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Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:22 pm
by jyro
Excuse my ignorance here as this is one aspect of music production that I have very little education in.
I know a few people who have racks of compressors, limiters, effects etc... it is as simple as routing your audio though these and using them in place of plugins?
Can such hardware achieve better results than plugins?
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:23 pm
by wub
jyro wrote:Excuse my ignorance here as this is one aspect of music production that I have very little education in.
I know a few people who have racks of compressors, limiters, effects etc... it is as simple as routing your audio though these and using them in place of plugins?
Yes
jyro wrote:Can such hardware achieve better results than plugins?
Better, maybe.
Different, yes.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 5:36 pm
by Bournio
Yeah, as said above, different sounds.
And playing with knobs is fun.
And gear looks cool!
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 9:31 pm
by RandoRando
how do those giant 64 track SSLs connect to the computer? one usb port?
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:44 pm
by grooki
I have never used hardware before, but I can only imagine limitations. I know there is the old "limitations unleash your creativity" chestnut, but, aside from that... Apparently they are warmer sounding, but you could always do that in the box... Not hatin', just sayin'.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:52 pm
by ErotiCore SteNch
one thing i need to do this year,is start using my studio live 1602 properly and hook it up to my hardware comps
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:58 pm
by AxeD
Studios / schools don't invest in an ssl for nothing
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 2:26 am
by Volatile Psycle
There is nothing like mixing on a nice outboard desk.
Just you, the desk and the monitors, no screen to look at, no play bar to follow, no eq curves to look at.
If you get the mix as close as you can ITB then break it out onto a nice mixer then that final layer of analogue summing and nice desk eq can really help you crate fuller mixes. Especially when you know you've got a good desk that sounds lovely when driven a little 'warm'
To be fair though this is when i was mostly with bands at uni.....never really done the same with my dnb/dubstep, altougth i've got a lovely mixer that if i had enough room for would be using all the time
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 2:42 am
by Sharmaji
While knobs and dials and blinky lights and VU meters are all well and good, the greatest thing about working w/ hardware is the amount of gain staging you can do, and the ways you can tweak sound w/ that. overload the compressor's input so that it gets really edgy and brings out the high end, then knock down the output and drive an EQ very cleanly-- there's some plugs that touch on this, but it's still something best done OTB, and it's still the best way to get volume and energy IME.
though i'm at least partially convinced that the ease (read: zero effort) of recalling a mix ITB outweighs the fun of tweaking hardware.
until it doesn't
.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 9:28 am
by MilkyPirate
RandoRando wrote:how do those giant 64 track SSLs connect to the computer? one usb port?
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 10:03 am
by paradigm_x
Sharmaji wrote:though i'm at least partially convinced that the ease (read: zero effort) of recalling a mix ITB outweighs the fun of tweaking hardware. until it doesn't
.
thast the issue innit.
Been all round the cycle,
1 all hardware, by necessity (vsts on an atari? lol)
2 OMG everything is saved ITB, plus i can have eleventy compressors per channel,
3
it doesnt quite sound right and im sick of staring at f'in screens: back to hardware.
Ramming something into a £20 Alesis 3630 for max distortion still pisses all over all distortion VSTs imo. Or overloading a cheap desk's inputs.
But ITB is ssoooo much easier.
And you can work on more than one tune at a time. But then currently im liking the one take appraoch. Easy to spend a lifetime twiddling.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 11:52 am
by Skrew
I don't really use hardware EQ's, compressors, ect. But I do use sliders and knobs on my keyboards and mixers to control volumes, modulations, ect.
I tried using some old EQ my Dad had in a closet but I prefer parametric eq. Fab Filter Pro-Q is my fave hands down.
I do plan on investing into some hardware synths in the future. But first, I'm building a new PC and buying some KRK Rokit 6's.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 3:55 pm
by Sharmaji
paradigm x wrote:Sharmaji wrote:though i'm at least partially convinced that the ease (read: zero effort) of recalling a mix ITB outweighs the fun of tweaking hardware. until it doesn't
.
thast the issue innit.
Been all round the cycle,
1 all hardware, by necessity (vsts on an atari? lol)
2 OMG everything is saved ITB, plus i can have eleventy compressors per channel,
3
it doesnt quite sound right and im sick of staring at f'in screens: back to hardware.
Ramming something into a £20 Alesis 3630 for max distortion still pisses all over all distortion VSTs imo. Or overloading a cheap desk's inputs.
But ITB is ssoooo much easier.
And you can work on more than one tune at a time. But then currently im liking the one take appraoch. Easy to spend a lifetime twiddling.
absolutely the truth amigo. the other nice thing is that your $ goes farther-- rather than get 4 ok-ish bits of kit, you now have teh budget for 1 or 2 channels of excellent gear, which you can use on EVERYTHING, and enough left over for the fun, odd, character giving things.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 5:11 pm
by Basic A
MilkyPirate wrote:RandoRando wrote:how do those giant 64 track SSLs connect to the computer? one usb port?
Nooo... channel in, channel out.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 6:55 pm
by Sharmaji
generally, you don't connect a mixer to the computer-- you'd be compromising the best of both worlds by doing so
seriously, you do comps and automation in the box, and then mix levels, and maybe automation of the resulting sounds, in the board.
read this:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep11/a ... t-0911.htm
even in the hybrid mode that most mixes involve these days, we break things out to stems and treat them that way-- already grouped--rather than deal with gigantic mixes where every only-kind-of-relevant channel comes up on its own insert. much easier to comp all 80-or-so background vox into a single stereo channel than have to worry about treating everything separately.
Re: Mixing with hardware?
Posted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 7:46 pm
by symmetricalsounds
all about the hyrbrid ssl desks (think its duality?), work as controllers for your DAW for each channel but the eq's and comps are analog, sick!