcoutu1 on Nov 20, 2013 20:41:05 GMT -6
And? I have a 96 point TT patch bay for the live room to external/internal preamp selection which allows me to route signals from the live room to any preamp in the rack or in the console, and then to the A/D. I also have a 144 point TT patchbay for the inserts and sends/returns on all channels and busses, including the master bus, to the effects and compressors in 3 racks. I also have a patch bay in the live room for the inputs with combo XLR/TRS connectors as well as tie lines for line level and speaker outputs from the amp head rack in the control room to the live room. I also have 24 channel snakes of ELCO from the console to the rack for the A/D stuff. Every jack in the back of the console has a cable going to the rack for something. All in all I have probably 2000 solder joints and 300 feet of cable. The wiring harness for all this is about 8" around and the total wiring weighs around 200lbs. That's what people do when they want consoles. I did and I'll never go back to ITB. I'm glad for every last solder joint I did because the versatility of the system runs circles around ITB mixing. Nothing is more than a couple TT patch cables away from getting the client set up. Some of the stuff he says to "convince" us (or more realistically,himself) that consoles are the devil, is laughably backwards. In the first essay (tirade rather) that you posted, he claims that people should only get consoles if they want versatility in routing, then in the "Part 2" he claims that he didn't need all that versatility and that it "gets in the way of super fast and creative sessions". Aside from being almost completely contrary, it's pure bullshit. What he is showing here is that he has a preference and he's being derogatory towards something that isn't his preference. It's like saying that he tried Coca-Cola but didn't like it because he already liked Pepsi. He's already jaded on the whole process so nothing would have made it any better. I do commend him for giving it a try though. Now what he said about the EQ is spot on. I went with a console for 4 reasons. 1. EQ. My console uses the best fully parametric EQ topology there is. 2. Analog summing. The stock summing wasn't good. i changed that to the SSL 9k design and it's flawless now. 3. Routing. So much easier than digital routing. 4. Ease of use. Everything at my fingertips. No fumbling through menus and tedious little pixelated knobs that can't be precisely turned without having to open a box and type the damn numbers in. Anyway, in summary, I also bought all my patchbays and cables as surplus and scrap. Some nice folks gave me snake cable and stuff too. i think I spent probably 200$ on all of the wiring and patchbays all together. Hell, the TT patch cables probably cost me more overall. Bastard. I spent $600+ just on some calling for inserts and a couple cheap patchbays. What console do you have? |
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Post by svart on Nov 21, 2013 7:55:30 GMT -6
What type and guage of cable are you using for amp head to speaker. Looking at 40-60' run. Will this distance cut down on performance? Have mogami multi mic cable, headphone lines, cat6 cable, so far, anything else? If I remember correctly, it's all 10ga wire for the speaker lines, probably leftover home stereo cable I had left over from setting up the monitoring system. The balanced line/guitar lines were probably standard balanced cable sizes, 20-24ga or something like that, also probably left over from wiring the rest of the studio. I did these last after doing a session where I wished we could all sit in the control room with the amps and twiddle knobs. I tried running the guitar feeds through the primary patch bay to the XLR/TRS panel in the live room but the wiring got to be clusterfucked with cables running behind my chair and such. This way, the cables to the guitar and the tie line panel are very much out of my way. The minimal costs of doing this improved the flow of the studio so much it was worth doing 10 times over if I had to. I made a few sets of heavy duty 1/4-to-speakon cables. I then used a 1u panel with 8x locking 1/4 jacks for guitar and line level signals and 4x speakon jacks for amp-to-cabinet signals. This way I can use the amp heads in the control room, or run a guitar through to a combo amp, etc. So far it works great. |
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Post by svart on Nov 21, 2013 8:08:59 GMT -6
And? I have a 96 point TT patch bay for the live room to external/internal preamp selection which allows me to route signals from the live room to any preamp in the rack or in the console, and then to the A/D. I also have a 144 point TT patchbay for the inserts and sends/returns on all channels and busses, including the master bus, to the effects and compressors in 3 racks. I also have a patch bay in the live room for the inputs with combo XLR/TRS connectors as well as tie lines for line level and speaker outputs from the amp head rack in the control room to the live room. I also have 24 channel snakes of ELCO from the console to the rack for the A/D stuff. Every jack in the back of the console has a cable going to the rack for something. All in all I have probably 2000 solder joints and 300 feet of cable. The wiring harness for all this is about 8" around and the total wiring weighs around 200lbs. That's what people do when they want consoles. I did and I'll never go back to ITB. I'm glad for every last solder joint I did because the versatility of the system runs circles around ITB mixing. Nothing is more than a couple TT patch cables away from getting the client set up. Some of the stuff he says to "convince" us (or more realistically,himself) that consoles are the devil, is laughably backwards. In the first essay (tirade rather) that you posted, he claims that people should only get consoles if they want versatility in routing, then in the "Part 2" he claims that he didn't need all that versatility and that it "gets in the way of super fast and creative sessions". Aside from being almost completely contrary, it's pure bullshit. What he is showing here is that he has a preference and he's being derogatory towards something that isn't his preference. It's like saying that he tried Coca-Cola but didn't like it because he already liked Pepsi. He's already jaded on the whole process so nothing would have made it any better. I do commend him for giving it a try though. Now what he said about the EQ is spot on. I went with a console for 4 reasons. 