Summing in the Metric Halo 2882

[bannerj]

I haven't been paying attention to the debate over whether to sum in or out of the box because I don't even have a mixer. Then I read about someone sending stem mixes into his metric halo 2882 and mixing through its mixer.

I tried this out this evening an am freaking out about the difference. I am excited and frustrated at the same time. the difference is over the top. Can anybody explain this? I read through some old thread over on gearslutz by a guy who was complaining about Digital Performer. He thought it sounded awful. Could it be true? I've never worked with anything else. Why is it so much better summed outside of DP?

[syrupcore]

I dunno nuthin about either of those things but I'd love to hear a sample of the difference. Could you post something as maybe 30 second aiff or wav files of each?


Will

[pscottm]

the metric halo's mixer operates at a much higher resolution than DP's mixer. in this case the higher resolution mixing occurs inside the MIO box, not in your computer where DP does it.

by the same token. even the metric halo's high-by-most-digital-standards 80bit mixer is like looking through a screen door to some degree because the whole sound is still is made up of a series of uber tiny blocks. whereas analog (really good analog) is better yet. analog is continuous so when it's setup properly it's more like looking through glass.

unless you have really good analog, mixing stems in the MIO mixer is probably your best bet.

[bannerj]

I'll try to post some examples of the difference. I am not as internet savy as some of you.


pscottm :
I really like your analogy to seeing through glass. I have always wondered why the sounds are so much better while monitoring and tracking...than when I play it back through DP.

So I am slightly encouraged by this revelation and discouraged at the same time. The mantra of the tapeop community seems to be: do what you can with what you've got and stop trying to throw money at every problem. In that spirit the question still remains about my limitations: am I limited by my abilities or my equipment. This situation leads me to believe that much of my frustration with mixing is that I am limited by equipment. This is frustrating because it means that I need to have more conversion and a mixer. I am thousands of dollars from where I want to be.