mixing outside the box

[chad_strung]

I run pro tools 6.7 with a mac mini and digi002, with Digimax LT. I'm wondering if i can mixing on an outboard console. I have a studiomaster 20x4x2 mixing console. I guess i would group tracks down to 8 different tracks to output everything through the 002, which gives me 8 outs.

My guess is i would send those 8 to the board, then send my stereo outs from the board into a CD recorder, or back into Protools, or something like that, ideally i would get a quarter inch tape machine to put the mixdowns on. Does this seem logical?

thanks!

[analogcabin]

It seems like a long way to go, and I'd argue that mixing in the box (correctly) is going to sound great.

The signal degradation from going out of your interface, into a mixer, through it's eq's, gain staging & such, then through more wire into a cd recorder, only to end up back in the computer at the end of it all seems silly to me.

Many will disagree, but hey.

[dsw]

Sonically you'll get more benefit out of room treatment, better convertors and mic pres.
If everything else in your setup is first rate then I'd go after the outside summing thing.
If you can try it without spending much money, then by all means experiment.
Better clock and convertors would be where I'd go next if your mic locker is full and your pre's are nice.
You might look into the Black Lion mods for your 002.

[rpd158]

if you've already got the mixer, i would say go for it. there are plenty of reasons to want to mix outside of the box, regardless of the quality of your other gear, your studio, or your already-recorded tracks. and it's not a matter of which is better, ITB or OTB, but rather what works best for you, what's most intuitive for you, and most importantly, how can you create the most musical mix? plus, it's always fun to play around with new ways of doing things.

get yourself a snake to run 8 channels out from the digi to your mixer, then run 2 TRS lines back into the digi for your mixdowns, to get started. you mention you have a digimax LT, so do you have 16 I/O total available on your mac? if so, get another snake and run all 16 channels out to the mixer (sounds like you have 20 ins, so why not?) it's really easy to run up the track count in the DAW, so making a mix from up to 16 channels can come in handy.

i just started experimenting in the last few months with mixing outside the box, from my digi002r into an old mackie 1604. i worked on a project where i found myself making a lot of submixes, drums, instrumental, etc, since i had many more than 8 tracks in pro-tools. it was a lot more time consuming than mixing ITB, but i found the tactile aspect of it more rewarding, plus, even on that little 1604 with 3-band eq, i found i could do some sonic things a bit more musically than inside the box. (i also went back inside the box for mixing some things that i found easier that way!)

there are a bunch of ways you can hook up your mac setup to a 20x4x2 (line outs, group outs, master outs, etc), and if you have 16 channels out with the addition of the digimax LT, you have a lot of room to work with. even with 8 channels, it will be a lot of fun. just play around with your setup and see what you can do.

good luck!

[chad_strung]

OK, yeah, it's all about sound over what i'm used to, or the ACT of mixing in the long run, the fun of moving the faders and knobs only lasts as long as i'm doing it, which may not yield the best sounds, which is gonna last a long time.

thanks for re-saying what i assumed, that running stuff in and out a million times is risking because one is then dealing with tons of cables, and electricity, more room for noise and hum. I guess i just gotta suck it up and get used to the fact that mixing will sound better in the box.

Thanks also for the lead on the converter mods, that could be amazing. My mics and pres are not incredible, so i should start to save for some good stuff in that realm. Cool, thanks again for yer time and advice...

[chad_strung]

RPD 158, i guess i'm un-aware that the DigiMax LT could be used as outputs, i tried to figure that out once because i wanted to run effects loops through it, but to no avail. The booklet said i had to get TRS chords and disconnect a wire inside of it to make it work, and i'm just not that advanced in electrical engineering to delve into that business.

Lemme ask you guys one thing,

1. what is the difference between a TRS cable, and a regular instrument cable?


I DO find the mixing console musical and fun to use, and i like mixing as an event, not a programming thing, but i def worry about the quality of my gear and the cables...

Did you run outboard gear into the console?

the tracks certainly add up, so submixing and grouping either way (either sending it to an outside sorce to mix, or even doing it in the box as i am currently doing) is something i just started doing with my mixes this week, so much easier to focus!

Wow, just wait til i post my big question about THE PATCH BAY!!! Will absolutely need some halp with setting that bad boy up.

Keep it coming, i thank you all so much for responding....

[rpd158]

oh whoops, sorry about that - looks like digimax LT only goes one way...so you only have those 8 outs from the digi. but you can still do some good mixing on 8 channels.

[joninc]

i am doing it right now. mixing from my computer (cubase) through my d/a to the board and back via a/d into cubase.

i am grouping stuff that makes sense (bgs/percussion) and depending on how much time i have i might spit all the drums out to separate channels for outboard or group them and process in the box if there's no time to get too deep into outboard.

i am a firm believer in using out of the box when possible. there's this 3d element that many of us struggle to achieve in the box - for me it happens more naturally when stemmed out to a board or some outboard gear etc.. where the computer mixes often feel 1 dimensional/flat and lack depth

BUT sometimes there is no time - or you know a client is gonna make a million revisions so there's no other way. in general tho - i hate to work that way (making a ton of revisions) so it suits me to not work that way for a few reasons

[ott0bot]

One (or two or three) quick questions...

So you are playing the audio in protools and sending it out of the digi 002, then mixing it via the board and summing the audio to send back to the digi 002, right. Now in order to record the incoming signal wouldn't you have to mute it? Otherwise you'd hear the incoming stereo mix and all the other tracks as the same time and have latency on the incoming tracks. It would sound like garbage, no? Or am I wrong about that?

