Home » R/E/P » Reason In Audio » DAW & Desks: Is ANYBODY actually still mixing on their desk?
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| Re: DAW & Desks: Is ANYBODY actually still mixing on their desk? [message #90002 is a reply to message #89952 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2005 10:20   |
 Nathan Eldred
Messages: 139
Registered: April 2004
Location: Central Florida |
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| geosound wrote on Tue, 13 September 2005 03:46 |
hi nathan
i did a test with a mackie 1604 and mixing itb
it contain 6 tracks and no eq or plugs al faders at odB
conclusion the sound that came out the mackie was more punchier
and every instrument has more detail and better heard individually
so summing on a cheap desk will get better results
also what i discovered on a bigger desk soundtracs jade (easier to mix less time consuming goes also for a cheap crappy desk like the mackie.
i wouldn't know for soundcraft but in my opinion the low cost range of soundcraft is useful for everything except for audio
georges sterkenburg
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I'm not surprised really one bit. I'm sure ultimately really great mixers might be able to get better than a Mackie results ITB, but they are stemming to high quality outboard,etc so it's not the same as plugins by any stretch of the imagination. I've heard A/B comparisons between ITB and on a high level console from the same guy (he has talent). While his ITB mixes were better than 80% of everybody out there, his console mixes were 90% better than everybody out there. Just my opinion.
Nathan Eldred
The Store:
AtlasProAudio.com
The Studio:
AtlasRecording.com
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| Re: DAW & Desks: Is ANYBODY actually still mixing on their desk? [message #90024 is a reply to message #82840 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2005 12:11 |
RKrizman
Messages: 374
Registered: October 2004
Location: Third Stone |
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| Ronny wrote on Sat, 13 August 2005 03:11 |
]OTOH when you record peaks at -15dB, mix at -7dB and your material gets mastered, the noise floor of your mics, mic pres and mixing console, is going to be raised by at least -15dB when the ME sets final perceived gain.
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Yes, but it will also be the case even if you record at -7 db to begin with. Whatever level you record at, when you mix you'll put that guitar at a certain level. Perhaps you'll record at minus 15 and boost to, say, minus 10. Or perhaps you'll record at -7 and then attenuate to -10 when mixing. In either case you get the same guitar track, with the same signal to noise relationship between the buzz of the amp and the guitar signal. In either case, when you go to mastering and the levels are raised the result will be the same. So there's nt signal to noise benefit to be had by recording hotter, (unless you're talking about the noise from the input converters themselves, which you're not) Either way you're capturing the same picture.
The exception, of course, is if you record too hot and distort your analog components somewhere along the line, or don't give yourself enough headroom to do further manipulations.
-R
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| Re: DAW & Desks: Is ANYBODY actually still mixing on their desk? [message #90033 is a reply to message #90024 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2005 13:30 |
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Ronny
Messages: 2739
Registered: April 2004
Location: Brunswick, Georgia |
Platinum Member |
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| RKrizman wrote on Tue, 13 September 2005 13:11 |
| Ronny wrote on Sat, 13 August 2005 03:11 |
]OTOH when you record peaks at -15dB, mix at -7dB and your material gets mastered, the noise floor of your mics, mic pres and mixing console, is going to be raised by at least -15dB when the ME sets final perceived gain.
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Yes, but it will also be the case even if you record at -7 db to begin with. Whatever level you record at, when you mix you'll put that guitar at a certain level. Perhaps you'll record at minus 15 and boost to, say, minus 10. Or perhaps you'll record at -7 and then attenuate to -10 when mixing. In either case you get the same guitar track, with the same signal to noise relationship between the buzz of the amp and the guitar signal. In either case, when you go to mastering and the levels are raised the result will be the same. So there's nt signal to noise benefit to be had by recording hotter, (unless you're talking about the noise from the input converters themselves, which you're not) Either way you're capturing the same picture.
The exception, of course, is if you record too hot and distort your analog components somewhere along the line, or don't give yourself enough headroom to do further manipulations.
-R
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"when the ME sets final perceived gain." Limiting raises noise floor relative to peak gain. Anytime that you decrease crest factor you raise noise floor. I would assume that everyone knows that if you record at -10dB and turn the "volume" up, that the noise floor goes up 10dB, no arguement there. The ME is typically going to "alter dynamics and decrease crest factor" and this is where several of you guys are missing it.
------Ronny Morris - Digitak Mastering------
---------http://digitakmastering.com---------
----------Powered By Experience-------------
-------------Driven To Perfection---------------
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| Re: DAW & Desks: Is ANYBODY actually still mixing on their desk? [message #90064 is a reply to message #90002 ] |
Tue, 13 September 2005 16:13 |
JamSync
Messages: 460
Registered: August 2004 |
Active Member |
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| Nathan Eldred wrote on Tue, 13 September 2005 16:20 |
I'm not surprised really one bit. I'm sure ultimately really great mixers might be able to get better than a Mackie results ITB, but they are stemming to high quality outboard,etc so it's not the same as plugins by any stretch of the imagination. I've heard A/B comparisons between ITB and on a high level console from the same guy (he has talent). While his ITB mixes were better than 80% of everybody out there, his console mixes were 90% better than everybody out there. Just my opinion.
