Final Mix: Analog Wash & Summing Question

[Quinn9]

Hello All,

Blues Evolution is mixing a second CD. The music was recorded throughout in Protools. After we began mixing the idea occurred to me that it might be a nice touch to bath the tracs in analog. That is, there is a second studio nearby that has a Rupert Neve/AMEK 9098i Super Analog mixer and I thought that to run my 24 tracs through their board and back into Protools, I might enhance the sound of the final mix before going to two tracs.
Any opinions?

If it seems to you like a good idea (purely as possible sound enhancement) would it be just as well to simply run the final two trac mix through the Neve board or would there be some type of multitrack effect that I would lose by doing that way? I have wondered if by taking each individual track through the Neve, the final mix would actually end up with 24 tracs of analog color rather than just two.

Having considered this analog wash, just today, I learned about the conflict around the question of digital summing and now I wonder if Protools is actually mixing all 24 (or more) tracks accurately or does it perhaps get the digital sums wrong?

That matter might be something I should also consider and which would be somewhat easily remedied by this concept of the analog wash which I have been considering anyway.

If I do wash the individual tracs through an analog board and back into protools, since I have already finished the mixes of about 5 songs (including various processing plug-ins) could I run the tracs into the analog board while using the effects or would I have to start with only the bare tracs?

Thank you in advance for any ideas.

Yes!
Quinn

P.S. I hope I'm do not appear too precious about our work and
I'm not interested in polishing a turd here, but, you know,
this is my baby so I would like the end result to be top
notch.

[formfunction]

Originally Posted by Quinn9

just today, I learned about the conflict around the question of digital summing and now I wonder if Protools is actually mixing all 24 (or more) tracks accurately or does it perhaps get the digital sums wrong?
.

Yeah, it gets it all wrong.
All the records you've listened to and the movies you have seen, the games you play... all hosed because of that sad digital summing. ff

REad these...The digi white papers

[Quinn9]

I don't understand. Are you being sarcastic and if you are, why?

Quinn

[WernerF]

Concentrate on the stuff that really makes a difference like great songwriting, great singing, great playing, great sounding and well tuned instruments and great arrangements. A great mix of all of that can be achieved without sweating the minor minor nuances of "analogue" myths.

[guitar486]

Just running your tracks through the line inputs of the board and summing them that way isn't going to get you much in my opinion, others may disagree. If you really want to add some color actually recording the tracks to 2" tape before the master would have a much larger effect.

[robo6675]

I wouldn't run a 2mix through because no 2 channels would sound exactly the same. Besides, at that point you'd arguably be doing something youd want a mastering engineer to do.

I doubt you'd notice much of a difference running individual tracks through. The reason analog desk are great for mixing is usually ( but not always) the summing buss. Coming from someone who uses a 48 channel neve vr, everyday I'd save my money and time.

You are way over thinking digital summing. Trust your ears and not hear-say. If digital summing still scares you, I'd go back to tape and a desk =P.

[Quinn9]

Yes!
Quinn

[formfunction]

Originally Posted by Quinn9

I don't understand. Are you being sarcastic and if you are, why?

Quinn

I guess I was, sorry. But please consider your premise, and then consider the reality. Almost everything you have listened to has passed through that "digital sums".
But along with most, I think you would be wasting your time. ff

[mr.armadillo]

I'm amazed no one mentioned he'd actually be degrading the signal by going through the DAC/ADC process again.

[formfunction]

Originally Posted by mr.armadillo

I'm amazed no one mentioned he'd actually be degrading the signal by going through the DAC/ADC process again.

While that may be theoretically true.. every good mastering shop in the world would be out of business if they truly believed that.
The question is... is the conversion worth the "gain". In many cases it is, just not in this case, IMO. ff