Has anyone here switched to ITB after being out.

The EMT 140 solid state stereo has been the king of reverb for a half-century. People talk about exotic chambers but this is what was on most classic hit records. The lexicon was strictly a budget substitute for those of us experienced with an EMT. I think I posted this before that using waves Q-Clone with my API 550 eq. really brought it home how important ergonomics is.

It comes down tonthe conclusion that someone needs to build the most ergonomic controler, includig plug ins, we have ever seen.
I dont know how inuitiv slates raven is, has some one worked with it?

Is it the Softube Console 1?

A proper controller should have no "soft" controls. The whole point is to not need to look at it minimizing left-brain activity.

Good point.  Hey, my brilliant (or just cockamamie) idea supports that!  You can choose to hide the graphic and use the soft controls - or not..  Strangely enough, as a totally ITB kind of guy (not by choice but by socio-economic factors) I find myself grabbing the virtual knob - closing my eyes - and dragging back and forth until I like what I hear - it's not unlike using an actual knob if you think about it.  I even do it with graphic EQs.

This, but I also think the guys who learn to get it done ITB enjoy a serious competitive advantage flipping between mix to mix to tracking or mastering over those having to leave a mix up on the board while a client approves. Is it all about competition? Of course not, BUT, it is absolutely a factor to those who want better and better jobs with better and better clientele. It really does depend what the end goal of your work is. 

Well, if all the console is used for is as a summing device, I am curious if anyone has done any kind of analysis of the perceived benefits of electrical summing versus the possible drawbacks of an extra layer of AD/DA conversion. If you are making all your dynamic choices and EQ in the vacuum of initial tracking that would seem to be very limiting, even as you are printing what your ears tell you is a superior sound, most of us traditionally preferred to make those choices in context. Back in the strictly tape days, a fair amount of agonizing might occur as you decide how much compression might be appropriate to maximize S/NR with about 55 db of dynamic range. 24 bit digital has made that calculation moot, so now you are compressing on the way in exactly why? Because you love the sound of compression? Applying EQ without the context of where something might reside in a mix seems to lend itself to everything being way forward in a mix, as our ears always love the extremes of the frequency range, and older practices like brightening something that you suspect will be brightened at mix to decrease tape hiss are obsolete. Just because you have hardware does not mean you have to use it, most of us who did much work in multiple places eschewed inserts simply because we were unsure if the inserts were truly balanced (most weren't) and as we didn't wire the places we had no idea about termination protocol. In those crazy days we were avoiding summing amps like the plague, we didn't bus signals to tape, we patched at the nearest exit. Now, everyone is convinced that the things we avoided are somehow an advantage, but based on little verifiable data. Because it feels better? I used to print with lots of effects, not because of ease of mix, but rather because of limited effects at hand. Like one poster remarked, most places had a couple of each kind of processor, so to expand your palette you simultaneously limited your choices later. Now is there is no need, save for a comfort zone of practices, or tactile urges to touch controls. Odd, when considered unemotionally.....

There are tons of composers who write and mix in small homestudios all ITB.
Writing for film is the ITB scenario.
Changes over Changes working on multiple pieces ....

I have three friends doing it and they all have super tight ITB workflows, they all use I pads as controller units.

They all tell me to remove the damn break in my head.
They spit out great work nearly every single day they work.

I am still reorganizing my workflow and I think I will use the console and the outboard on the way in, and mixing will be fully ITB maybe one HW mix bus compressor, the SSL or the Tegeler....

I have spent hours talking about hi hats, for a slightly different reason.  So many drummers  I encountered were right-handed and hit the hi hat twice as loud as the snare drum, making a contemporary snare level really difficult.  I think part of the charm of what we associate hi hats sounding like on "tape" was off-axis pickup on snare mics, the SM-57 being particularly distinctive in that regard.  Which is why I still use it strapped to a pencil.   Also why after a bit of fooling around, I abandoned any Kepex fantasies on snare drum.  I doubt it is the reason Charlie Watts has that odd skip as he avoids the hat when hitting the snare, he was doing it long before anybody was crazy enough to put a microphone close to a snare drum, but some of the eighties and later Stones drum mixes, that snare just explodes.  

In my experience, this is true as well. But it still won't sound like that same band to tape.

I mean if we are going to voice the good musicians, good room scenario then why not good engineer, good equipment and good working deck too?

Wouldn't this sound good too?

Thanks
-L.

I really think there is a hierarchy, and it is pretty consistent.  Song/Performing Talent/Production Talent/Equipment.  Sometimes one or the other might jump ahead in line, but rarely if ever is it equipment.  Would the first Velvet Underground record be more influential if it was a "better" recording?  For lots of people, the DAW has leveled the playing field so that working in one of the recording meccas is no longer a requirement to have access to tools that used to be out of reach.  There is more than just oxide to consider, I bet I wasted at least a couple of months of my life waiting for locators to park.  Hundreds of rolls of two inch tape, the expense of which came right off my bottom line.  And really, I hear no significant difference in the work I do now, I still have the same ears for good or ill.  Well, almost the same, NS-10s still give me an adverse reaction.  Shameless plug time, I have been doing some preliminary sequencing of my first LP, only thirty five years in the making.  Please rake it over the coals, I only wrote all the material to learn how to use recording software after a long hiatus due to format war fatigue and disgust with the industry in general.  And just like a person on trial who chooses to represent himself in court, anybody who self-produces their output also has a fool for a client.  And in my case the dang fool was broke to boot....smile.....IGNORE THE GOOGLE LINK----too much hassle I was unaware of, go to my R-nation page instead------
www.reverbnation.com/jjjohnson8




https://plus.google.com/108160675808711007132/posts/Vb9WxxGAZBZ

Has anyone ever used an SSL's recall to control an ITB DAW system? Seems that would make a nice cross platform, pick analog or digital sources/options and have a real control surface to work.