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I often see the dichotomy between "ITB" and not "ITB" as an imaginary distinction. I haven't used a board in years, preferring to go directly from high quality converters to DAW and back to high quality converters. A lot of my outboard is digital (TC 6000, etc.) and things that aren't are, again, patched via high quality converters. Why anyone would want to simply route stuff out to a mixing board to color it is beyond me. Most of the sounds of favored boards are available as channel strips.
I love the flexibility of being able to create the mixing space and routings I need on the fly without being shackled to a Rhode Island size hunk of iron. Recapping an analog board every so often is no joy, either. If my boot drive with PT or Nuendo goes down, I just grab a backup FW drive and reboot. New drive, new mixing environment, same data.
I spent over a decade in analog studios with high-end analog boards and I'd *never* go back. My suspicion is that people who sound better on mixing boards have simply not grasped the technology well enough to do it justice. It's one thing to "run ProTools" and quite another to know it well enough to look out for the "gotchas" that are inherent in software-based audio technology.
Having a degree in software engineering helps, but having the flexibility to be open to constantly changing interfaces and new connections with emerging technologies is the key to working with newer technology. A lot of audio engineers cannot and will not make the grade as we move more and more to the union of video and audio and streaming.
Depending on tactile surfaces will be far less important than handling the control of the abstraction of once-tactile-now-virtual surfaces.
Best,
KK Proffitt
http://www.jamsync.com
http://www.tnfilmlocations.com
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| Re: DAW & Desks: Is ANYBODY actually still mixing on their desk? [message #91140 is a reply to message #90064 ] |
Sun, 18 September 2005 15:38 |
raal
Messages: 16
Registered: November 2004 |
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have been reading this thread and i'd like to thank paul frindle, bob katz, bob olhsson and all that have taken the time to post your very generous explanations.
some questions:
was working on something yesterday and after checking everything with the TL mastermeter and all looking good, i inserted an L3 and limited to the max i could without going over. set the limit on the L3 at -.5 dB and took it from there. it was obviously not as hot as it would have been had i limited prior to inserting those meters... but it was pretty hot.
question 1: if one is careful that no intersample peaks are produced and 'believes' the TL meters, would this be safe (the PT meters on the master were not green at this point)?
question 2: say one is hybrid mixing and ends up with an analog compressor in the stereo bus. to print the final mix one goes back into PT, Tascam DVRA 1000 or wherever -- if the mix is printed hot (with no overs), will this be safe on playback? was thinking of doing this tomorrow and inserting the meter on the final recorded stereo file to check.
the white paper on the trillium website says:
http://www.tllabs.com/index.php?option=com_docman&task=c at_view&gid=20&Itemid=62
'It is worth noting that Sony's new SACD format includes measures that prevent the music from ever clipping in the way described.'
would someone know exactly what 'measures' are implemented by Sony to prevent the music 'from ever clipping in the way described'?
if this is true, here's why people are generally saying SACD sounds better - because one pretty much can't blow it by producing intersample peaks, so the thing isn't lunched by the time it gets to mastering - do i understand correctly?
again, thank you for your time.
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| Re: DAW & Desks: Is ANYBODY actually still mixing on their desk? [message #91197 is a reply to message #91178 ] |
Sun, 18 September 2005 21:43 |
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Ronny
Messages: 2739
Registered: April 2004
Location: Brunswick, Georgia |
Platinum Member |
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| RKrizman wrote on Sun, 18 September 2005 20:20 |
| Ronny wrote on Tue, 13 September 2005 14:30 |
"when the ME sets final perceived gain." Limiting raises noise floor relative to peak gain. Anytime that you decrease crest factor you raise noise floor. I would assume that everyone knows that if you record at -10dB and turn the "volume" up, that the noise floor goes up 10dB, no arguement there. The ME is typically going to "alter dynamics and decrease crest factor" and this is where several of you guys are missing it.
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That's right, but the results will be the same whether you recorded soft or loud.
-R
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Let me put it this way. If you track with peaks at -15db and mix at -7dB, you aren't going to hear the noise as loud as the ME will, when he raises perceived level. You aren't going to hear noise at all in some cases, that will be heard post mastering. The best that you can do is optimize the analog side of the ADC, if that means -15dB peak, so be it, that's the only reason that you need to track peak at that low of a level. That's seldom the case, though. The point that I'm making is if the tracking and mix engineer is recording and mixing too low, he's not getting an accurate picture of where the final noise floor is going. If he peaks higher and mixes higher, he will hear more of the noise floor and will realize that he should have taken care of the noise "before" the tracking, not at the mastering stage. If I had a dime for every client that said, "wow, I didn't know that the guitar effects or 60 cycle hum sounded that noisy" until it went to mastering and had perceived gain processing, I'd be a dimondaire.
------Ronny Morris - Digitak Mastering------
---------http://digitakmastering.com---------
----------Powered By Experience-------------
-------------Driven To Perfection---------------
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Perhaps all you can hope to do is drown out the noise by pushing other stuff in the mix and making the guitar part less prominant overall.
