Cool Edit Mixdowns...somthing missing

[drummerdan]

My CEP mixdowns leave somthing to be desired. I use the hard limiter and 10 band EQ. Still sounds...digital. What do you guys use on your mixdowns to warm them up (plugins AND outboard gear is used)?

[drummerdan]

How about this idea: Output of my computer to a nice preamp, then into my cd burning deck? Or what about those bbe sonic maximizers (i've never used one before, not even sure what it does)? Would it be a better idea to dump to a 1/4" 2 track reel, then to the cd burner? If so, and reel suggestions?

[vvv]

There are a million approaches here.

Personally, I would consider what you are putting into the computer, first. If the sounds are going in as you want them, they should be closer to coming out that way.

I like my Joe Meek VC3Q and even my ART TPS and Mackie 1202 old-school on the front end; I mix and match based upon the source (vocals into Meek or ART, bass into ART with a dbx163X, guitars usually through the Mackie with software compression.)

In terms of mixing, CEP can do about anything you want it to.

I feel I have been successfull in getting opto-compression sounds out of it, as well as "warm" (whatever that means) EQ, etc., just with the included EFX. Add some free DX and VST (I use Spinaudio's fine and only slightly glitchy and free wrapper) and you can do about anything. If you have access to paid for plug-ins and are able to compare, you can get damn close on individual tracks, but won't have, for example, Waves' easy pre-sets. I believe that is a good thing; make your own, or better yet, do something new and original more often.

You might consider not using the graphic EQ's, which I find OK, and best for individual or sub-grouped tracks. I like to be more surgical with para-EQ and FFT.

I only use hard-limiting to tame peaks and/or raise average RMS. If you have to lower RMS, consider re-tracking.

Personally, I buy into the thought that I want to avoid the converters as much as possible. I use a Dio 2496 and while I love the card, once my stuff is in the computer I leave it there. I note that I use a 16bit BR8 as the front end; I really don't mind.

Anyway, just my US$00.00242.

[Red Rockets Glare]

I mix down to a 1/4 inch machine with CEP.

[drummerdan]

When I hard limit the mixdown, it isn't much, but I am bumping up the sound a bit. And as far as tracking goes, When I mix off the adats into the mixer, bypassing the computer, I like the sound overall. I mainly use CEP just to edit, EQ, and compress. I decided it would be best to mixdown and burn to CD with CEP, rather than going back to the mixer (thats how I used to do it). So I might try the 1/4 deck idea...what deck do you use? Any suggestions? I was also batting around the idea of buying a nice, coloring comp and put that between the computer and my cd-rw deck.

[Red Rockets Glare]

i use a technics 1/4 inch two track. it sounds fantastic and if you slam the levels you can get some great saturation.

[kristopher612]

i use an outboard mixer going into CEP, and then use some compressor plugins like the digital fishphones comp and i use the direct Xciter VSt-Dx wrapper. then i hard limit to bring up the volume and tame anything wild going on. i tend to avoid the tramsform effects in CEP like the plague. but that's just my self talking of myself. it means nothing most of the time.

[drummerdan]

Thats sounds like some good stuff. I get the audio into CEP via ADAT digital. I have been looking into getting a nice comp, and sending the mixdown into that, then to my cd deck. Then I can bypass the CEP hard limit on the mixdown, and possibly sweeten my mix with a nice compressor. Then again, the bounce to analog tape would be similar...right?