Isn't that (Zo's avatar) the Human Torch from Fantastic Four... in which case Mike is close?

well for what it's worth... Over the past few months I've had the great opportunity to be working a large project that has taken me on a tour of a bunch of A List Studios in LA, and also working with A List producers and engineers, who have multi-platinum and multi-grammy recordings - mostly pop, rock and hip hop.

I've been spending some time talking to the engineers shooting the breeze and as far as ITB summing, versus OTB summing - they all pretty much do the same thing, which I've started doing myself:

They buss out the two track master, re-patch it into two inputs (usually via a hardware 2 buss compressor) and monitor only from the return inputs.

What you hear is what you get in real time without any ITB oddities. I'm in rooms with 96 input SSL J Series consoles and it's still - two masters out, bussed back in, monitoring off of the return buss. That's how stereo masters are being mixed down these days. I'm not saying everyone - but pretty much everywhere I've been over the last four months. A few will ITB the whole thing, but those are cases when it's understood that it's a ref mix and not a final pre-mastering mix.

As far as the Pro-Tools vs Sonar debate... yes, all the pro-studios have $50k-$100k+ PTHD rigs (but they also have at least million dollar studios too), but if you talk to the engineers most of them have some other DAW at home that they are just as happy with - be it Sonar, Cubase, PTLE, whatever... These guys can't justify the cost for a PTHD home rig...

so for what it's worth, there ya go.

-tbf

Sing on my next song for cakewalk promo tour in France.....down ?

So Bunny what do you suggest : analog summing box (buses,not only the master) or stereo comp ?

ORIGINAL: Zo

Sing on my next song for cakewalk promo tour in France.....down ?

Do I have to sing in French?

ORIGINAL: John

Well the thing is that we can't hear a 64 bit file no matter how hard we try. The same goes for an audio engine that is 64 bits FP. Its very nice to have for reasons other then a better sounding mix but the notion that you can hear it is well preposterous.

I have to disagree. I find that switching off the 64-bit engine, when using high-end reverbs (UAD, TC System 6000), results in an audible difference. Not drastic; extremely subtle in fact. And not specifically better or worse; just different. If I had to quantify it I'd say that there seems to be just a little bit less depth to the soundfield when using these reverbs without the 64-bit engine, which makes sense considering that switching it off reduces the dynamic range of extremely quiet signals (like reverb tails).

If I'm just playing back 24-bit source material, though, then there's no sonic information in that extended dynamic range anyhow.