1. EQ. My console uses the best fully parametric EQ topology there is. 2. Analog summing. The stock summing wasn't good. i changed that to the SSL 9k design and it's flawless now. 3. Routing. So much easier than digital routing. 4. Ease of use. Everything at my fingertips. No fumbling through menus and tedious little pixelated knobs that can't be precisely turned without having to open a box and type the damn numbers in. Anyway, in summary, I also bought all my patchbays and cables as surplus and scrap. Some nice folks gave me snake cable and stuff too. i think I spent probably 200$ on all of the wiring and patchbays all together. Hell, the TT patch cables probably cost me more overall. Bastard. I spent $600+ just on some calling for inserts and a couple cheap patchbays. What console do you have? I have the Alesis X2. They were made from late 94 to early 96. Only a couple thousand made while Alesis was testing out the mid-level market between the higher end cheap mixers(ala D&R, Allen+heath, etc) and the lower cost high end stuff (ala Amek, etc). While the design was pretty good and incorporates a lot of great features, they attempted to do the Alesis thing and go cheap on some things in the mixer. Reliability issues overshadowed the generally good audio quality and Alesis decided to go back to making cheap gear instead. So they stopped selling a 25K$ mixer and went back to making 100$ mixers. On my quest to find the *right* mixer for me, I wanted something that would be a good platform for some modification, while being easy to service. None of the other mixers in this range offer separate channel strips. they also don't offer full ground bars and integrated meter bridges either. This one also has mute automation, but I don't use it since I use a DAW. It was originally designed for use with ADAT machines. All line in/out are present on TRS and ELCO connectors which is cool. I also looked for fully parametric EQ. None of the others seem to offer this. I also found that the paramentric midranges are based on the CAPS eq design, which is regarded as one of the best by more than a few designers. I've dedicated a whole section of my website to the preservation of schematics of the X2 and to the modifications I made to the design over the years. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2013 6:22:44 GMT -6
Oh, well....
what exactly did the guy expect?
Buying a new 32ch. board for $8k in 2011 (thats what sweetwater says) and expect it to instantly make a sound nirvana by analog summung without using the EQ or whatever? Huh?
The lower end 24ch Soundtracs Topaz of my brother from 1995 costed more (if you calculate inflation, it was in fact 1k more...). My board (Soundtracs Megas Mix) would be around 15k after the same historical inflation correction.
And others call this 'low end' - well, i just love their character. If i would want clean sound i would go ITB.
In fact i just bought my board because i got it dead cheap used in a lowsy optical but near perfect technical condition.
(By dead cheap i mean dead cheap. I just out of fun bid 200 Euros for the 40ch board and got it for THAT price *including shipping*! Cleaning a few things revealed all channels completely working - built like a tank...best buy ever. I just like the EQs...)
Man - why would one buy an analog console who never had one before or never mixed on one, not even live and so to speak has absolutely NO practical experience with analog mixing? My first band's demo was mixed on an Amek TAC and, well, I was not overwhelmed by that one either. I would never buy a console that i did not hear and not even have a clue how it sounds like. Not for $500, not for $5k and not for $50k. Nowadays i want a console to have a sound. And that taste is totally subjective. I may like that soundy low to mid class british consoles to death, and another one hates it for life. So what?
Just review based? Oh, come on...
That really is pretty naive.
He is disappointed because he had a whole bunch of unrealistic expectations.
Disappointments in Recording Gear? He should have named the article "My personal disappointments due to naiveness and false expectations."
Sorry. But at best will, the article is based on the BS he decided to read and blindly trust in.
This has nothing to do with hardware consoles.
This is like a keyboarder ordering a US Strat and expecting it to make him play and sound like Jimi Hendrix. Without ever listening to Jimi Hendrix, lol.
BR (not BS),
Martin
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Post by tonycamphd on Nov 25, 2013 10:34:09 GMT -6
My first band's demo was mixed on an Amek TAC and, well, I was not overwhelmed by that one either. I would never buy a console that i did not hear and not even have a clue how it sounds like. My first console was a tac scorpion, less than overwhelming, but i did buy a couple Soundcraft delta's based on readings on the interwebs, the Jim Williams mods are what convinced me to do it. I've worked on SSL's and API's, and i can tell you this, the modded SC is amazing IMO, so did I get lucky maybe?? or are these forums actually useful??  to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you small, that guys experience started at lame.. |
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