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Analog Summing... who, what, when, where, why?

WaveRider

WaveRider

Active Member
I recently watched a Christian Henson video and noticed he was using a Neve analog summing mixer in his studio. He uses the 8816, but these days everyone seems to be raving about the 5059.

Being a home studio guy who's clueless about high-end gear, this led me down a rabbit hole to learn all about analog summing... something I didn't even know existed until a few days ago.

My takeaway so far is... for $3,700 your mixes will get a bump in quality. I get it. But wait, they say if you really want "that console sound" you'll also need a Neve MBP for an additional $3,900.

Ah geez.

I know that I would get a lot of personal enjoyment having the large console sound in my home studio, but my big questions is.... if you're sending your tracks off to a mastering house anyway, would analog summing beforehand really make a huge difference?
Click to read more...
 
The easy answer to the question is... never.

A) if your delivery requirements demand that you print stems on a regular basis then obviously anything that 'sums' is a bit pointless.
B) every trip out of and back into your computer is a degradation in quality.
C) if you feel a real urge to drop serious dollar on fancy box, choose something that's designed to make a real impact on the sound like a compressor, a nice eq, the aforementioned MBP, a Bricasti...
D) not many things are mixed on big desks anymore, and if you're talking soundtracks then very little is mixed there indeed.

For that kind of expenditure, I'd recommend investing in monitors, acoustics, convertors, mics or a residential Mix With The Masters course - all of those could make an actual difference to the quality of your mixes!
 
Scoremixer said:
C) if you feel a real urge to drop serious dollar on fancy box, choose something that's designed to make a real impact on the sound like a compressor, a nice eq, the aforementioned MBP, a Bricasti...
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I definitely don't have the urge to drop serious dollar on anything! But I was curious why so many people would spend so much money on such a thing.

Scoremixer said:
D) not many things are mixed on big desks anymore, and if you're talking soundtracks then very little is mixed there indeed.
Click to expand...

But is that because engineers have deemed big desks sonically no longer relevant, or because of the expensive and cumbersome nature? I think the point of these smaller boxes is that you can still get the big console sound with a smaller footprint and expense.
 
Find a plugin or combination of plugins that does the same thing.

According to Bob Katz, simply running the full mix through the box will give the same effect as summing through it. It's not about the summing. It's just about running through the box.

If I were running any outboard, I'd want the best converters so I'm not crapifying everything. That's at least $2000 per stereo pair. Both for AD and DA. Certainly not worth it in my books.
 
waverunner said:
I recently watched a Christian Henson video and noticed he was using a Neve analog summing mixer in his studio. He uses the 8816, but these days everyone seems to be raving about the 5059.

Being a home studio guy who's clueless about high-end gear, this led me down a rabbit hole to learn all about analog summing... something I didn't even know existed until a few days ago.

My takeaway so far is... for $3,700 your mixes will get a bump in quality. I get it. But wait, they say if you really want "that console sound" you'll also need a Neve MBP for an additional $3,900.

Ah geez.

I know that I would get a lot of personal enjoyment having the large console sound in my home studio, but my big questions is.... if you're sending your tracks off to a mastering house anyway, would analog summing beforehand really make a huge difference?
Click to expand...




If Rupert Neve makes a box for this application then there might be some truth to that application regadless what everyone here feels what's right or wrong.

IMO a summing box would be great to have if you can afford it. It does add depth and image to your mix for sure while making everything tighter. I used to have the TubeTech summing box and it was huge difference when running only 10 stereo stems through it (20:2) compared to the in-the-box summing. Since then I have moved to an SSL Matrix 2 for that purpose.

When it comes to mastering:
You master the final stereo and not the stems usually. Summing is done to add that analog color to the overall mix, add depth, and add that mojo these boxes provide. As long as you're sending a stereo mix with enough room to mastering you should be good.

My only reservation with the summing boxes is that with 16:2 you can only sum 8 stereos. For more you'd need two boxes and that makes it an epensive proposition. If you're in the film / tv industry, where last minute changes are the mo, or delivery formats are more elaborate than just one stereo, summing may be too time consuming and not efficient.

It comes down to workflow and the project you're on, as for the rest, everything is subjective.

*the 5059 is a great box btw.
 
waverunner said:
But is that because engineers have deemed big desks sonically no longer relevant, or because of the expensive and cumbersome nature? I think the point of these smaller boxes is that you can still get the big console sound with a smaller footprint and expense.
Click to expand...

It's a bit of both. The sound of a console is made up of many things, of which the summing element is possibly the least important.
 
imo, the difference is there, but it's audible to people at various degrees. Some (musicians) don't hear any difference at all, even though they might have great ears. Sound is very complex and there's a lot to be listening to. Those who do tune in to the difference often describe it as each instrument has more air around it. I have the same kind of impression.

If you're delivering stereo mixes, it might be worth it to you to go that direction. 32 channels DA then 2 AD top quality doesn't cost that much any more.

Both digital (numbers) and analogue (volts) are artificial transformations of what sound really is, air that vibrates. It makes sense that both would yield slightly different results when piling on sources. All those that do hear a difference, usually prefer analogue summing...
 
Akarin said:
it does make a difference (that non musicians will never hear nor care about):
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That's exactly what I'm grappling with. As someone who's always trying to get the best sound possible, I realize it's mostly for my own personal enjoyment. It's always disheartening to know that most people are listening to music these days on iPhones, Laptops, Alexa etc.
 