I'm guessing you're monitoring from the board to avoid hearing all that...but how can you be sure your incoming stereo tracks sound good in pro tools with out monitoring the signal?

theres got to be a better way than I'm thinking...

[farview]

1. what is the difference between a TRS cable, and a regular instrument cable?

An instrument cable is a TS cable.
A TRS cable has three connections like a headphone connector.
A TS cable can only carry one unbalanced signal
A TRS cable can carry one balanced signal or two unbalanced signals.

[farview]

So you are playing the audio in protools and sending it out of the digi 002, then mixing it via the board and summing the audio to send back to the digi 002, right. Now in order to record the incoming signal wouldn't you have to mute it? Otherwise you'd hear the incoming stereo mix and all the other tracks as the same time and have latency on the incoming tracks. It would sound like garbage, no? Or am I wrong about that?

You would need to turn the monitoring off.

I'm guessing you're monitoring from the board to avoid hearing all that...but how can you be sure your incoming stereo tracks sound good in pro tools with out monitoring the signal?

What you are doing at the board is what is going into protools. If going into protools changed the signal that much, no one would use it.

[ott0bot]

I'm guessing you're monitoring from the board to avoid hearing all that...but how can you be sure your incoming stereo tracks sound good in pro tools with out monitoring the signal?

What you are doing at the board is what is going into protools. If going into protools changed the signal that much, no one would use it.

Well....yeah....i get that. I'm just wondering if through the standard focusrite pre's your able to capture the consoles sound accurately and retain the same sonic qualities you're hearing in the monitors.

[farview]

It will be fine. If it sounds like crap, there wouldn't be any point to mixing OTB.

[rpd158]

So you are playing the audio in protools and sending it out of the digi 002, then mixing it via the board and summing the audio to send back to the digi 002, right. Now in order to record the incoming signal wouldn't you have to mute it? Otherwise you'd hear the incoming stereo mix and all the other tracks as the same time and have latency on the incoming tracks. It would sound like garbage, no? Or am I wrong about that?

I'm guessing you're monitoring from the board to avoid hearing all that...but how can you be sure your incoming stereo tracks sound good in pro tools with out monitoring the signal?

this is what you do:

hook up your monitors to the the monitor outs of the mixer. assuming your running the digi002 8 outs into 8 channels of the mixer, assign those 8 channels to the master L/R, while also assigning the master channels to the monitors. meanwhile, your master outs L and R are going into a pair of inputs on the digi. in pro tools, you'll mute these channels as they are recording. that way you'll be monitoring the signal as it comes through the mixer, and for all intents and purposes, this will be what's recorded in protools.

if you actually want to monitor the mixdown that's recorded in protools instead of off the mixer, you mix up to 6 channels out of the digi, into the mixer. assign those 6 to master L/R, and out of the mixer into a pair of digi ins. send the armed pro tools tracks out to 7/8 back into the mixer, assign these tracks to groups 1 and 2, and assign groups 1 and 2 to the monitors.

there's been concern about degrading the signal in this kind of setup, but really, at this level, with this kind of gear, assuming all the original tracks have been recorded through this gear, it's not gonna make any appreciable difference, unless you've got some kind of grounding buzz/hum going on due to bad or unbalanced cables. but as long as you're using balanced cables - XLRs or TRS (the 1/4" jack with the 2 black rings) for all your connections, you should be fine.

you're gonna get some coloration from the mixer and the various pre-amps (the mixer, digi, and/or the LT) but it's up to you to decide if it's good or bad. for instance, you might want to crank up the trim on preamps in the mixer channels, to see how that affects the sound. maybe it gives you something you want, some extra grit, or maybe you don't like it. same goes eith the preamps on the 002 and the digimax LT. or maybe you like the 3 band eq on the mixer channels more than eq plug-ins in the box (i know that i do). or maybe you just like doing manual fades with the sliders instead of plotting points on a graph with a mouse. etc etc.

you really don't need to worry much about sound degradation as a result of passing the sound through cables and gear outside the box, unless you actually can hear a difference and the difference sounds bad to you. i mean, you already have the gear, so why not try it? you might need to pick up a few extra cables or snakes, but i've never bought a cable or snake that ever went to waste (i never seem to have enough). and mixers are just fun to play around with. if you're not all that familiar with how a mixer works, or what it's capable of doing, go online and try to download a pdf manual and take a read...they are extremely flexible and there's no one right way to use one.

once again, this is not an argument about OTB being better than ITB, it's just realizing your options, experimenting with new ways of doing things, finding your comfort zone, and listening to see what sounds good and what works for your style.

[chad_strung]

ok, ok, you make it seem possible! It would require i buy another snake (TRS) or (TRS to XLR) to get the sound into the board.

Would you run the outboard gear (ie. Reverb, compressors, delay units, etc) through the aux channels (i have 4 on my board) in/out of the board? I'd have to, i guess, seeing as how there are no more outs available to run a processor loop through the digi002. Thats one setback, it cuts my in/out for effects in half (from 8 in/outs on the digi).

So what, i would process some stuff in the box, before it goes to the board, or write a new track of the instrument with the effect on it, etc.

Man, this is starting to make sense. If it is working, and it sounds good, it's right.

I think mixing on a board is fun, it makes it seem like more of an instrument to me, the studio that is, and i feel strongly about that philosophy, that mixing and producing is as much an instrument as the instrument s themselves.