Mixing in or out?

Yeah I am sounding a bit anti digital here but it's not intended. Digital can produce things that were never possible before and it has allowed people such as my self to even be able to consider making music in our own homes. There are things that digital is better for than analogue and visa versa the question for someone like me is to find out which things. Especially before running around like a naive headless chicken and spending money I don't have on things that I may or may not benefit from. That’s why the forum is such a good place to ask these very questions.




Once again hip hip hooray for the fourm.

It's just to me the benefits of mixing on a desk that is in front of me seems like the most intuitive plan of action at the moment. There is always a step to be taken in my learning curve and it's better to take it when you know why you are taking it. If I had gone out and bought all the kit the day I first thought to write music then I most likely would have sold it all by now and would be spending my time doing something else. All the gear and no idea is something to avoid

Good question.

It would appear that all that lovely ultrasonic excitement would be lost as soon as your mix is crunched down to 44.1khz and put on CD but that isn't entirely the case.

Sounds at these ultra high frequencies will generate downward harmonics at certain intervals which alert the ear to their presence.

So, although you can't actually "hear" a signal at 40khz, you are aware it is there because you can hear the signature cascade of harmonics that it generates.

So, when your mix is shaved off at 22.050khz the lower harmonics remain which fool your brain into assuming the ultra highs are still there.

This is the same psychoacoustic principle that subharmonic/ultraharmonic exciters use - Waves Renaissance Bass for example. They introduce related harmonics which fool the brain into thinking the bottom or top end extends further than it really does.

Absolutely.

Okay so getting my self a 32-channel mixer is a bit of a financial pipe dream at this time. Is it a good practise to say buy a 16 channel mixer and later down the road to get another 16 channel mixer of the same make and to input the signal from the first in to the second on a couple of channels or will this leave half of the mix sounding worse than what is going straight in to the second mixer as it is going through to devices. Is this a standard practise or am I just being hopeful.

Also if I were to happen upon a cheap mixer for spears or repair who would I take it to fix it and how much would this kind of work be likely to cost me?

Doh One of these days I’m going to have to start selling my vital organs

The thing is a spotted this listeing on ebay.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7376369258&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1
Now I don't know if this is even a good make of mixer to even consider getting fixed.
Any clues?

I wouldn't recommend chaining two 16 channel mixers together for the reasons you said.



I definitely wouldn't recommend buying a load of old junk because an unreliable mixer is way more trouble than it is worth. These things can quickly turn into money-pits.



Trust me. I speak as the owner of a 1979 VW camper.



Obviously you should get the very best you can, but you really could do a lot worse than a 16 channel Mackie VLZ and a couple of Echo Gina 20s.



If you can afford to get a Mackie 8 buss 32 and four Ginas so much the better.



I wouldn't usually recommend a Mackie at all [I hate them] but they are cheap, reliable and sonically pretty good for the money.



As you may have gathered, I'm a bit of a Soundtracs fan but to be honest they made their best stuff over 10 years ago and so anything you might find 2nd hand will be well used by now. That said, don't overlook the possibility of getting a Topaz 32 or 24 if you can find one.



Alternatively, Soundcraft [Spirit etc] are superb.

Nah - don't go near Seck - cheap and nasty crap even when they were new.

Definitely don't buy anything with some undiagnosed fault.

Your not asking me to use my own common sense are you? Oh dear I'm in trouble

I reckon I can get 8 channels out from my computer/digital domain. Now please help me here, assuming I will have more than 8 tracks in Logic, which type of parts will be the least damaged by bouncing the tracks? Is the idea with this kind of setup (using an analog mixer) to not use any bouncing/mixing via final bus at all in Logic? One more question, why is Logic so bad at this, when there should be no difference say between recording in Logic and recording onto a CD recorder?

A Topaz, Solo or Jade will sound way better than any Mackie.

IMO of course.

:ismile:

Hay I found a web site that refurbishes sells and repairs these.

http://www.studiosys.demon.co.uk/



Looks like I know where I will be going once I’ve sold that spear kidney I got lying around.

Considering the price of these when they were new the markdown is quite astonishing

Mine was nearly £9000 rrp when it was new in 1993 - now I'd be lucky to get £1000 for it. If you can find a Solo in good nick you won't be disappointed.

Ott, I remember once in a post you mentioned that the Ableton LIVE summing algorithm wasn't as good. Yet in this post you mention that is one of the best. Is it true? (I might be wrong, I don't know)

You could be right - I don't remember.

I can remember thinking that Ableton Live V3 was a great sketchpad but sonically not good enough to produce finished mixes, but that all changed with version 5.

I don't know what they've done, or even if I'm imagining it, but I recently started working a lot with Ableton 5 and decided that it sounds amazing.

This week I'm going to mix the track I'm working on in Ableton Live 5 and then I'm going to split the outputs and mix it on the Soundtracs to compare results.

I have a feeling I'm going to prefer the second mix but I also think that Ableton is now capable of turning out something very good.

So you use Live for your sequencing duties now? or Cubase? How is the new album coming along?(sorry, no more off topic questions!)

I want a sountracs to go with my new RME fireface.

Slowly.

Using Live at the moment and getting along really well with it.

How many analogue outs on the Fireface Jack?

10

And can you stack them up?

They got a lovely Soundtracs Solo 24 at Studiosys for £750 - which is a steal, especially as you know it will be in A1 nick. Tim Jones doesn't sell junk.

http://www.studiosys.demon.co.uk/soundtracs_solo.htm