Everything makes a difference!

Whether that difference is audible is a different question, and whether it is audible to the target audience is yet another.

But my short answer is yes, a summing box or a big old analog console will make a difference. Personally I prefer the big old analog console, but I need help.

While a plugin will also make a difference I am not a fan of that difference, but it is there. I am, within reason, a fan of analog summing. IF I could afford it<G>!
 
Whats the rest of your studio like? I would splurge on the best monitors I could afford first. That way when you start adding premium gear, you can actually hear the difference it makes.
 
Greg said:
Whats the rest of your studio like? I would splurge on the best monitors I could afford first. That way when you start adding premium gear, you can actually hear the difference it makes.
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I have decent gear -- Dynaudio MkII speakers in a bass-trapped room. My my A/D interface needs an upgrade. It's a MOTU 1296 w/PCI card via audio wire. Ancient I know.. but still sounds good to my ears. I suppose an upgrade to an Apollo is in order first. I'm mostly all VIs except for guitar, bass, and a Studio Electronics Omega 8 synth which is an analog beast!
 
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WaveRider said:
But I was curious why so many people would spend so much money on such a thing.
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Because it's a familiar interface from the old days. Probably a lot of gear-headism in there too, which Christen is a victim of (he blew $8k or whatever and never did the bare minimum check of what that box is). You also see this phenomenon with the guys that Christian has show off their studios, what do you see? Racks of old gear that is mouldering, out of spec, warranty and ready to blow a cap. They actually scour eBay for this junk, then proudly display (and rarely use) it in their studio. Maybe it impresses the directors.

Personally I think it's the height of foolishness. Domain crossing is obviously expensive, as an engineer this makes no sense to me. As a musician I don't get it either, while there is a past-worship with musical instruments (Stradivarius & Steinway basically) musicians have always embraced innovations and new ways of making music. Few people play a clarinet from the 1800's today - too weird, hard to play and doesn't sound good. Back to summing, you can get the same effect in the digital domain (somebody mentioned a plugin), you just get physical knobs with analog, at the cost of complication and D/A-A/D losses.

Funny too, it shows how far we've come. Used to be, with the old converters, nobody would dream of doing this. There was a lot of 'digital hate' (deserved at the time). Now converters are so good nobody mentions that little fact in analog summing. But there's still a little digital hate, or maybe distaste, in the idea of needing to sum in analog. Which makes me wonder what the magic is with analog summing, if you're injecting so much digital conversion. I can't believe it wouldn't get wiped out with the conversion, which is never perfect. I'll take a R2R converter over analog summing any day.

Yes I've got an opinion, if you like it that's fine with me.
 
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I find the contrast of opinions on this fascinating.

Not sure what to make of:
"never heard a difference, I think it was overkill. I sold them."
"The sound of a console is made up of many things, of which the summing element is possibly the least important."

To (this buyer's review on Sweetwater)
"This box just shines. It IS a console as far as my ears are concerned. Combine this unit with UAD Neve EQ's and a rack mount NEVE MBP and good luck finding someone who can tell that your track wasn't actually mixed on the console itself. Absolutely BREATHTAKING results! "

I'm sooooo confused.
 
WaveRider said:
I find the contrast of opinions on this fascinating ... I'm sooooo confused.
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I used to be an audiophile - well still am I guess. I've been through all the stages of it and have a pretty level head - I think. Ultimately the ears are funny things, small differences - real or imagined, can give the aural appearance of large benefits. It's hard/impossible to be objective.

To some degree it reminds me of when I was an orchestral musician. Somebody asked me "why the tux, does it make any difference?" My answer being "Yes, because you feel good, and if you feel good you play good". The same thing applies here I think. The Neve mini console is a thing of beauty, no doubt if I had it my experience of my mixes would be better, and so my mixes objectively would be better at least because I'm making them better. Objectively I also recognize it would probably be a wash on it's own merits, or possibly worse. But if I feel good I'll make better mixes.

These days I try to stick with science which prompted my answer.
 
The Dangerous D/A box a rep demoed in my room a few years ago was really good, but I'm pretty sure what I was hearing was its really good D/A converters.

If you want an expensive analog sound, to me it makes more sense to have expensive analog gear that does more useful things than just passing signals through it. The Millennia Media STT-1, for example, can add really nice colors if you swap its stock tubes for more exotic color ones and/or switch in its transformer - but it also has a fabulous mic preamp, amazing analog EQ, and an optical compressor, each of which can use tube or solid-state paths.
 
WaveRider said:
I have decent gear -- Dynaudio MkII speakers in a bass-trapped room. My my A/D interface needs an upgrade. It's a MOTU 1296 w/PCI card via audio wire. Ancient I know.. but still sounds good to my ears. I suppose an upgrade to an Apollo is in order first. I'm mostly all VIs except for guitar, bass, and a Studio Electronics Omega 8 synth which is an analog beast!
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I would 100% upgrade your monitors to some nice 3 way ones first. I haven't used Dynaudio's but I would imagine swapping them out for some higher end Focals, PMC's, or Barefoots, would be a massive change and improve your mixes drastically more than a summing box. I was an idiot for not upgrading my monitors first when I was struggling to hear details and clarity with Adam a7x's.
 
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